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Welcome to the Med-e-Tel newsletter!
This newsletter is your source for Med-e-Tel updates, news from the Med-e-Tel partners, exhibitors and speakers, as well as other telemedicine and ehealth news from around the world.
We look forward to seeing you at Med-e-Tel 2008 on April 16-18 in Luxembourg.
Early bird registration for
Med-e-Tel 2008 ends February 15th. So register this week to benefit from up to 20% discount on the regular registration fees.
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Featured Partner
The Continua Health Alliance is a non-profit, open industry alliance of the finest healthcare and technology companies in the world joining together in collaboration to improve the quality of personal healthcare.
Continua's mission is to establish a system of interoperable personal telehealth solutions that fosters independence and empowers people and organizations to better manager health and wellness.
Continua's 2008 Spring Summit is scheduled in Luxembourg during the week of Med-e-Tel 2008 and the Alliance will also actively participate in the Med-e-Tel conference program and expo. Stay tuned for more details.
Med-e-Tel works together with a distinguished academy of organizations, associations and institutions who are active in the fields of ehealth, telemedicine, and health ICT.
Click here for a full list of supporting organizations and partners. |
Featured Media Partners
Infomedix International is a B2B magazine for the medical industry. Infomedix International is mailed to 15000 medical manufacturers, dealers, distributors, importers, exporters, wholesalers and agents worldwide, and distributed at medical tradeshows around the world. Infomedix International is connecting medical businesses worldwide!
eHealth serves the needs of citizens, patients, healthcare professionals, health service providers and policy makers. The eHealth magazine documents the needs, development, deployment and evaluation of eHealth applications. This bi-monthly magazine aims to share experiences (at both local and global levels) on the utilisation, efficiency and impact of eHealth applications and endeavours.
Healthcare IT News Europe provides comprehensive, breaking news coverage of European healthcare IT developments. You will find updated daily news from an award-winning editorial team of U.S. and European-based correspondents, as well as headlines from other top IT websites. Sign up to receive Healthcare IT News Europe, a weekly e-newsletter.
The Med-e-Tel media partnerships provide you with a look at a wide range of healthcare and medical journals, magazines and on-line information services that will help you to stay abreast of what is going on in the field of ehealth, telemedicine and healthcare IT and to make better informed decisions in your daily business or healthcare practice.
Pick up your personal copy of these publications in the Media Corner at Med-e-Tel 2008! |
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Med-e-Tel 2008 early bird registration fee expires soon
 Early bird registration for Med-e-Tel 2008 ends this week. Register on or before February 15th to benefit from up to 20% discount on the regular registration fees. Registration will give you access to all conferences, the exhibition area, receptions and unprecedented networking and learning opportunities.
Also hotels are filling up fast for next April. Consult the hotel information on the Med-e-Tel website and submit your reservation form now to secure a hotel room.
The Med-e-Tel conference program will feature an exciting opening session with contributions from Microsoft, Continua Health Alliance, Center for Connected Health, World Health Organization, European Commission, and others who will provide insights into recent experiences, current initiatives and future directions in telemedicine and ehealth.
Furthermore, the three day program will include focus sessions on the topics of chronic disease management, homecare applications, services for the ageing, telehealth in support of self care, living labs, messaging in healthcare, telenursing, nursing informatics, open source software for telemed projects, ehealth in developing countries, elearning, health informatics, mobile solutions, clinical strategy and the use of balanced scorecards, and more.
More detailed program schedule will be up on the website in the coming days. Do not hesitate to contact us at info@medetel.lu for preliminary information and schedule.
The Med-e-Tel expo will showcase some of the latest innovations and services from companies, projects and organizations such as Aerotel Medical Systems, Aipermon, Alcatel-Lucent, AmIE, Computerized Screening, Continua Health Alliance, eHIT, European Commission, International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth (and several of its national and institutional member organizations), Multitel, Ofseth, Vitalsys, Vitaphone Telemedicine, and more names to come.
