Issues
Sun, 13 Nov 2016
Dear Reader, As the world’s largest representative body for senior healthcare executives, the European Association of Hospital Managers (EAHM) has a big responsibility in advancing the healthcare enterprise. Modern communication is key in sharing best practices, gathering new ideas and interacting with other disciplines. The EAHM has selected HealthManagement.org as our exclusive media partner and I...
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...
INTERVIEW WITH GÁBOR FORRAI, EUSOBI PRESIDENT What were some of the highlights of the European Society of Breast Imaging 2016 annual scientific meeting? It was a fantastic meeting, with 730 attendees, the highest ever. Popular sessions included the BI -RADS workshop for standardising reporting in breast imaging and screening. The sessions on diffusion MRI were also very popular, as MRI is increasingly...
INTERVIEW WITH PROFESSOR TIENUSH RASSAF HealthManagement.org, Europe’s leading multidisciplinary healthcare management platform, welcomes Prof. Tienush Rassaf as Editor-in-Chief, Cardiology, HealthManagement.org. Prof. Rassaf is Director of the Department of Cardiology and Vascular Medicine at the Westgerman Heart- and Vascular Center, University Hospital Essen in Germany. He gave an interview to Health...
The European Association of Hospital Managers (EAHM) and Health Management.org Enter New Agreement EAHM and HealthManagement.org will partner to foster healthcare management and leadership in Europe, by leveraging in mutual expertise and network. With both parties supporting the importance of multidisciplinary collaboration and sharing of excellence, the collaboration will put the development of cu...
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. Endoscopy Market Set for Growth New industry market research shows that the global market for endosco...
On April 23, 2015, we lost Kevin Dietl to suicide just weeks before he was to graduate medical school. Kevin's parents were so excited to attend their son's graduation. Instead, they attended his funeral. On May 10, 2016 we lost another bright, young soul to suicide. Sean Petro was in his third year at the USC Keck School of Medicine. His suicide is the third such tragedy at his school in the last two y...
Securing a hospital round the clock is a tough job. But a rapidly maturing technology is perfectly built for the task, writes Thomas Schulz Hospitals present a complex security challenge. They should always be welcoming public spaces. Indeed, in Sweden, many are “open” during daylight hours. Yet every hospital also has many sensitive assets that need securing around the clock. Key assets include p...
Affidea is an international healthcare provider focused on advanced diagnostic imaging and cancer care. We are the largest independent provider of these services in Europe, operating 198 medical centres in 15 countries. Despite spanning a multitude of geographies and cultures, the message across Affidea remains constant– nothing is more important than health. Unification of clinical standards and qua...
Moving digital X-ray with Samsung's technology Samsung Electronics' newly launched GM85, a premium mobile digital radiography system, provides advanced mobility, maximized user convenience and a high image quality. Its ultra-compact design with 555mm narrow width and 349kg light-weight allow easy access around tight spaces, even in elevators. When moving the system in the hospital building, GM85's colla...
West Suffolk Hospital is a district general hospital located in a 19-hectare parkland site on the outskirts of Bury St Edmunds. The hospital has a strong focus on ultrasound training, and its intensive care trainees have the opportunity to develop their skills in point-of- care cardiac and lung ultrasound using state-of-the-art equipment, as consultant anaesthetist Dr Kaushik Bhowmick explained. My int...
Tremendous progress has been made over the last forty years due to the second healthcare revolution, with the first healthcare revolution having been the public health revolution of the nineteenth century. Hip replacement, transplantation and chemotherapy are examples of t he second, high-tech revolution funded by increased investment and, in the last twenty years, opt...
Circadian Rhythm The Circadian rhythm dictates that living organisms sleep during the night and are awake during the day. This internal autonomous function ensures adequate rest, avoidance of emotional disorder and the reduction of future morbidity and mortality. Ideally the work timetable is adapted to the Circadian rhythm, but there are certain professional groups for which this is difficult w...
We argue that a jumble of rules, protocols, checklists has emerged, which jeopardises not only the pivotal relationship between doctor and patient, but also the quality and costs of care, and the quality of future healthcare workers. It must be emphasised that the introduction of protocols and checklists in clinical medicine has improved care at some points and in some places, and it has similarly cont...
The phrase “culture is king” is thrown around quite a bit in business circles and yet, if you talk to business leaders, you’ll find that there aren’t many who feel that the culture in their organisations is what they would like it to be.The phrase “culture is king” is thrown around quite a bit in business circles and yet, if you talk to business leaders, you’ll find that there aren’t many...
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 d...
Needs, Challenges, and Opportunities in Recruiting and Retaining Medical Professionals Developed and developing countries alike struggle to supply adequate numbers of trained, qualified healthcare professionals, especially physicians and nurses. Sourcing, attracting, and retaining experienced employees are therefore among the biggest management challenges globally.1 Staff Shortages Worldwide Unem...
Precisely Defining Indirect Overhead Costs or Diagnosis/Treatment-related Expenses is a Challenge Certain operating expenses are necessary to keep businesses functioning. However, in healthcare, drawing clear boundaries between diagnosis/treatment-related expenses and overhead costs is not always easy. In some cases, overhead expenses might even improve the overall economic performance of a hospital....
How and Why Standardization Can Help Healthcare Providers Improve Quality and Increase Efficiency Standards can improve efficiency, particularly in complex areas such as healthcare. Standardized clinical pathways are increasingly influencing the debate about sustainable, affordable, and efficient healthcare. Proven, standardized procedures can make the quality of care more measurable and reproducible fo...
