Volume 16 - Issue 3, 2016

Any healthcare leader surveying the healthcare situation in Europe today would have the same observation; the demands on the sustainability of healthcare systems across the continent are weighing heavy on hospital finances, personnel resources and ultimately on the wellbeing of patients. With improving patient outcomes the first and foremost‏ objective, a hospital’s financial performance and reputation...

Imaging EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Prof. Lluís Donoso Bach Hospital Clinic – University of Barcelona, Spain HONORARY EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Prof. Iain McCall UK (Retired) EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Prof. Stephen Baker Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, U.S. Prof. Hans Blickman University of Rochester Medical Center, U.S. Prof. Georg Bongartz University of Basel, Switzerland Prof. Davide Caramella University...

DenseBreast-info.org was set up in 2015 to provide ‏education to patients and healthcare providers about ‏dense breasts. How aware are women in the USA about ‏breast density? What still needs to be done? As of 1 August 2016, at least 27 states in America require ‏some form of notification about breast density as part of the ‏mammography results letter to patien...

2D/3D Imaging on a Dedicated Prone Breast Biopsy System Breast tomosynthesis imaging, Hologic calls it 3D mammography™, is ‏proving to be the best modality for breast cancer imaging. The Hologic ‏tomosynthesis system has demonstrated superior clinical performance ‏to conventional 2D mammography in a number of metrics, in particular ‏showing improved detection of invasive cancers and reductions...

Professor Guy De Backer, Emeritus Professor at Ghent ‏University, Belgium, will be a keynote speaker at the ‏ESC Conference in Rome on August 27-31, delivering ‏the ESC Geoffrey Rose Lecture on Population Sciences on ‏“Epidemiology and Prevention of Cardiovascular Diseases: ‏Quo Vadis?” Prior to the conference, he gave an interview to ‏HealthManagement.org about the past, present and future...

Everybody in healthcare across the C-Suite, clinician, policy-maker, nursing and IT spectrum is aware of how critical ‏the situation is by now; healthcare in Europe is just ‏not sustainable. The demands facing European healthcare ‏systems are becoming greater with increased life expectancy, ‏new pathologies and the rise of chronic disease. Added ‏to this is a highly-monitored environment and incr...

There are two simple yet effective preventive measures ‏that a public or private enterprise must put into place ‏to stop cybercriminals in their tracks says Europol; ‏practice pristine digital hygiene and keep anti-virus protection ‏up-to-date. While these steps should be taken as the bare minimum ‏to protect an organisation, if the dramatic increase in cybercrimes ‏is anything to go by, t...

Every week HealthManagement.org publishes top healthcare management, leadership and best practice news of the week in dedicated newsletters. We know you’re busy, so we do all the work and pick the best three stories to send you. Read on for a variety of topics that piqued record interest recently. MRI-Guided Ultrasound to Treat Tremor ‏Gets OK From FDA The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has...

With the aim of reducing the time factor and ‏increasing convenience in ultrasound procedures, ‏Samsung keeps expanding its offering in women’s ‏healthcare with a novel 5D flagship system WS80A with Elite. ‏ 2D offered axial imaging to ultrasound, 3D contributed the ‏capacity for volume and 4D ultrasound combined time and ‏volume. The fifth dimension of ultrasound is all about workflow, �...

Chest pain patients presenting at the emergency department ‏are set to benefit from a major development by ‏Royal Philips. The company has CE marked its cardiac ‏troponin I (cTnI) blood test on the Philips Minicare I-20 handheld ‏device. Current guidelines for the diagnosis of myocardial ‏infarction (MI) require blood test results of cardiac troponin for ‏the 90% of patients who present at the...

There are always trailblazers implementing the latest ‏technology, experimenting with management styles ‏and putting the latest best practice in place. There ‏are too many leading lights to name here, but HealthManagement. ‏org has created a round up of facilities and individuals ‏in healthcare - leaders who have caught our attention ‏because of their efforts in taking steps toward the ultimat...

