Editorial

Dear Readers, On February 17, US President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Known by its acronym ARRA, the legal measure is one of the most ambitious commitments to healthcare IT anywhere, anytime. Mr. Obama plans to pump-prime the US economy through investments in healthcare (alongside energy and education) and to jumpstart healthcare by means of IT. The sums earmark...

Industry News

3-D Electronic Patient Record Researchers at IBM are testing a 3-D version of an electronic patient record at Thy-Mors Hospital, Northern Denmark. The software creates a medical information hub and even includes an avatar (Sanskrit for incarnation), which was created by scientists at IBM’s Zurich Research laboratory. IBM scientists claim that by using a 3-D representation of the human body,...

Siemens Buys I.S.H.Med From T-Systems Austria Siemens Medical Solutions will take over all use and exploitation rights to the software i.s.h.med held by T-Systems in Austria. i.s.h.med is a clinical information system that is fully integrated with the leading standard healthcare SAP software. It was jointly developed by the two companies and has become an important tool for planning, control and communic...

ISOFT Wins Spanish Contracts With Two Regional Healthcare Services. iSOFT will develop clinical and patient management systems for one of Spain’s most important autonomous communities (regional governments). The company is part of a consortium providing an integrated healthcare system for 28 hospitals in a project totalling 12 million euros over two years. The consortium is upgrading current systems an...

Patient GPS in Switzerland Aerotel Medical Systems have teamed with GEBOA SA to launch Aerotel’s GeoSKeeper™ personal safety and location system in Switzerland under the brand name AlarmTouch™ GPS. AlarmTouch™ GPS is a GPS-based personal telecare safety device, intended for seniors, children and lone workers. The companies plan to introduce the products in France as well as in other markets...

FDA Clearance for Portable ECG Solution The US Food and Drug Administration has authorised GE Healthcare’s latest ECG solution, the portable MAC 800, which is based on cell phone technology. Originally produced in China in 2008, the portable device combines the keypad of a phone with a full size colour display and diagnostic software. MAC 800 has the features of a full size, 65-pound ECG device,...

HITM News

As the entry point for its first electronic health records, Bulgaria has launched a national health portal. The portal will provide state administration employees access to an electronic version of the paper-based Personal Ambulatory Book that is used to keep track of medical appointments. The Electronic Personal Ambulatory book will give physicians access to information about diagnoses and medical d...

The Croatian Society for Medical Informatics is celebrating 20 years of activity with a Medical Informatics Symposium 2009, which is due to be held on May 8-9 at the Faculty of Medicine in Osijek. Aimed at a wide range of experts in the field of healthcare and information technology, the symposium will be an opportunity to gather and exchange ideas and promote the use of new procedures and information-comm...

Nictiz, the National IT Institute for Healthcare in the Netherlands, organised a seminar on Health2.0 on February 12, 2009. The seminar promoted Health2.0 as a way to empower patients and emphasised the fact that the majority of patients research information on the Internet before visiting a physician. Health2.0 applications allow cooperation between patients and caregivers and the sharing of informa...

The Ukrainian Association for Computer Medicine is organising a satellite scientific and practical symposium, “Radiology 2009, Medical Informatics and Telemedicine” during the “Modern Information and Electronic Technology” conference on May 21-22, 2009 in Odessa. The symposium is an opportunity for constructive dialogue, commercial contracts, building friendships and networking. The topics of...

The 2009 MIE Conference is being organised by the Society of Medical Informatics of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The motto is “Medical Informatics in a United and Healthy Europe” New medical, biomedical, and health informatics bridges must be built between the western and eastern parts of the European world. For this purpose, a panel of high-level scientists and healthcare managers will be invited to...

The European Association of Healthcare IT Managers invites you to take part in France's major European congress and trade show solely dedicated to Health Information Technologies. The event will take place in Paris Expo (Porte de Versailles, Hall 7.3) from the 26th until the 28th of May 2009. Launched in 2007, HIT Paris is an initiative of the French Hospital Federation (FHF). It is supported by Fren...

Considered to be one of the largest e-Health tradeshows in Canada, the e- Health Conference 2009 has prepared an excellent Conference Program and an Exhibition filled with practical experiences, workshops and activities. Above all, it is the place to be for social events and networking opportunities. The Conference is jointly hosted by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) and the Can...

The 21st European Congress of Radiology took place in Vienna, Austria, from March 6th until the 10th. Accepted as one of the largest radiological meetings worldwide, the Congress showcased the newest products and achievements in technical medicine, pharmacology and specialized media. Since 1991, the congress is held annually in early March in the Austrian capital. The president of ECR this year was P...

The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society's annual conference and Exhibition took place from April 4-8 at McCornick Place in Chicago. The show enabled participants to make more than 1,000 connections with leaders, policy makers, vendors and peers, meet 900 companies demonstrating breakthrough solutions and receive 3,000 opportunities to learn from industry through leaders. Via e...

