Issues

Volume 5 / Issue 1 / 2010

Mon, 5 Apr 2010

Volume_5__Issue_1__2010.gif

In this Issue

  • Table of contents
  • Editorial Board
  • Download pdf (print optimised)
  • Download pdf (screen optimised)

Editorial

  • Letter from the Editor-in-Chief

    Dear Readers, On several occasions, we have pointed to the policy challenges facing Europe in terms of modernising its healthcare infrastructure and preparing for the era of real, meaningful e-health. There is, however, another associated problem here: how to process the explosion of data which will accompany this looming e-health revolution, and do so with the highest standards of security – on a ro...

    READ MORE

Industry News

  • Philips

    Philips Conducts Spanish Telemedicine Study Philips and the Catalonia Health Service have completed a study on the benefits of telemedicine in patients with chronic diseases. The study, called Catalan Remote Management Evaluation (CARME), evaluated the impact of MOTIVA, a remote patient management solution, used in the care of 97 patients within the Heart Failure unit of the German Tria i Pujol Hos...

    READ MORE
  • IBM,Initiate Systems

    IBM to Acquire Initiate Systems IBM has signed an agreement to acquire Initiate Systems, a data integrity software company used by healthcare and government companies. Initiate Systems will be the 30th acquisition by IBM strengthening its efforts within information and analytics. Initiate’s software enables healthcare professionals to be more efficient through access to patient and clinical data....

    READ MORE
  • McKesson,HP

    Mckesson and HP Collaborate on EHR Bundle McKesson and HP will offer their electronic health record (EHR) products and services to independent physicians to accelerate and simplify EHR adoption. McKesson will include the EHR/practice management systems software while IBM will provide the office hardware, preconfigured together for easy deployment. The collaboration hopes to benefit the indepe...

    READ MORE
  • iSOFT, Ultragenda

    ISOFT Acquires Ultragenda iSoft, the largerst Australian health IT company, has acquired UltraGenda adding more innovation to their existing IT solutions. The acquisition is part of a strategy to increase sales through Bolton acquisitions. The Belgium-based IT company UltraGenda will add scheduling software that is already integrated in different healthcare facilities in the UK and Netherlands. The Enter...

    READ MORE
  • GE Healthcare

    GE Healthcare Provides IT Solution for Vancouver Olympics The solutions provided by GE Healthcare IT benefitted both medical facilities and athletes in the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, British Columbia. The implementation of GE’s Centricity® Radiology-IW (PACSIW and RIS-IC with Precision Reporting) in polyclinics at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games allowed for clinical...

    READ MORE
  • Terso

    Terso Expands in European Market Terso has expanded operations to the European market with a new German-based facility. Due to an increasing demand for the company’s radio frequency identification technology, Terso Solutions, Inc. Has set-up a new production facility in Mannheim, Germany. Terso’s RFID-enabled appliances that include refrigerators, freezers and cabinets for the healthcare indust...

    READ MORE
  • Siemens,Microsoft

    Siemens Licenses Healthvault in Germany Siemens has announced that it will exclusively license Microsoft’s HealthVault in the German market. The agreement between the two companies will allow German citizens to use of the personal application, HealthVault, which stores individual health information in an online account. Storing information such as immunizations, disease history and prescrip...

    READ MORE
  • Orion

    Orion Health Leads EHR Solution in Spanish Community Care Orion Health has helped deploy the first electronic health record (EHR) in community care in Spain. Gestion Sanitaria de Mallorca (GESMA), a three-facility system focusing on social-medical issues, has selected Orion Health technology for the sharing of patient information and care plans. Orion Health’s technology, the Rhapsody Integration...

    READ MORE

HITM News

  • Bulgaria

    Bulgarian Military Deploys Smart Cards The Bulgarian military has begun the deployment of smart cards to provide secure access to the electronic health records of military personnel and their family. Commissioned by Bulgaria’s Military Medical Academy, the personal health record (PHR) project aims to improve health records availability, access and security. The patient and the healthcare pr...

    READ MORE
  • Italy

    Smart Cards for Pregnant Women All the medical events relating to a woman's pregnancy will be made accessible in one click of a mouse in the Italian region of Veneto thanks to the 'Woman Card' ('Carta Donna' in Italian). Pregnant women will be handed out a smart card during their first examination; all the medical reports and ultrasounds issued during the pregnancy will be stored on the card. This...

    READ MORE
  • Finland/Germany

    SMS Appointment Booking In Finland and Germany, SMS-based Pre-Call services are said to be improving the efficiency of hospital appointment booking and encourage the patients' involvement in accessing healthcare. In the North Karelia Central Hospital (PKKS) in Finland, a SMS-based Pre-Call Request service has reduced the cancelled appointments rate by 20 percent, a percentage equivalent to the annu...

    READ MORE
  • Health 2.0 Paris 2010

    The Health 2.0 Conference is the leading showcase of online and mobile technologies in healthcare. After five successful conferences in the United States they are making their way to Europe. The agenda will span the key elements of Health 2.0 and showcase how consumers and professionals can: Ó Search for more appropriate health content; Ó Share personal information in communities; and Ó Use...

    READ MORE
  • HIT Paris 2010 "Better Care,Better Management,Better Decisions"

    HiT Paris, the European healthcare information technologies congress, was launched in 2007 on the initiative of the FHF (French Hospital Federation) to respond to the need of healthcare players for information and training on the modernisation and development of information systems. After three successful years HIT Paris will take place again this year boasting an educational programme of reference,...

