Editorial

Dear Reader, While healthcare organisations continuously move towards integrating their healthcare information systems and adopting electronic health records, prescription, laboratory and scheduling systems (amongst others), the scrutiny placed on medical errors increases. As healthcare organisations grapple with these challenges, many questions arise, such as: • Who within the healthcare organisa...

The European Association of Healthcare IT Managers (HITM)

The European Association of Healthcare IT Managers (HITM) HITM recently exhibited at the World of Health IT Conference and Exhibition, held 10-13 October in Geneva, Switzerland. The event proved to be a success, providing an opportunity to raise the awareness of HITM and forge new relationships with other healthcare IT-related organisations in Europe and beyond. In addition to this, we also signed up sev...

Membership As the only pan-European association dedicated to healthcare IT management, HITM offers its members unique opportunities to: + Participate in advocacy em groups that impact EU healthcare IT legislation; + Share your knowledge with and learn from the experiences of your peers; + Learn industry best practices and standards; and + Attend the HITM Annual General Assembly, congress and othe...

Healthcare IT News

The Ministry of Health and Social Services for the Spanish region of Cantabria has awarded iSOFT a major contract for software solutions designed to manage requests for diagnostic hospital tests at all centres within the region’s health service. The project, to be conducted in collaboration with local companies Indesis Consultoría Sanitaria and Loarco Sistemas, is one of a series that will collectiv...

C2C presented MIO™in collaboration with Cisco Systems, Inc., at Cisco’s booth at the recent World of Health IT Conference and Exhibition (10-13 October, Geneva). MIO™ is a software integration tool that acts as a DICOM Gateway allowing the storage of several types of images in one single repository. MIO™ is flexible, easy to implement, cost effective, and is compatible with any PACS providers curre...

The new office of HIMSS Europe Middle East & Africa (EMEA) officially opened in Brussels on 1st September 2006, with Michael Strübin named as HIMSS EMEA Executive Director. HIMSS Chief Operating Officer Norris Orms, CAE, will work with Mr. Strübin as the HIMSS North America liaison and contact. The new HIMSS initiative is focused on bringing together healthcare IT professionals in EMEA, who share...

Omnilab is an Italian company that offers a comprehensive middleware system for managing clinical laboratory operations including pre-analytical, analytical, and post-analytical sample processing. LABONLINE, the company’s flagship middleware product for clinical laboratories, has been designed to address weaknesses of legacy Laboratory Information Systems (LIS) such as the lack of flexibility and fun...

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), a leading integrated healthcare enterprise, and dbMotion, provider of web-based data-sharing and integration technology, announced on October 19th an $84 million initiative to create one of the largest models of true interoperability in healthcare. dbMotion’s technology will provide a flexible platform for UPMC’s clinicians to securely access inte...

EU Section

Author Sonja Planitzer Editor Euromedical Communications [email protected] www.emceurope.com The Court of Justice of the European Communities The Court of Justice of the European Communities (ECJ) is the judicial institution of the European Union. It was set up under the European Coal and Steel Community in 1952, is based in Luxembourg and deals with disputes as well as upholding the Tre...

Authors Jane Rasmussen Danish Centre for Health Telematics [email protected] www.cfst.dk Henning Voss Danish Centre for Health Telematics [email protected] www.cfst.dk With the introduction of eHealth services to the Baltic Sea Region, the Baltic eHealth project aims to provide for more equal treatment opportunities and thereby counter-act the tendency for rural migration. Baltic eHeal...

Product Comparison Chart

ECRI (formerly the Emergency Care Research Institute) is a non-profit health services research agency and a Collaborating Centre of the World Health Organisation (WHO). Such organisations are appointed to contribute to the WHO’s public health mission by providing specialise knowledge, expertise and support in the health field to the WHO and its member nations. ECRI's mission is to improve the safety,...