An integrated approach to interventional cardiovascular medicine According to the American Heart Association, cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of death worldwide.[1] As CVDs are on the rise, it’s important to understand the risk factors associated with complex heart disease, as well as the impact of innovative solutions that can offer the best clinical benefit for both prevention a...

In recent years patient safety and risk management have ‏become important topics of debate at different levels of ‏healthcare throughout Europe so that where there is one, ‏the other is also found. In this article we will bring these topics together, putting ‏them in the context of the Input-Management-Processes- ‏Outcomes (IMPO ) model, and also introducing th...

Healthcare organizations do a phenomenal job. Today, an increasing number of diseases are treated successfully and people enjoy a better quality of life even into old age. Yet, while much is being done to discover new ways to improve patients' lives, we now see radical changes to structures, incentives, and processes within healthcare to sustain provision for our inhabitant-rich planet. Gone are the da...

HOW TO DEFINE, MEASURE, AND INCREASE POSITIVE AND REIMBURSABLE PATIENT CARE OUTCOMES Due to increasing cost pressure, established remuneration models for healthcare services are changing all around the world. As part of the move toward value-based care, patient outcomes are entering the spotlight. Thus, hospital managers face the challenge of improving overall patient outcomes in a cost-effective manner....

MANAGING COSTS, RISK, AND FINANCING TO CREATE AN ECONOMICALLY SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS Healthcare providers around the world face resource shortages, economic and regulatory uncertainty, and increasing market volatility. Trends such as alternative compensation models and public-private partnerships are leading people to rethink established business models and adapt their investment strategies. Investing dur...

HOW HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS CAN IMPROVE THEIR REPUTATION TO ATTRACT MORE PATIENTS AND QUALIFIED STAFF A good reputation is an important asset for healthcare providers. Along with credible market positioning, it is vital for attracting self-reliant, quality-conscious, and cost-aware patient groups. Qualified and committed employees are key to a positive patient experience and hence to a provider’s reputat...

The Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) acquired the ‏EOS ® imaging system because the technology gives ‏us biplanar capability with a single exam, with no distortion ‏in the image and most importantly, it is low-dose. Our ‏orthopaedic surgeons wanted to reduce radiation dose for ‏their patients, particularly the pediatric patients who need ‏repeated x-rays for limb-length discrepancies or for...

Already, healthcare is being outsourced to the home in a bid to encourage more patient involvement in wellbeing and to develop centres of health expertise in place of multi-bed hospitals. The Medical Futurist, Bertalan Meskó reflects on how the future of home healthcare could evolve. The Home and Future Healthcare The biggest part of healthcare is self-care which takes...

Gamification is on the rise right now as a powerful tool to change behaviour - not only in healthcare but in many fields, such as education and business. However it can be seen and experienced in all its glory in healthcare, and I believe it will be crucial for the very near future. First of all, what is gamification? A crystallised definition about it was made, amongst others (Dixon et al. 2011), by...

The European Commission’s ‘New Approach’ The current system for evaluating and approving new medical devices within the European Union derives from the “New Approach” first proposed by the European Commission in 1985. That legislation was designed to harmonise all industry sectors in Europe, by delegating to independent “Notified Bodies” the responsibility to confirm that new products met a...

Countries around the world have different relationships to advanced ‏diagnostic imaging in the out of hospital (outpatient) environment. In ‏Australia and Italy, it is not uncommon to find imaging centres in shopping ‏malls, a concept which is anathema to both the United Kingdom & South ‏Africa. A shift from hospital based imaging services to a mixed model of ‏both hospital and outpatient cen...

What, in your view, are the greatest threats facing the healthcare sector in cybersecurity? First, the wrong executives such as Chief Financial Officers are ‏in charge of IT and cybersecurity strategy in half US healthcare ‏organisations. One third have no cybersecurity executive on ‏staff. In too many organisations qualified cybersecurity executives ‏are not empowered to do the right thing. For...

Radiology is now at a crossroads. Let us expand the ‏metaphor. If we are to proceed we are to be mindful of ‏the traffic in our direction and be aware of the dangers ‏of crossing the divider, i.e. the median where we have been ‏trained to avoid and therefore not interfere with the flow of ‏commerce conducted by other specialties. What we must ‏also be aware of is...