    READ MORE
  • HealthHINF 2010

    The third international conference on health informatics, HEALTHINF is part of BIOSTEC - The International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies. The purpose of the International Conference on Health Informatics was to bring together researchers and practitioners interested in the application of information and communication technologies (ICT) to healthcare and medicine...

    READ MORE
  • Telehealth 2010

    Leading Trade Show for E-Health with Conference TeleHealth, part of the CeBIT line-up, once again confirmed its status as the leading international trade show for eHealth solutions. This year's TeleHealth was again dedicated to communicating the value of IT in day-to-day healthcare delivery, demonstrating how this technology can help doctors provide more effective treatment and generally benefit patients...

    READ MORE

EU News

  • Spain Takes Over Presidency of EU Council

    Spain has pledged to drive forward the realisation of the European Research Area (ERA) during its six-month Presidency of the Council of the EU, which started on January 1st. Innovation and equality are at the heart of the Spanish Presidency programme, explained Science and Innovation Minister Cristina Garmendia who added, “Promoting the construction of the ERA is key to the success of this programme. It...

    READ MORE
  • Commissioner Promises"Action and Delivery"for Research,Innovation and Science

    The European Commissioner designate for Research, Innovation and Science, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, pledged to move research, innovation and science “to the heart of European policy” in a hearing at the European Parliament. Speaking to the European Parliament's committees on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) and Culture and Education (CULT), the new Commissioner designate said that the European Union...

    READ MORE
  • Smart Personal Health:A European E-Health Project

    Smart Personal Health is a new European Initiative to promote awareness about issues and challenges related to personal health systems interoperability, from technical to organisational and legal aspects. More and more devices and applications are coming onto the market. They are often recommended by doctors and health insurers to help patients monitor their health and wellness. These personal health...

    READ MORE
  • HL7 Transmits Genetic Results to EHR

    Health Level Seven (HL7), the global interoperability standards body for healthcare IT, has announced that its messaging standard has successfully coded genetic test results from a lab and transmitted them to an electronic health record for the first time. The HL7 Version 2 Implementation Guide details how to structure a genetic test result into the EHR using HL7 Version 2.5.1 and covers the reportin...

    READ MORE

Cover

  • Grid Computing and E-Health

    Author Tosh Sheshabalaya, Grid computing is emerging as a promising solution to some of the most vexing challenges facing e-Health. It also offers a powerful tool for other areas of healthcare such as drug discovery, as well as economic and weather forecasting, earthquake analysis, etc. In all these domains, grid computing easily outclasses traditional IT systems, in terms of its ability to cope cost e...

    READ MORE

Management

  • Healthcare Asset Maintenance and Patient Safety

    Author T.E Jayapradha IndependentHealthcare Analyst The greatest expenditure of hospitals today is mobile medical devices, starting from patient beds to other technologically advanced diagnostic systems. The efficiency of a healthcare organisation largely depends on its ability to know where things are and on how efficiently these resources are used by the hospital staffs and patients. Asset M...

    READ MORE
  • Development of Productivity Measurements for Healthcare IT

    Author Lisa Polte, RHIA, Senior HIM Consultant atPyramid HealthcareSolutions, Inc. There is a never-ending search by healthcare managers to improve quality and productivity in the workplace. Successful implementation of information systems assumes that improvements with productivity and quality of work will occur, at least over time. In order to measure improvements, managers must establish monitor...

    READ MORE

Features

  • Challenges in the Design of Sensors for Telemedicine

    Author Marek Gawel,Development Director,Kuziemski.pl, Poland Sensors for portable telemedicine are a fast-growing market. They are changing the way in which...

    READ MORE
  • Strengthening Alliances for Medical Progress and Quality

    Author Manfred Beeres, German MedicalTechnology Association, Berlin In Germany healthcare spending in the medical technology sector amounts to more than 23 billion euros. The medical technology industry employs 170,000 people in more than 11,000 companies in the country. Outstanding Innovative Capability The medical technology industry is dynamic and highly innovative. German medical technology...

    READ MORE
  • Time to Start Your m-Health Strategy

    Author David Doherty cofounder of mHealthservice provider 3G Doctor For many HIT Managers, the stars are aligning as colleagues and their patients, fuelled by the buzz of iPhones and Appstores, are beginning to show interest in using the mobile technologies that they're all familiar with. But what are the fundamentals and what's the best approach? Mobile is the Newest Mass Media The mobile phon...

    READ MORE

Country Focus: Iberia

  • Healthcare in Portugal

    Author Tosh Sheshabalaya, Healthcare in Portugal aims to be free and universal, and is centred on a tax-based National Health Service (NHS). However, private financing plays a significant role. The Portuguese Constitution takes care to define the NHS as “universal, comprehensive and approximately free of charge”. The Health Ministry is currently being restructured as part of a general reform of the...

    READ MORE
  • Healthcare in Spain

    Author Tosh Sheshabalaya, Spain’s General Health Care Act of 1986 constitutes the foundations of the Spanish healthcare system. It provides universal coverage, free access to healthcare, and is principally funded through taxation. It also has a regional organizational structure. A guaranteed healthcare benefits package is stipulated by the Cohesion and Quality Act of 2003. The shape of Spain’...

    READ MORE
  • Healthcare Information Technology in Iberia

    Author Tosh Sheshabalaya, Portugal The hub of the healthcare IT system in Portugal is the Administração Central do Sistema de Saúde or ACSS - Central Administration of the Health System. It coordinates, supervises and manages the IT facilities, systems and equipment of the NHS. The ACSS also has responsibility for the definition of policy, regulation and planning of IT systems in the area of health...

    READ MORE