Cover Story

Author Ellen K. Christiansen Legal adviser Norwegian Centre for Telemedicine,university Hospital ofNorthNorway [email protected] www.telemed.no/index.php?cat=4259 The Empowered Patient The emergence of the “empowered patient” raises the issue of whether this should influence legislation concerning the responsibility for processing patient information. According to Norwegian...

Authors Giacomo Luccichenti, MD StaffNeuroradiologist Dept of Radiology IRCCS Fondation Santa Lucia Rome, Italy [email protected] www.hsantalucia.it NhanNgoDinh Chief Technical Officer Dilogix S.r.l. Rome, Italy [email protected] Giulio Evangelisti SystemSecurityManager Dilogix S.r.l. Rome, Italy [email protected] www.dilogix.it Filip...

Author Chris Sullivan Vice President, Customer Solutions Courion Corporation [email protected] www.courion.com With aging populations, healthcare continues to expand into one of the largest industries across the European Union. Along with this have come vast changes in both organisational structures and supporting technologies. This, in turn, has driven tremendous complexity into the way...

Features

Authors Dr. Hanna Pohjonen Healthcare IT Consultant Rosalieco Oy Espoo, Finland [email protected] Prof. Hans Blickman Chairman Dept. of Radiology UMC St. Radboud Nijmegen, TheNetherlands [email protected] There is no doubt that the installation of a Picture Archiving and Communications System (PACS), designed for image and data storage and accessibility, neces...

RIS / PACS Specifications Since 1999, the University Clinic Essen has been using Medora from Innomed, Germany, as its Radiology Information System (RIS). In December 2001, the decision was made to introduce a Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) into the Radiology Department and the product chosen was Centricity from GE Medical Systems, USA. Subsequently, in March 2004,a collaboration betwee...

Healthcare, research and surveillance entities currently operate advantage of modern information technology, a common understanding has to be developed. This can independently, with costly and time-consuming redundant data collection. Considering the rising cost of healthcare, the complexities of research, and the threat of widespread disease, it is critical to identify common needs and bridge the gap betw...

Management

Author Miguel Cabrer González eHealth Advisor Innovation, Research and Communication Consulting, S.L. [email protected] www.ircconsulting.eu The Integration Question Over the past 10 years, computer-based patient record systems have been increasingly used in hospitals the new technological era we are living in than in response to a clear request on the part of physicians, or due to the ob...

Best Practices

Authors SteveBrown Alejandro Rodriguez-Ascaso Torbjørn Sund Bruno vonNiman Specialist Task Force STF299 European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) Sophia Antipolis, France [email protected] www.etsi.org A Mass Market for Telecare? Telecare has the potential to resolve many of the challenges faced by today’s health . It can reduce institutionalisation of dependent p...

Country Focus:Spain

Healthcare System & Administration Spain has a public healthcare system, mainly financed by taxes. As a result, healthcare in Spain is either free or low cost for residents (and their dependents) paying social security. The national healthcare system covers 99.7% of the Spanish population. The remaining 0.3% only has access to private medical care. In addition to this, voluntary private health insura...

Authors María Jesús Montero, Regional Minister of Health, Andalucía Andalucía As the Member States of the European Union continue to make progress in implementing eHealth tools and solutions, regional plans are already well under way in some Member States. One such notable case is that of the Andalucía Region in Spain, which has developed a ‘universal’ health system aimed at fostering s...

The Spanish Health Informatics Society is a not-for-profit association of more than five hundred health and technical professionals with interests in improving and promoting the use of information and communication technologies in healthcare. SEIS was formed on 24 June 1997 and has become a common place of participation for computer science engineers, medical and nursing professionals, pharmacists, veterin...

Movers and Shakers: Healthcate IT Sector Interview

Authors Dr. Karl A. Stroetmann (top picture) empirica Communication and Technology Research [email protected] www.empirica.com Alexander Dobrev empirica Communication and Technology Research [email protected] www.empirica.de www.ehealth-impact.org When the eHealth IMPACT Study began, was a great learning experience for everyone involved, both the study team and...


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