Editorial
An Update From Europe’s PACS Programmes
Dear readers, This edition's cover story examines both emerging and established PACS installations in Europe with the purpose of highlighting some valuable lessons about what elements are needed for a successful project rollout. Two of the articles in particular give a comparative analysis of their nationally led solutions, one which failed to meet any of its desired requirements despite an enviable leve...
EU News
News from the EU Presidency
Ministers Provide Direction for E-Health EU Ministers and the Spanish Presidency have drafted a Ministerial Declaration of European Cooperation on E-health, a plan for the future that recognises the efforts that brought EU policy on e-health to the fore. In the Declaration, a detailed framework was set forth in order to achieve the overall objective of enhancing the quality and sustainability of healthcare...
Commissioner for Development Addresses Global Health MDGs
At the Cross Europe Conference, EU Commissioner for Development, Andris Piebalgs, addressed the progress made toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the work that still needs to be done. In his keynote address at the conference, titled "Delivering the Right to Health with the Health Millennium Development Goals," Piebalgs offered an overall perspective of past, present and future actions towa...
New Legislation to Reduce Injuries for Health Workers
The European Commission has adopted a Directive to prevent injuries and infections to healthcare workers from sharp objects such as needle sticks. The Directive implements in law a framework agreement on prevention from sharp injuries in the hospital and healthcare sectors signed in July 2009 by the European Public Services Union (EPSU) and the European Hospital and Healthcare Employers' Association (HOSPE...
European Industry Responds to Action on Telehealth
On release of a European Commission Communication on telemedicine, the medical technology industry has voiced their opinion on the future of telehealth. Led by COCIR, an industry group representing the healthcare IT sector, the industry has made recommendations to the European Commission and member states for better deployment of telehealth solutions in aid of the current challenges facing the EU. The five...
Committee of the Regions’ “Healthy Workforce, Healthy Economy”
The European Committee of the Regions (CoR) has recently addressed the economic importance of reducing health inequalities. Commenting after his draft opinion, Dave Wilcox (UK/PES), the CoR's rapporteur on health inequalities, stressed that health issues have to be a part of EU policies, specifically broadening the EU2020 Plan to include them. Investing more in quality health services would support gener...
News
News from World Health Organisation
Key representatives of the world's leading medical imaging societies have recommended that a common set of global referral guidelines for appropriate use of medical imaging be produced, in the first such global meeting of experts convened under WHO auspices in nearly two decades. Experts from international, regional and national professional societies as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency and...
Association News
MIR – Congress Confirmed for October
The Management in Radiology (MIR) Annual Scientific Meeting 2010 takes place this year in Mallorca, Spain, from October 14 - 15, 2010, chaired by Dr. Nicola Strickland. The congress, which covers topics relevant to those leading depar tments interested in management, healthcare economics and administrative issues, is accredited by the European Council for Continuing Medical Education (EACCME). EACCME is an...
CARS Congress: Register Now for Geneva, 23 – 26 June
The CARS Congress Organising Committee invites you to be part of their congress which will be held in Geneva, Switzerland from 23 – 26 June, 2010. The congress is aimed at those who work in the fields of radiology, surgery, engineering, informatics and/or healthcare management and have an interest in topics, such as Image guided interventions; Medical imaging; Image processing and visualisation; Computer...
CIRSE 2010 Announced for 2 – 6 October, Valencia, Spain
In this year's annual CIRSE meeting and postgraduate course, billed as the "world's top platform for specialists in all minimally invasive image-guided procedures", the programme has been designed around seven main themes, facilitating itinerary planning and allowing delegates to follow one of these themes with little or no overlap. This years main topics are:Vascular Interventions; Transcatheter Embolisat...
ECRI Institute Purchases Biomedtalk Listserv
ECRI Institute has announced its recent purchase of the Biomedtalk Listserv, a popular email subscription service for biomedical and clinical engineering professionals where they can connect to share information and advice. Founded in 1997 by Mike Kauffman, assistant director of facilities for the Reading Hospital and Medical Centre in Reading, Pennsylvania, Biomedtalk became an active forum for discussion...
IHE-Europe Expands its Membership - Welcomes Four New Members
IHE-Europe has announced that it is pleased to welcome IHE Suisse, IHE Turkey, Forcare and VISUS as four new recent members to their organisation. Both IHE Suisse, which was created in March and IHE Turkey, set up in November last year, are national IHE initiatives, thus bringing the number of national IHE initiatives from seven to nine. Forcare and VISUS are both software small and medium enterprises (SME...
Cover Story
Ireland's National PACS Project
Ireland's National Integrated Medical Imaging System (NIMIS) project will make radiology in the nation's public hospitals filmless and paperless by introducing PACS/RIS with Voice Recognition (VR) and electronic Order Communications (OCM) to all public hospitals, and enable electronic image sharing between them. Some Irish public hospitals have already implemented PACS/RIS. Those with end-of-life PACS/RIS...
