Editorial

The debate about Artificial Intelligence (AI) versus healthcare personnel shows no sign of abating. While we can safely say that the role of physicians is not under any serious threat from technology, AI will be critical in managing data for more efficient diagnosis, workflow and patient care. ‘The Future is Digital’ offers exciting views on data curation and clarifies other ‘grey’ areas that are...

Spotlight

Summary: Leadership, collaboration and insights from nations leading the way in imaging practice are just a few of the features in what promises to be a rich and educational ECR 2020 congress. HealthManagement.org spoke to Prof Boris Brkljačić, President of the European Society of Radiology for the full overview. How is ECR supporting ‘Management and Leadership’ in radiology? There will be ampl...

John Nosta is the founder of NostaLab, a digital health think tank. Ranked as the #1 global influencer in digital health, he is regarded as one of the top global strategic and creative thinkers in this important and expanding area. He is also one of the most popular speakers around the globe presenting his vibrant and insightful perspective on the future of health innovation. His focus is on guiding compani...

Prof. Daniel Drucker is a clinician-scientist who develops treatments for diabetes, obesity, and intestinal disorders. A pioneer in diabetes treatment, Prof. Drucker’s work has provided important insights leading to the development of new drugs for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes. Currently, his laboratory at Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum focuses on understanding the molecular biology and physiology of glucago...

Summary: Medical Informatics Europe (MIE) promises a rich programme covering latest developments in the field from both leading lights and emerging talent. HealthMangement.org speaks to Local Organising Committee Co-chair, Christian Lovis about what to expect. How have medicine and information technologies changed in the last ten years and how do you see them advancing in the years ahead? Both medicine...

HealthManagement.org rounds up exciting developments that have all the marks of healthcare game changers. What do you think? Conventional imaging still remains important for the assessment of cardiac structure and function. However, advanced echocardiography with strain imaging techniques, tissue characterisation with cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR), and the assessment of biological processes wi...

Point-of-View

Our radiology center has been working with the Planmed Clarity™ 3D digital mammography tomosynthesis unit for the past three years. The center provides full imaging portfolio including MRI, CT, mammography, ultrasound, X-rays, and bone densitometry. Everyone at our center loves working with Planmed Clarity™ 3D system for several reasons. The intuitive Planmed Clarity™ Flow touchscreen user int...

Heart Failure (HF) is a major and public health problem as it affects at least 26 million people worldwide and will dramatically increase with an ageing population. Currently 5.7 million people suffer from HF in the US with an expected 46% increase in prevalence by 2030.[1] This is an alarming number especially when accounting for increasing health care cost. In the US around $31 billion, (10% of the tota...

Making the right decisions, patient by patient, day by day is at the core of what every healthcare provider must do. These decisions often have to be made fast, under the pressure of extremely high workload, complex bureaucracy and long working hours. Quick and easy access to information is critical here, and digitalization can contribute significantly to improving decision-making along the whole pati...

With ageing populations on the rise and healthcare funding increasingly strained, the capability to enhance patient experience and improve clinical outcomes while also driving efficiencies will make the difference in the healthcare battleground. According to the latest data provided by the World Economic Forum, the global population will rise from 7.6 billion to 9.7 billion by 2050, and the number of people...

Management Matters

Summary: Many healthcare organisations face difficulties while managing transition from a culture of blame and denial to a culture of safety. To succeed, leaders should identify obstacles, create an environment of trust and set an example with their own actions. Healthcare holds traditions in high esteem. The white coat and nursing pin ceremonies to symbolise the transition from student to provider contin...

Summary: A new decade is normally a time for optimism and fresh starts but what 2020 ushered in was a new coronavirus. Named by WHO as COVID-19, the virus causes severe acute respiratory problems. It is thought to have emerged at a live animal market in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of 2019 with an initial trickle of reports soon turning into a deluge as it spread across borders. At the time of g...

Cover Story

Summary: How can healthcare practitioners at all levels contribute for optimal integration and use of data and HIT for best care delivery? If you were to poll clinicians from every practice across the United States about the state of their electronic health record system (EHR), we would wager $100 that you would find at least one dissatisfied person from every practice. “Cumbersome,” “difficult,”...

Summary: Nephrology researchers show how natural language processing can enable a more efficient and effective use of the vast amount of healthcare big data. The daily activity in the medical field generates a multitude of data from clinical records and reports, collected from anamnesis and physical examination, laboratory and other tests, diagnosis and treatment. At present in our environment, most patie...

Summary: The Digital Health Strategy for Catalonia (Spain) is one of the current few ambitious initiatives of health information systems’ transformation in Europe. Similar to other developed countries around the world, the public health system of Catalonia is subject to tensions, challenges and opportunities that mainly result from an ageing population, rising operational costs, incorporation of new tec...

