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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. For Med-e-Tel 2008 program details and registration, go to www.medetel.lu. To benefit from negotiated rates, make hotel reservations now for your stay in Luxembourg during Med-e-Tel 2008. Rooms are selling out fast! Click here for hotel information and reservation form. |
Featured Partner
The European Commission will be represented at Med-e-Tel by the Information Society and Media DG (INFSO) and the Health and Consumer Protection DG (SANCO). Both directorates collaborate closely to deliver health-related actions specified under the eEurope initiative.
The Med-e-Tel conference program and the expo will feature a look at the latest eHealth developments and activities within the European Commission and also at the EC Communication on 'telemedicine and innovatie technologies for chronic disease management' which is due out later this year.
Also the i2010 Subgroup on eHealth will be involved in some of the conference sessions at Med-e-Tel. The group's objective is to develop a European eHealth service and information space
that leads to improved quality and access to care while enabling cost
effectiveness of eHealth systems and services, stimulating European industry,
and supporting European patient mobility.
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
E-HEALTH-COMis an independent magazine for health telematics and telemedicine. It features current developments in the eHealth sector as well as technical specifications. E-HEALTH-COM keeps you up-to-date, covers important issues of the future, and offers an essential communications platform for the eHealth community.
Digital HealthCare & Productivity delivers news, commentary, product info and features through its twice-weekly electronic publication on how technologies can boost productivity in the healthcare industry. The Digital HealthCare & Productivity website, also offers webcasts, white papers and featured content for executives and IT and clinical management in healthcare organizations
Hospital Post Europe - independent, pan-European, and up-to-date - addresses bimonthly 25,000 decision makers in hospitals all over Europe. Hospital Post Europe's reader database takes into consideration the procurement strategies in the modern hospital: investments in technologies, solutions, and services are - to an increasing extent - determined by a network of managers.
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 program details available
 The Med-e-Tel 2008 conference program details are now available at www.medetel.lu. Just a few more session and presentation details will be added or confirmed shortly.
The Med-e-Tel opening ceremony and session on April 16th will feature:
- Mars Di Bartolomeo, Minister of Health and Social Security, Luxembourg
- Dr. Yunkap Kwankam, eHealth Coordinator, World Health Organization
- Prof. Dr. Michael Nerlich, President, International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth
- Prof. Giuseppe Tritto, President, World Academy of Biomedical Technologies (UATI/UNESCO)
- Michael Palmer, ICT for Health Unit, DG Information Society and Media, European Commission
- Artur Furtado, Health Information Unit, DG Health and Consumer Protection, European Commission
- David Whitlinger, President and Chairman, Continua Health Alliance
- Dr. Bill Crounse, Senior Director, Worldwide Health, Microsoft
- Dr. Joseph Kvedar, Director, Center for Connected Health, Partners HealthCare
- Prof. Dr. Harald Korb, Medical Director, Vitaphone
- Dr. Loretta Schlachta-Fairchild, President & CEO, iTeleHealth
Some of the other program highlights are:
- A session on "Product Interoperability Architecture" presented by the Continua Health Alliance, focusing on the how and why of product interoperability in a telehealth ecosystem.
- Extensive focus on "personal telehealth" applications, experiences and research in various sessions dealing with "Telehealth for Chronic Disease Management", "Telehealth, Telecare and Services for the Ageing" and "Telehealth in Support of Self Care".
- A workshop on the topic of "Living Labs" with presentation of some existing initiatives in various European countries, user feedback, transition from 'lab' to 'reality', and roadmaps ahead.
- An overview of "International Telemedicine & eHealth Initiatives and Developments" by members of the International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth (ISfTeH), focusing on the current state of telemedicine and ehealth in a.o. Austria, Brazil, Finland, France, Georgia, Hungary, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland and Ukraine.
- A mini symposium on "Telenursing", a growing application, offering possibilities to reduce the use of expensive healthcare services, to reduce hospital admissions or length of stay, to perform regular check-ups on patients with chronic conditions, to spread limited resources over a large population, and to increase access to nurse education. The telenursing session will include an introduction to telenursing, results from a global telenursing survey, and some real life experiences from the United States.