To join the event as an exhibitor or sponsor, contact us at info@medetel.lu.
More updates and details will follow in upcoming newsletters and will be posted on the Med-e-Tel website shortly. |
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How commodity IT and the Net are changing the practice of medicine  The Med-e-Tel 2008 opening session on April 16th will feature Dr. Bill Crounse, Senior Director of Worldwide Health at Microsoft. Dr. Crounse will share his perspectives on the growing opportunities for a new kind of medical practice based on personalized telehealth. "No longer in the sole domain of academic medical centers or large group practices, telemedicine has become a commodity technology with the promise to vastly improve the delivery of health information and medical services around the globe while reducing traditional doctor visits, saving money, and greatly increasing patient satisfaction," says Dr. Crounse.
Dr. Crounse's contribution will show how innovative clinicians are incorporating Web 2.0 technologies into the practice of medicine and how organizations can benefit by staying ahead of the curve. He will also share a "future vision" for healthcare that is more global, consumer-centric, based on cost and quality transparency, and personalized.
Responsible for providing thought leadership, vision, and strategy for Microsoft technologies and solutions in the healthcare provider industry, Dr. Crounse evangelizes the use of information technology as a way to improve care quality and safety, and the satisfaction of those who provide and receive it. He is also responsible for working with industry partners and healthcare organizations to help them benefit from using healthcare IT as an
essential platform for line-of-business applications in the healthcare industry.
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Personal telehealth is ready for mainstream today  In another presentation at the Med-e-Tel 2008 opening session, David Whitlinger, President of the Continua Health Alliance and Director of Healthcare Device Standards and Interoperability for Intel's Digital Health Group, will give an update on how the Continua Health Alliance is helping to deliver the promise of making personal telehealth ready for mainstream.
Whitlinger will provide information on Continua's progress in recent months in the development of guidelines for device makers, that should help consumers and healthcare providers to more simply share information through common communication channels such as cell phones, PCs, TV set-top boxes, telephones, and other devices.
Continua is a large, cross-industry consortium focused
on the establishment of an eco-system of interoperable, personal
telehealth systems and currently counts about 130 members, among which
are A&D Medical, Cisco, Eaton, IBM, Intel, NHS Connecting for Health, Nokia, Omron, Pfizer,
Samsung, Technogym, and Tunstall.
To help all Continua member companies get rolling on building interoperable products and
services that will enjoy Continua certification, Continua is creating a large library of reference source code. Hundreds of modules and thousands of lines of code
are already available (Vendor Assisted Source Code - VASC), and plans are in
place to develop more reference source code throughout the year.
With a test and certification plan due out this year, Continua will help member companies jumpstart the transition to "Continua Certification" by making it easy to convert. Member companies and organizations will participate in so-called plugfests to test device interoperability. Continua's first official plugfest will be held in Luxembourg on April 16th in conjunction with Med-e-Tel.
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Telemonitoring in the management of chronic diseases
 The changes in the demographic structure, the increasing
multimorbidity in connection with a rise in the number of chronic
illnesses and the absence of an effective coordination of the different
levels of healthcare services with its discontinuous processes and
redundancies will lead to intolerable economic burdens in Western
healthcare systems, affecting medical, health-political and economic
dimensions alike.
In this context, Prof. Dr. Harald Korb, Medical Director at German-based telemedicine provider Vitaphone, sees telemedicine as a central
service and information tool, which guides and coordinates the flow of information and
data between the patient, the private practitioner and the hospital. Only with such a platform is the optimal care of patients independent of professional borders possible through a consistent line of care starting with out-patient treatment and encompassing hospital as well as rehab therapy. According to Prof. Korb, a pivotal requirement for acceptance of these necessary structural changes is through open, cooperative and goal-oriented discussions and the willingness to question and reassess familiar pathways.
In a presentation at the Med-e-Tel 2008 opening session, Prof. Korb will draw from experience with thousands of cardiovascular and diabetic patients, to show that a number of favourable effects can be guaranteed when modern telemedical devices with appropriate treatment pathways according to national and international guidelines are used in integrated care models.