During the last decades we have witnessed a tremendous ‏progress in imaging technologies. Probably the ‏most impressive results have been achieved in cardiac ‏imaging. The landscape of diagnostic tools used for cardiovascular ‏diagnostics has dramatically changed. All cardiovascular ‏imaging technologies have improved, but the ‏most spectacular changes have occurred in echocardiography, ‏coro...

In 2013, the Washington Post (among other news outlets) ‏reported that Vice President Dick Cheney’s cardiac ‏pacemaker had its wireless capabilities disabled when ‏implanted in 2007 to eliminate any potential cyberintrusion ‏threat (Peterson, 2013). This old headline, with the more ‏recent U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cybersecurity ‏alert that the Hospira Symbiq Infusion System w...

ONE INSTITUTE ’S COLLABORATIVE PROCESS IMPACTS MEDICINE The Jacobs Institute (JI), a non-profit medical innovation ‏centre in Buffalo, New York, is using 3D printing to ‏further its mission of creating the next generation of ‏medical technology to treat vascular disease, such as heart ‏attack and stroke. One of the ways it achieves this is by partnering ‏with researchers at State University...

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MAXIMISING THE POTENTIAL OF THE MODERN RADIOGRAPHER WORKFORCE Successful delivery of radiology and radiotherapy ‏services is reliant upon a multiprofessional workforce ‏capable of delivering high-quality, patient-centred care ‏in a timely and cost-effective manner. In the UK, the traditional ‏relationship between the radiology and radiography ‏professions has changed, resulting in a radiograph...

ESR TO LAUNCH NEW JOURNAL, EUROPEAN RADIOLOGY EXPERIMENTAL Medicine is facing an increasing rhythm of innovation. ‏Without any doubt, those medical specialties who ‏will guide the innovation will have the best professional ‏position. This is true also for medical imaging. The ‏role of radiologists in the next decades depends on their ‏ability to be a major force driving the introduction of new...

INCREASE COMMITMENT BY TEAM INVOLVEMENT In Europe, departments of radiology and nuclear medicine ‏are typically independent centralised organisations with ‏different cultures and values. Some imaging departments ‏are being developed that integrate existing radiology and ‏nuclear medicine departments. When planning integration, ‏a key success factor is the relationship between the respective ‏l...

CAN GE HEALTHCARE AND SIEMENS COMPETE WITH HOLOGIC? Although the report is focused only on the U.S. market, is the outcome indicative of a worldwide trend? We have not had deep discussions outside of the US so I am not able to speak about the worldwide situation. As a side note, there was adoption earlier for GE & Siemens outside of the US because they did not have to go through FDA, which is wha...

Why should radiologists engage in Twitter? As the term "social media network" implies, using Twitter is about networking. The type of networking depends on your own or your group's needs. In the academic world, Twitter can serve as a tool to forge connections with other radiologists (not to mention physicians or even patients). As an individual, Twitter can be used to promote your work or your opini...

“I’m sorry. I’m just so sorry.” It’s 8am. Two junior doctors, one English, the other Italian, embrace in tears on the steps outside their hospital. We’ve saved lives together, lost patients together, run cardiac arrests, sought to comfort grieving families, seen patients make miraculous recoveries, witnessed death at its most unforgiving and ugly - all of it together. But as of June 23, 2016...

Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Informatics, Stanford University 1. What are your key areas of interest and research? When I started radiology training I...

CEO Medcomic 1. What are your key areas of interest and research? I am fascinated with pathophysiology in general. 2. What are the major challenges in your fie...

IHE Europe Technical Project Manager Inria 1. What are your key areas of interest and research? My major area of interest is to build a community set of tools to improve the interoperability of Health Information System 2. What are the major c...

Founder, Heart of Australia 1. What are your key areas of interest and research? I am a general cardiologist with an interest in optimising the delivery of cardiovascular medicine to at-need popu...