E-Health in the Nordic Region
In Europe, medicine is moving from a provider-centric to a patient-centric environment and, in order to do that, infrastructure must aggregate large volumes of data across time and space. A health service that puts the patient at the centre of a network of providers increases the sector's dependence on information. Such a model presumes access to and availability of a patient's medical information independ...
E-Health in the United Kingdom
The National Programme for IT (NPFIT) was set up in England in 2002. Millions of pounds of ring-fenced money were promised for the delivery of an integrated health record for the NHS (National Health Service). An organisation called "Connecting for Health" (CFH) was created to deliver this promise. The country was divided into five clusters and companies (called Local Service Providers or LSPs) bid for mul...
E-Health in Italy
In the past few years, PACS in Italy has increased significantly and, at the same time, has moved towards a larger regional dimension. Italy's 20 administrative regions are in charge of managing their own healthcare budget and have differentiated themselves by adopting different approaches in defining rules and policies to minimise costs and maximise quality. Their aim is, of course, to increase the level...
The National E-Health Programme in Estonia
As of September 2008, a nationwide health information system has been available for citizens and healthcare professionals in Estonia. The information system includes certain data that is supposed to reflect the population's health status, entered into the database either by the healthcare professional or by the patient himself. The content of the centrally stored information is indicated by national legisl...
Features: Practice Management
Financial Ratios in Radiology
This article investigates how financial ratios can serve as performance indicators or guide investment decisions. Performance indicators are used to guide short to midterm controlling and monitoring. In contrast, investment decisions have a longer time horizon, and involve financial planning over a couple of years. In the first case, financial ratios help budget monitoring by actively looking at deviations...
Interview: Imaging Leaders
Interview with Prof. Francesco Sardanelli
Prof. Francesco Sardanelli is associate professor of radiology at the University of Milan, Italy, as well as director of the radiology unit at the Scientific Institute Policlinico San Donato in the same city. He is a well-respected expert in research methodology and statistics applied to medical imaging and in multimodality breast investigation, in contrast agents for MR imaging, and MR technology. He is a...
Interview
An Overview of the Healthcare System in Greece
The Greek healthcare system is characterised by the coexistence of a National Health System (NHS), compulsory social insurance and a strong voluntary private healthcare system. The NHS provides universal coverage to the population and in addition, the entire population is covered by social insurance funds and 15% of the population maintains complementary voluntary health insurance coverage, which, together...
Radiology In Greece
Radiology in Greece has followed the rapid technological evolution experienced by other European countries, despite the financial constraints of the recent times. Social security funding is under heavy pressure and reimbursement policies are facing cutbacks. Nationally, diagnostic imaging, which includes all imaging modalities, sales and services, is worth almost 200 million euro a year in business terms....
Corporate Update
Carestream Health Provide PACS in the Netherlands
The long-term RIS/PACS E-health Managed Services (eMS) agreement with Stichting Samenwerkende Ziekenhuizen Oost Groningen (SSZOG) will amount to the management of an estimated 1.3 million radiology studies. The agreement covers Stadskanaal, Winschoten and Delfzijl in the north part of the country and includes protection of workflow within and across the sites with remote support and proactive monitors. P...
GE Augment Ultrasound Needle Capability
The upgraded electromagnetic sensor tipped needle, designed to improve guidance accuracy, will be included in GE Healthcare's LOGIQ E9 platform.The new volume navigation capability of the sensor tipped needle, added to the image quality of the LOGIQ E9, will increase the accuracy of many procedures while overcoming many of the traditional challenges of existing ultrasound needle guidance, such as needle vi...
Toshiba Stands Out in Cardiovascular X-ray Survey Rankings
In a report on cardiovascular x-ray system service, Toshiba received the top ranking in 18 of 36 attributes, including overall service performance, overall satisfaction with a manufacturer, reliability of hardware and reliability of software. The survey by IMV Ltd., a provider of independent analysis of service trends in the imaging industry, had customers rate categories on a scale of one to six. Toshiba'...
Siemens Upgrade Service Plan Offering
Proactive Plans from Siemens deliver service coverage priced by exam volume, providing contract offerings at a variety of budget levels. Siemens combined their most popular offerings with a completely new selection of service plans based on exam volumes as a response to customer input. The idea is that aligning service coverage with the volume of exams means that any size of imaging department will find...
Agfa Extends PACS Services Throughout Hospital
The IMPAX Cardiovascular Review Station (CRS) Remote enables access to cardiovascular images and reporting tools from any Windows device. The IMPAX CRS Remote now enables Microsoft Windows devices within the hospital enterprise to become virtual cardiovascular review stations that allow clinicians to access modality-specific toolkits and interact with programs via a single point of access. The process of...
Corporate News
Sectra Sells Synthetic MRI Application
Sectra has secured the first order for the software SyMRI Suite from the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the University of Bern. The software will enhance quality in conjunction with virtual autopsies. The University of Bern is the first of a handful of pilot customers that have selected the software, which is used together with Sectra PACS workstations. "We focus on offering our customers powerful cli...