- Also a session on "Nursing Informatics: Past, Present and Future", looking at the support of nursing by information systems in delivery, documentation, administration and evaluation of patient care and prevention of diseases.
- A session on "eHealth for Developing Countries and Low Resource Settings", presided by the World Health Organization's eHealth Coordinator and showing ICT's contributions to healthcare delivery and capacity building in the developing world.
- On a related subject, there will also be a special training session on "How to Develop and Implement eHealth and Telemedicine Solutions" presented by the expert group on Question 14 "Telecommunications for eHealth" within the International Telecommunication Union. The training looks at strategic planning issues for the development and implementation of ehealth services in the various areas of health sectors and the required coordination between healthcare and telecommunications authorities in the implementation of national ehealth programs (which have been recommended to all countries by the World Health Organization in its Resolution WHA58.28).
- A workshop on "Realizing the Potential of Open Source Software - Considerations to Ensure Successful Telemed Projects", focusing on effective collaboration among 'projects' and existing technologies to create an accessible, cost-effective healthcare information system.
- Various sessions Telecardiology, Health Informatics, eLearning, eHealth in Support of Routine Medical Practice, Efficiency in eHealth, Telepsychiatry, Teledermatology and Image Transfer, Mobile Health, New Trends in eHealth showing what works and what doesn't, as well as what exists or what is under development in telemedicine, ehealth and health ICT systems and solutions.
- A regional (BeLux) seminar organized by the Luxembourg CRP-Santé (Public Institute for Research in Healthcare, Public Health and Biotechnology) about "Clinical Strategy and the Use of Balanced Scorecards", showing how to create and successfully use balanced scorecards to improve clinical outcomes and overall management. The seminar provides a look at experiences from some of the leading hospitals and organizations in Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg.
More updates and details will follow in upcoming newsletters and will be posted on the Med-e-Tel website. For Med-e-Tel registration, click here. |
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Telehealth in the developing world  Dr. Joseph Kvedar, Director of the Center for Connected Health at Partners HealthCare, and Associate Professor of Dermatology at Harvard Medical School (Boston, MA, USA) will provide a look in the Med-e-Tel 2008 opening session on how telehealth in the developing world can effectively address a range of health issues, including those affecting people with chronic diseases.
The use of widespread, low-cost technology, such as cell-phones, creates opportunities for improved patient education and adherence to care plans, and better access to care providers.
Dr. Kvedar will share his experiences with a telemedicine clinic in Cambodia, which connects rural patients with specialists at Partners HealthCare, a Harvard Medical School affiliated healthcare delivery system. He will also discuss the vision of "connected health", which provides opportunities for more innovative programs to address chronic disease management.
Additional sessions in the Med-e-Tel conference program will also look at ehealth experiences, initiatives and opportunities in various developing countries and low resource settings. See www.medetel.lu for more details.
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RS Tech Medic launches Dyna-Vision for remote patient monitoring
 RS TechMedic, a Dutch based company with eight years of experience in medical
device development, recently released a new and patented telemedicine device.
Dyna-Vision offers a significant increase of patient comfort and reduces
hospital and healthcare cost. It is an advanced
telemedicine device for monitoring ECG, SpO2, respiration and heart rate
variability with the highest level of accuracy. It is a small battery powered portable device, with the dimensions of a mobile
phone.
Vital signs can be monitored anywhere, any time and recorded measurements are transmitted to a central server in real-time and
automatically, by using a unique, integrated GPRS unit. The signals can also be transferred via the integrated Bluetooth or USB.
The device has an internal memory to record an unlimited number of events or a
continuous recording up-to 48 hours.
Dyna-Vision can be used in existing
telemedicine platforms, or as a stand-alone telemedicine system and is
suitable for cardiology, real-time remote patient monitoring, pulmonary care,
telemetry in hospitals, health & fitness centers and for heart rate
variability research.
The product includes easy-to-use software for
automatic analysis of the signals. With the reporting tool it is possible to
create clear reports by a single mouse click.
Meet RS Tech Medic representatives at Med-e-Tel 2008 and see why Dyna-Vision is among the most advanced
and comfortable multi-purpose telemedicine devices in the market today.
