Volume 1 / Issue 3 Autumn 2006

Dear Reader, As globalisation increases, healthcare facilities across the world are becoming more and more inundated with the need to transfer, process and store growing amounts of data and images. Coupled with the adoption of global network infrastructuresand networking concepts, the need to create, test and adopt international healthcare IT standards has never been more imperative. As information te...

Heading into the last quarter of 2006, membership in HITM continues to steadily grow. We have been busy over the past fewmonths, with the honour of meeting potential member associations and forging new relationships between HITM and other healthcare IT organisations throughout Europe. Our Executive Director, Christian Marolt, recently had the pleasure of representing HITM and delivering a speech on Europea...

Membership in HITM consists of four levels: Full Members Full members are comprised of national healthcare IT management associations, who can nominate one representative to the HITM Annual General Assembly. This representative will have the power to speak and vote on HITM priorities and organisational objectives, fundamental advocacy efforts, election of the Executive Members and the Board, and much m...

Omnilab has been selected by Abbott Diagnostics as the supplier in two large projects in the United Kingdom to provide LABONLINE, the middleware application to interface the preanalytical instruments and diagnostic analyzers to the Laboratory. Information System. In the first project, a seven-year contract, LABONLINE will be installed in the Greater Glasgow Health Board community in seven labs with...

The European Council Defines Political Guidelines of the European Union The European Council brings together the heads of state or government of the European Union and the President of the Commission. It defines the general political guidelines of the European Union. The European Council meets at least twice yearly (in practice, four times yearly, and sometimes if necessary more), usually in Brussels....

The Main Decision-Making Body of the EU This is the third part in a series that covers the structure and operations of the EU institutions. In the first part of the series (Spring 2006), we introduced the European Commission (EC). In the second part (Summer 2006) we focused on the European Parliament – its composition, functioning and main role. In this issue, we cover the role of the Council of...

Author Sonja Planitzer Editor Euromedical Communications [email protected] www.emceurope.com The power to legislate is shared by the Council and the European Parliament. In most situations, European laws are made by a codecision procedure. This means that the Council and the Parliament jointly adopt proposals for legislation that have come from the European Commission. The Council...

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

Author Dr. Kai U. Heitmann Chair, HL7 Germany Director of International Affiliates – Board of Directors HL7 USA [email protected] www.hl7.org As healthcare organisations begin to concentrate on improving efficiency and quality, the optimal cooperation of all involved parties becomes paramount. To reach this goal, computers are being increasingly employed in all areas. One of the essential...

Author John Van Beek International Coordinator SNOMED International [email protected] www.snomed.org Clinicians and information technology experts have made steady progress towards developing fully electronic health information systems where technical standards, such as HL7 and DICOM, are essential. As Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems continue to develop and evolve, a standard...

Authors Fred M. Behlen, Ph.D. Co-Chair DICOM Working Group 20 & HL7 Imaging Integration SIG [email protected] DICOM: www.medical.nema.org HL7: www.hl7.org Helmut Koenig, M.D. Co-Chair DICOM Working Group 20 & HL7 Imaging Integration SIG [email protected] DICOM: www.medical.nema.org Diagnostic and interventional imaging plays an increasingly large role in...

Author John Griffith CIO / Operations Director EPIC Imaging [email protected] www.epicimaging.com The Past, Present and Future of Systems Integration When approaching the topic of interfacing withmost radiology IT professionals, one hears many tales about integration nightmares within the industry. However, with a better understanding of how integration typically works and the...

Authors Erwin Bellon, Frank Rademakers, Bart Van den Bosch, Jens-Uwe Voigt, Depts. of Information Systems & Cardiology, University Hospitals, Leuven [email protected] The conflict between economic viability and the desire to provide medical quality sets the scene for the introduction of a completely digital image-based echo-cardiography reporting system in the 1900-bed Un...

Authors A.V. Bogdanov Organisation: Institute for High Performance Computing and Information Systems, Russia Email: [email protected] Website: www.csa.ru A.B. Degtyarev Organisation: Institute for High Performance Computing and Information Systems, Russia Email: [email protected] Website: www.csa.ru Yu.I. Nechaev Organisation: Institute for High Performance Computing and Informatio...

Author Tom Jones Director TanJent Consultancy [email protected] www.tanjent.co.uk Taking decisions can be tough. Taking complex decisions is even tougher. Most eHealth decisions are probably at the tougher end of the complex.They can affect the performance of healthcare resources, impact patients, and are often linked to changes to clinical and working practices of highly trained, high...

Author Professor Björn Bergh Director of Information and Medical Technology Heidelberg University Hospital Centre for Information and Medical Technology [email protected] Patient monitoring in Heidelberg University Hospital: Creating customised access to information by developing a hospital-wide, standardised communication platform Hospital networks must perform a ra...

Healthcare System & Administration Germany has a state health insurance plan, which covers 92% of the population. Another 7.5% are covered either by employers or by private insurance companies, whose use is regulated by the government. The final 0.5% of the population has no healthcare coverage. The German public healthcare system is highly decentralized, with 16 municipalities (called Länder)...

Author Bernd Behrend Vice President German Association of Hospital IT Managers [email protected] www.kh-it.de On 20 – 21 September 2006, the 10th Anniversary of the foundation of the German Association of Hospital IT Managers (KH-IT) was celebrated with a special anniversary meeting in Kassel, Germany. Initiated by Professor Dr. Peter Haas, this working community of IT Managers fro...

Author Norbert Olsacher Member of the Board of Directors InterComponentWare AG [email protected] www.icw-global.com "It was a good idea, perfectly clear and so obvious. Many dangerous side effects could be prevented if each physician knew all of the drugs his patients were currently taking. So many unnecessary examinations could be avoided if physicians could inform themselves about all t...

Authors Nicole Denjoy Secretary-General COCIR [email protected] www.cocir.org Kees Smedema Chair, Healthcare IT Committee, COCIR Philips Medical Systems [email protected] Please Tell Us a Little Bit About COCIR – When was it Founded, Who it Represents and Key Areas of Focus / Activity in the European Healthcare IT Sector. Founded as a non-profit trade association in 1...