The experience indicates that there is a significant reduction of hospital admissions, length of stay, especially in intensive care units, and of emergency dispatches thereby leading to a significant decrease of costs. It also provides evidence for a significant decrease in mortality and in long-term damage in different subpopulations. The positive effects are also accompanied by a high acceptance of the telemedical devices by patients and treating physicians. In summary, data suggest clear advantages in terms of an increase in medical quality with a substantial reduction of health care budget.
Or as Prof. Korb puts it: "The question is not whether the use of telemonitoring devices in modern therapeutic management of chronic diseases is of putative value or not. The question is: how long can we afford to do without them?" We invite you to share your ideas and visions on this question with Prof. Korb and with other healthcare providers, industry representatives, researchers and policy makers from around the world at Med-e-Tel 2008!
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ITU training on eHealth Master Plan Development 
The expert group on Question 14 "Telecommunications for eHealth" within the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), is offering Med-e-Tel participants from developing countries a special training session on "How to develop an eHealth Master Plan".
In May 2005 the World Health Organization in its Resolution WHA58.28 officially recognized eHealth and recommended to all countries "to consider drawing up a long-term strategic plan for developing and implementing eHealth services in the various areas of health sectors". Due to the fact that the technical platform for any eHealth service is the telecommunication network, strategic planning is required to coordinate cooperation between healthcare and telecommunications authorities. This is particularly important for developing countries because telecommunications specialists will be able to provide adequate advice on how best to use the existing networks.
The ITU expert group already has experience with the preparation of eHealth Master Plans in several developing countries and they are now offering a training session at Med-e-Tel 2008 which is designed to present and explain the main framework to follow during strategic eHealth planning.
Based on the quality of existing telecommunications infrastructure, advice can be provided on what type of medical services could be organized, from which the medical authority can then select the desired service(s) according to needs and priorities.
The eHealth Master Plan Development training session at Med-e-Tel will be followed up with individual meetings on strategic planning with each participant. The session and meetings will be lead by Prof. Leonid Androchko, who heads up the expert group at ITU.
In order to make the training efficient and get useful recommendations, each participant should provide an insight into the priorities of their local Ministry of Health.
To express your interest to participante in this training session, send an e-mail with your contact details to info@medetel.lu and we will provide more information.
Access to the training session is included in the regular Med-e-Tel registration fees (click here for more info), but you need to confirm your participation to this particular session in advance of the event. |
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Wearable healthcare on the move  Optical Fibre Sensors Embedded into technical Textile for Healthcare, OFSETH in short, is an
R&D project funded under the European Union FP6-IST Program aiming to
develop optical fibre sensors for the continuous monitoring of vital parameters
of a patient. The objective is to demonstrate the validity of optical fibre
sensing solutions for healthcare, namely in Magnetic Imaging Resonance (MRI)
environment.
Healthcare monitoring is a general issue for patients requiring continuous assistance and treatment. In order to increase mobility of such
patients, a huge effort is pursued worldwide aimed at the development of wearable systems for the monitoring of physiological parameters, such as
respiration movement, cardiac activity, oxymetry, and body temperature. Technical and smart textiles that incorporate many different sensors play a growing role in these developments as they are well suited for wearability and ensure a better comfort for the user.
The OFSETH consortium consists of 11 European partners working in the fields
of health, textiles and photonics. More details about the project developments will be provided in a special presentation as part of the Med-e-Tel 2008 conference program, and will be made available on the OFSETH stand on the Med-e-Tel expo. For more information, go to www.ofseth.org or contact the project coordinator, Dr. François
Narbonneau (narbonneau@multitel.be), and make an appointment to meet at Med-e-Tel.
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Newsbriefs To follow are links to some interesting and recently published articles, studies and reports (if you would like to suggest an article for inclusion into a following newsletter, feel free to send details to info@medetel.lu):
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