Editorial
The Letter from the Editor-in-Chief
Dear Readers, As disruptive as it is pervasive, the Internet has created thoroughly new ways of doing business, exchanging information and delivering goods and services. It has both deepened and broadened interaction between individuals, interest groups, industry and policy makers. In effect, the Internet has not only redefined the meaning of community; it has also created wholly new communities. T...
Industry News
iSOFT and Ultragenda Join Forces
HITM spoke to Hugo Schellens (HS), CEO, UltraGenda and Andrea Fiumicelli (AF), Chief Operating Office, iSoft about their recent alliance, the reasons behind it and their shared vision for the future. Lets Talk About the New Partnership. How did it Happen? Why did it Happen? AF: The answer is very simple, iSoft needs to provide solutions along three walls: cross-sectoral interoperability, centred t...
AGFA: Leaving their Troubled Past Behind
HITM had a frank conversation with Eric Maurincomme, Vice-President and Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer of Agfa Healthcare about the problems of the past and the outlook for the future. Maurincomme spoke openly about recent problems experienced by AGFA, notably their credibility issues. He claims it is all in the past and AGFA now have a new ethos of openness, confident enough to tell thei...
HITM News
Slovakia
Preparing for E-Health Services Following an amendment to the Health Care Act, the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Slovakia is preparing the grounds for a set of e-health services to establish a national electronic health system. The reform of the healthcare system includes services such as the electronic booking of General Practitioners (GPs), GPs' online consultation, health services that...
France
First Emergency Telediagnosis Over Regional Telecardiology Network On 5 March 2010, 1:30 am, the first request for an emergency telediagnosis over a radiology network named 'T-Lor' was made in the region of Lorraine, in north eastern France. The T-Lor network project aims to enable tele-expertise and telediagnosis as well as the exchange of medical images between the healthcare professionals of the Lorra...
Denmark
Single Access to Personal Health Records The 'My Health summary' service, now available through the Danish e-health portal 'Sundhed.dk' allows authenticated users to obtain a faster and better overview of their own patient data. Once logged into the health portal with their digital signature, users can access this personal health information that has been gathered from various healthcare sources. T...
Spain
200 Surgical Procedures Achieved Using Neuro-Navigation Device The Torrecárdenas Hospital Complex of Almería in the Autonomous Community of Andalusia has performed over 200 surgical procedures using a neuro-navigation device, an IT equipment which shows in real time three dimensional (3D) images of the brain and/or the spine. The image obtained through electromagnetic waves makes it possible to h...
European Connected Health Leadership Summit 2010
This year’s ECH Leadership Summit theme is “Engagement – How do you make it happen!” Attend the Summit and learn: What are the technologies? Are they ready yet?How should I prepare my organisation? Where do we start?Who do I need to involve and where do I turn for help?What are the “Do's & Don'ts” when introducing technologies?How do we stop making the same mistakes and remove the barriers...
Healthcom 2010
Telecommunications and Networks are enabling technologies for telemedicine in remote and rural locations, but also for continuous health monitoring out of hospital, at home, and during sports, leisure or professional activities. The 12th International Conference on ehealth Networking, Application & Services aims to bring together interested parties from around the world working in the healthcare...
WoHIT 2010
The World of Health IT Conference & Exhibition is a forum for the advancement of healthcare IT in Europe. Addressing the needs of key stakeholders in the European e-health Community, The World of Health IT Conference & Exhibition offers professional development sessions, vendor exhibitions, best practice exchanges, networking sessions, and debates and discussions on the issues that will shape the f...
Med-E-Tel
“THE International E-Health, Telemedicine and Health ICT Forum for Education, Networking and Business” Med-e-Tel focuses on e-health and telemedicine applications and a wide range of other medical ICT applications and on the convergence of information and communication technology with medical applications, which lead to higher quality of care, cost reductions, workflow efficiency, and widespread avai...
EU News
EU Presidency, Ministers Provide Direction for E-Health
Recognising the efforts that brought EU policy on e-health to the present, EU Ministers and the Spanish Presidency have recommended a plan for the future. In the Ministerial Declaration of European Co-Operation on ehealth, a detailed framework was set forth in order to achieve the overall objective of enhancing quality and sustainability of healthcare professionals and society. The main points addres...