EU News

A new study funded by the European Commission is assessing the progress made to date towards the realisation of European eHealth Action Plan goals. Good practices and lessons learned constitute the study’s key elements. The results will be fed into policy recommendations for further accelerating eHealth implementation. The study has been assigned to a consortium consisting of empirica Communication...

The e-Health Conference 2009 in Prague (eHealth for Individuals, Society and Economy) has been followed by the recent of The Prague Declaration. This emphasises the progress already made in e-Health by both Member States and the European Union. It also notes that the benefits of e- Health for a safe and efficient health sector have long been recognised by expert stakeholders. Recent initiatives from...

Cover

Author Tosh Sheshabalaya, In spite of considerable progress in user-directed flexibility, many off-the-shelf software packages still lack key real-world features and fail to meet the requirements of users, especially smaller ones. Unlike a new suit or television set, IT users can rarely afford to throw away an old system and start out wholly fresh. And in contrast to a GE or a Unilever, smaller firms d...

Author Kirill Basikhin, is Vice President of Softage LLC, Novosibirsk, Russia. A leading Netherlands-based hardware and software vendor required customized interfacing software to support data interchange between their own proprietary software, medical imaging devices and a Hospital Information System. They sought an external partner to develop customised software that would connect these different...

Product Comparison

ECRI Institute Europe Weltech Centre Ridgeway Welwyn Garden City Herts AL7 2AA United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)1707 871511 Fax: +44 (0)1707 393138 [email protected] www.ecri.org.uk ECRI Institute, a non-profit organisation, de dicates itself to bringing the discipline of applied scientific research in healthcare to uncover the best approaches to improving patient care. As pioneers in this s...

Management

Author Paul Johannesson is Professor of Information Systems at the Royal Instituteof Technology, Stockholm. Erik Perjons is a researchengineer at the Institute. Politicians, healthcare managers, and systems designers need new instruments for managing the complexity of today's healthcare systems. One of the most promising instruments is a recent enterprise modelling technique called value models....

Features

AuthorAndrew Hoole,Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge University, UK. Edwin Claridge, University Hospital, Birmingham, UK. A Mini HIS for Oncology The selection and integration of appropriate information systems is one of the challenges facing hospital managers in their quest to achieve organisations offering a high level of clinical care, coupled with efficiency, and good financial and cl...

Author Tosh Sheshabalaya, In spite of its acknowledged status as the hub of innovation and technology, the US has lagged many other industrialised countries in the area of healthcare IT. The new US President, Barack Obama, has made it a political priority to change this state of affairs, as we discussed in the previous issue of Healthcare IT Management (‘Obama’s Healthcare IT Vision). Obama�...

Author Alexander Dobrev, empirica Tom Jones, TanJent Consulting Karl A. Stroetmann, empirica The increase in demand for health services tends more and more often to outstrip the increase in supply. Ageing populations, increasing incidence of chronic diseases, and improvements in medical knowledge and technological equipment are the main demand drivers across the EU. The financial and real...

Author Justin Boyle, is a Research Scientist with CSIRO Australia Evidence-based research demonstrates that overcrowding in emergency departments causes ambulance diversion, increased hospital lengths of stay, medical errors, increased patient mortality, financial losses to hospital and physician, and medical negligence claims. Many hospitals still do not anticipate and prepare for the next d...

Author Paul J.A. Borm, is with Magnamedics Diagnostics BV at Geleen and Centre of Expertise in Life Sciences, Zuyd University, Heerlen, Netherlands Recent years have witnessed unprecedented growth of research and applications in the area of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. There is increasing optimism that nanotechnology, as applied to medicine, will bring significant advances in the diagnosis...

Author Tosh Sheshabalaya, The Indian healthcare system, like India itself, straddles the 19th and 21st centuries. But while the country’s 19th century face of slums and poverty is better known, the 21st century end is quietly readying itself to gain a major presence on the global healthcare IT scene. HIPAA and IBM’s Health Superhighways Large Indian hospital groups such as Apollo are playin...

Country Focus: Italy

The Italian National Health Service (INHS) was established in 1978 to grant universal access to a uniform level of care throughout Italy, financed by general taxation. The INHS provides universal coverage and free health care at point of delivery to all Italian and European Union citizens. In spite of this, there are considerable variations in coverage and service quality between the richer and bette...

Author Tosh Sheshabalaya, Italy’s approach to healthcare IT, and more specifically e-Health, has three facets. These are based on: Ó National-scale techno-infrastructural requirements (the New National Healthcare Information System). Ó e-Health Board, to harmonise regional and national policies and implementation, and ascertain that these are in line with the European Union. Ó Semantic con...

Author Elena Cantu, is with Bocconi University, Milan, Italy From 1978, the Italian healthcare system has been organised according to the National Health Service model (Italian National Health Service, or INHS). Coverage is universal and, theoretically, uniform throughout the country. In 2003, public healthcare expenditure accounted for 75.1% of total healthcare expenditure. The Italian healt...


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