Summary: An award-winning ICT-based early detection of Parkinson’s Disease aims to support healthcare sustainability and more personalised care for at-risk adults. Population ageing, which entails an increasing share of older persons in the population, is a major global demographic trend, which will intensify during the twenty-first century (United Nations 2013). Increasing life expectancy raises the qu...

Summary: The healthcare space will not only need to change its systems, operations and infrastructure, but also healthcare professionals may have to adopt an innovative mindset to embrace the changes and challenges brought to their working lives by implementing big data. I believe that big data present enormous opportunities in the healthcare space to improve the quality of life for patients and drive eff...

Summary: Radiomics holds great promise for personalised imaging but without a set of standards for all modalities, the data extraction method will falter. A leading proponent of standardisation for MRI radiomics speaks to HealthManagement.org about the opportunities and pitfalls ahead. Why is it important that standardisation protocols are established for radiomics in different imaging modalities? E...

Summary: AI holds great promise, yet also raises many ethical questions. The field of health and care has much to contribute to and a huge interest in the related technology, governance and regulatory debates. Artificial Intelligence (AI) was certainly a hotspot of attention last year. It is likely to continue to attract much attention this year, even if we may be reaching the peak of a hype curve. We can...

Summary: Healthcare digitalisation looks good on paper but putting it into practice is complex, challenging personnel, different departments, modalities and education, to name a few factors impacting implementation. HealthManagement.org spoke to two leading lights on how they think healthcare chiefs need to adapt, to successfully embrace the paradigm of digitalisation. Prof. Boris Brkljačić Presi...

What is the future of digital health?...

Special Supplement: GE Healthcare

The growth and aging of global populations, the rising levels of chronic disease coupled with escalating costs, growing complexity and inadequate infrastructure is forcing a fundamental re-think of every aspect of healthcare. Swedish doctors spend on average one working day a week on administrative tasks. The British National Health System estimates that an extra 291,327 operations could be completed ever...

A recent MIT Technology Review Insights survey looked at the current and potential future applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in the healthcare environment. This article discusses the survey’s findings, and looks at how these technologies are ‘re-humanizing’ healthcare, by aiding the transition from target- to value-based care models. Not long ago, no one would have dreamed that a machine...

The results of the MIT Technology Review survey, in partnership with GE Healthcare, emphasize AI’s potential and ensure that the technology is here to stay, but its ability to overcome potential disruption must be addressed. GE Healthcare believes the solution is in packaging. By unlocking data, breaking it out of silos, and deploying it on the right platform, AI can seamlessly integrate into existi...

If you watched the opening ceremony of the London Olympic Games in 2012, you will know that British people love their National Health Service (NHS) as much as they cherish Peter Pan, The Beatles and James Bond. The ceremony’s climax was an eccentric and poignant dance routine that celebrated the NHS’s special place in the nation’s heart. At one point, dancers bounced on trampolines made up to loo...

The University Hospital of the Free University of Brussels (UZ Brussel) in Belgium is pioneering the use of real-time deep learning-based image reconstruction (DLIR) on CT scan, exploring the benefits it offers for rapid pediatric evaluation, including lower dose and enhanced efficiency. In healthcare, it is acknowledged that the sooner a patient receives the right diagnosis and the right care in the r...

The time between a suspicious screening mammogram and a diagnosis and treatment plan can be weeks, leading to stress and anxiety for women. A hospital in France developed a unique one-stop breast cancer clinic that can confirm a positive finding, including biopsy, and provide a treatment plan, in one day, in one place, for most women with suspicious scans. The concept is now being exported to other countrie...

Winning Practices

Summary: Computer scientists in Pisa are developing Virtual Reality software that shows how 3D technology from dentistry can be applied to the imaging space. Virtual Reality (VR) is an increasingly applied technology in medicine and surgery. The possibility for the user to experience a totally immersive three-dimensional environment, together with real-time activity simulation, makes VR an interesting too...

Summary: Where can digitalisation in healthcare be applied to yield quantum leaps in efficiency, cost-savings, patient safety and care quality? Almost no other area in healthcare offers so much potential for increasing process efficiency, for improving medical quality as well as patient safety, and finally, for achieving sustainable economic success, as digitalisation. In particular, applications in the...

Summary: For the last five years, a Belgian hospital has been searching for innovative ways to optimise their operations in care and supporting processes. From motion sensors and tablet PCs used by the cleaning service, to Bluetooth-based asset and patient tracking, to robotics and wearables – these are just a few of their promising projects discussed in this article. AZ Maria Middelares, located to the...



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