Seeking Healthcare in Another Member State The diversity of health systems, especially in terms of quality and safety policies, has always been mentioned as the biggest obstacle to cross-border care in the European Union. The implementation of the directive on the application of patients’ rights in cross-border healthcare (Council Directive 2011/24/EU) in 2013 was therefore welcomed as a major achie...
The philosophy at Rambam Health Care is medicine, technology and humanity intertwined. Please explain. Rambam is a very uniquely positioned hospital. It started in 1938 as a hospital for patients, founded by the British mandatory regime, and has grown to be a major academic hospital that includes the Faculty of Medicine of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. It...
Today teleradiology is an essential and indispensable part of radiology. Teleradiology enhances efficacy of our service, makes our diagnosis more timely and accurate, saves time and money, helps to overcome some temporal or regional shortages of trained radiologists and—last but not least—it is more and more needed by our patients. So far in Russia there is more d...
In April this year I and Thomas Schulz started the pilot project Shaila under the brand Smarthealthlab. The task: to explore the fast growing chatbot technology for healthcare with Shaila (Smart Health Artificial Intelligence Lab Activity). To make that algorithm more tangible we chose a visual of a young female, gave her a face and named her with an acronym. The choice of a female was a reflection...
Healthcare is at an exciting yet vulnerable crossroads. Technology is being implemented for everything from diagnosis to workflow solutions and more and more providers and professionals are joining forces in order to deliver the best care possible. With changes coming fast and furious, what do healthcare experts across the spectrum see ahead and how can the changing landscape be navigated for best fina...
The Importance of Team Work in Healthcare The challenges of organising healthcare in a public hospital are considerable. The best and most cost-effective outcomes are achieved when professionals work together, learn together, deliver and implement innovations for higher quality patient care. The Continuous Improvement Team at Papageorgiou Hospital in Thessaloniki, is a cross-departmental team, with the...
For its fifth Deep Dive analysis of a patient safety topic, ECRI Institute PSO selected patient identification. Safe patient care starts with delivering the intended interventions to the right person. Yet, the risk of wrong-patient errors is ever-present for the multitude of patient encounters occurring daily in healthcare settings. Many patient identification mistakes are caught before care is provid...
Cardiac arrest, or the sudden and abrupt loss of heart function, is a leading cause of death in the United States.According to the American Heart Association (AHA), about 326,200 out-of-hospital cases of sudden cardiac arrests occur annually in the United States; less than 10% of those victims survive (Mozaffarian et al. 2015). Some cardiac arrests are caused by "shockable rhythms" and may therefore resp...
Overview Managing a supply chain efficiently and effectively is tremendously challenging in any industry. Time and financial constraints combined with operational dependency on inputs to produce outputs required by buyers is extremely difficult. A publicly-funded supply chain, as in Canada’s healthcare industry, makes it even harder to achieve the desired outcomes....
A mere 6% of clinicians can effectively access information from healthcare providers using a different electronic medical record (EMR) in order to facilitate improvement to patient care, according to KLAS Research’s recent report Interoperability 2016: From a Clinician View— Frustrating Reality or Hopeful Future? While this is a low percentage, Bob Cash, Vice President Provider Relations and co-author...
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Georg Schmitz gave the State of the Art lecture at the Euroson 2016 conference on the subject of “More than only echoes - unconventional techniques for ultrasound imaging”. HealthManagement.org asked him about his medical engineering research and its potential clinical applications. What are “unconventional techniques” for ultrasound imaging? Which techniques show promise and for...
Today, techniques for detecting breast cancer, ie x-ray mammography, ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI ), have several disadvantages. One of the most important ones is that they cannot clearly distinguish a tumour from a benign abnormality or even healthy tissue. The end result is that often tumours are missed or unnecessary bio...
Summary What are the benefits of including art in healthcare settings? Willis Newson have over 15 years’ experience of working with healthcare partners to deliver creative solutions to problems and to integrate art into environments. We have worked across different spaces, from accident and emergency (A&E) to wards, mental health units to care homes, using art to engage patients, improve wayfinding...
The Canadian medical system has integrated several paradigm-shifting transformations in the past two decades, not the least of which include quality improvement a nd patient-centred c are. With each transformation there has been a concurrent benefit to patients, leading to improved patient outcomes and more effective systems of care. In this context it would be reasonable t...
President, Radiological Society of North America “Show respect for all individuals at all times, no matter what your personal feelings might be toward the person” Career highlight: I am particularly privileged to have mentored so many individuals from countries near and far who worked with our teams at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Chicago. I am delighted to see many...
Don’t undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible. Edwin Land Career highlight: The first non-surgical implantation of a prosthetic aortic heart valve, performed on April 16, 2002 with my team in Rouen after 10 years of research. It turned out to be a revolutionary life-saving procedure. The full Zoom On interview with Alain Cribier and more healthcare IT and rad...
“Do not view your employees as expenses. Treat them like the assets they are and see how amazing they can be” "We should live our lives in such a manner that even strangers will mourn our death" Munirul Haque(my older brother) The full Zoom On interview with Mansur Hasib and more healthcare IT and radiology leaders can be found in our Blog section....
“Listen to understand, not to reply. It helps much more in the long run” Career highlight: Starting my company, PlayBenefit. I did it because I saw the need to change, and I thought it was better to have someone take that road no matter how hard. The full Zoom On interview with Anna Sort and more healthcare IT and radiology leaders can be found in our Blog section....