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 still need 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 to...
New Legislation to Reduce Injuries for 3.5 Million Healthcare 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’ Associatio...
European Industry Responds to Government Action on Telehealth Issue
Upon 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 a better deployment of telehealth solutions in aid of the current challenges facing the EU...
Committee of the Regions"Healthy Workforce, Healthy Economy"
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’ Associatio...
EU Projects Hands out Prizes for Top PHDS
Stronger resistance to drugs and increased tourism which puts people at greater risk of acquiring local diseases are just a couple of factors that play havoc on public health worldwide, and humans are under the constant threat of infections with pathogenic microorganisms. Enter the ERA-NET PATHOGENOMICS ('Trans-European cooperation and coordination of genome sequencing and functional genomics of human-path...
Cover
Health 2.0 and Medicine 2.0: Promises and Challenges
Author: Benjamin Hughes, Researcher, ESADE Business School The internet’s impact on healthcare is ever more evident, with over 80% of US citizens searching online for health matters, and 33% of EU citizens using internet health sources every three months. Medicine 2.0 partly drives this increasing use, providing new sources of information and new access models for various healthcare stakehold...
Management
Investing in the Hospital of the Future
Authors: Stephen Wright Executive Director, European Centre for Health Assets & Architecture. Bernd Rechel is a Researcher at the European Observatory on Health Systems & Policies and Honorary Lecturer at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Martin McKee is Professor of European Public Health at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Research Director at the European...
Features
Nursing and e-Health
Author: Paula M Procter Reader in Informatics and Telematics in Nursing Sheffield Hallam University, UK In spite of being at the forefront of healthcare IT, the nursing profession has both abandoned and been overlooked by the former. Closer involvement is essential to make healthcare IT meaningful for practitioners and other professionals and above all, patients. The first steps towards this shoul...
Healthcare Technology Assessment and Cost-Effective Healthcare
Authors: Sophie Werkö, Susanna Allgurin Neikter, Ingemar Eckerlund, Måns Rosén SBU (The Swedish Council on Technology assessment in health care) European countries spend between 5–11 percent of GDP on healthcare. Although these resources have surely improved health and quality of life for many Europeans, it is obvious from research that we do not always use the resources in the most cost-e...
E-Health and its Challenges
Author: Eike-Henner W. Kluge Department of Philosophy, University of Victoria, Canada E-Health promises to be a cost-effective and efficient way of providing healthcare at an affordable cost to patients who would otherwise be excluded or underserviced. However, e-health also comes with a series of ethical and legal challenges which, if not met before its implementation, could undermine its success....
Silverlight Implementation
Author: Henry Lee Founder and President, New Age Solution Information is vital in today’s marketplace, not just as a record, but a means to gauge future trends. Nowhere is this more important than the healthcare industry. Today, medical information is no longer centralised to a hospital setting. On the contrary, healthcare has become highly decentralised in terms of patient services as well as ser...
Country Focus: Austria & Switzerland
Healthcare in Austria
Author: Tosh Sheshabalaya HIT Austria’s Ausgedinge health and pension system for farmers and miners dates back to the Middle Ages and is considered by some to be the world’s oldest welfare organization. The country’s healthcare system is marked by a deeply-ingrained federal culture, dating back to the 130-year old ‘Mittelbare Bundesverwaltung’ (indirect federal administration) which assigned...
Healthcare in Switzerland
Author Tosh Sheshabalaya, The healthcare system in Switzerland is a complex combination of public care, wholly private services and subsidised private care. The share of public spending is one of Europe’s lowest, with Swiss law providing for the State to support healthcare only when the private sector cannot produce “satisfactory results”. As a result, on a per capita basis, Switzerland operates...
Healthcare Information Technology in Austria and Switzerland
Author Tosh Sheshabalaya, Austria E-health is seen in Austria in relatively prosaic terms, as “a set of new business models and tools to enhance the delivery of healthcare services”. Its legal foundations include Austria’s Health Reform Act 2005 (a framework for quality strategies and national standards) and the Health Telematics Act (for the secure exchange of individual health data). Also relev...