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Telehealth ecosystem optimizes patient and financial outcomes
 The Honeywell HomMed Telehealth Ecosystem is a comprehensive
telehealth solution designed to optimize patient and financial outcomes by
providing a platform for improving the standardization and quality of care. The
ecosystem is built upon three pillars: patient facing devices, content and
software, and services. To support its introduction, Honeywell HomMed released the
LifeStream Platform and Genesis DM telehealth device.
The
LifeStream Platform is an open architecture, content management platform that
enables seamless access to patient health data, and enhances clinician workflow
and the standardization of care delivery through the integration of
evidence-based clinical applications. It has user friendly, clinician
dashboards, as well as enhanced security and business continuance features such
as application failover, which enables instantaneous and seamless reconnection
to the virtual database as needed. In addition, the platform's Web-extreme
technology allows secure access to clinical applications anywhere.
"The
LifeStream Platform is our technology springboard as it allows any healthcare
provider information portability, which in turn enhances productivity, and
drives care delivery efficiencies and standards," said Terry Duesterhoeft,
vice president of marketing and product development for Honeywell HomMed. "Our
Genesis Classic telemonitor was already the market leader; now, with our fourth
generation Genesis DM, we are connecting it to our LifeStream content engine
and enhancing the usability, security, and connectivity for patients, their
families, and clinicians." Find out more about the LifeStream Platform, the Genesis DM and Honeywell HomMed's extensive experience with telehealth monitoring at Med-e-Tel 2008.
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Multitel: successful technology transfer in Belgium 
Multitel, a Belgian non-profit research and innovation center, specialized in photonics, speech, image and signal processing as well as in networking, will provide information on the Med-e-Tel expo about a number of its projects and services in the healthcare area.
Multitel's multidisciplinary teams of high-skilled scientist and engineers are leading applied research and development activities for industry leaders, SMEs and spin-off companies. As a technology transfer medium, Multitel already created five spin-off companies: Babel Technologies (now Acapela Group), IT-Optics, Smartwear, Acic, and Polymedis.
In addition, the center participates in several regional, federal and European research projects with a focus on biomedical and ehealth applications.
Multitel provides a large number of services ranging from technical assistance to highly specialized training for the industry, including the design and development of pre-series such as: fibre lasers, optical passive components and sensors, optical amplifiers and WDM subsystems.
At Med-e-Tel 2008, Multitel will present a.o. the European OFSETH project, aimed at the creation of medical clothing with integrated fibre-optic-based sensors allowing the proper ventilation and cardiac activity of patients to be checked.
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ISfTeH @ Med-e-Tel 2008
 The International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth (ISfTeH) will again participate very actively at this year's Med-e-Tel . The Society, who has just been designated status of NGO in Official Relation with the World Health Organization, will present several sessions in the conference program on "International Telemedicine and eHealth Initiatives and Developments" with contributions from members in Austria, Brazil, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Nigeria, Poland, Russia, South Africa, The Netherlands, and others too.
Also on the schedule at Med-e-Tel is the traditional ISfTeH Breakfast Meeting with all ISfTeH members and partners that will be present in Luxembourg. The meeting serves as an informal meeting between members from around the world, to get to know each other better and to hear from each other's experiences and activities.
The ISfTeH will also have a stand on the Med-e-Tel expo, where information about the Society will be distributed, and where also some of the national and institutional member organizations will be represented and provide information about their local activities.
For more information about the ISfTeH, contact contact@isft.net.
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UNESCO project in South-East Europe continues to expand
 An expert meeting with the goal to attract the interest of specialized institutions to UNESCO's Space for Science project took place recently at UNESCO Headquarters. Organized by UNESCO, in cooperation with the World
Academy of Biomedical Technologies (WABT), the meeting brought together
participants from international organizations, in particular the European Space
Agency and the CARDS programme of the European Commission.The Space for Science project aims to facilitate scientific
and technical cooperation in South-East Europe (SEE) by providing virtual,
collaborative and education services to academic and higher education
institutions through fast academic networks and two-way satellite channels. The
project is supported by ESA and an industrial consortium specifically set-up by
ESA for this purpose.
In 2006,
the first stage of the Space for Science involved 18 SEE research and higher
education institutions. Both technical and operational solutions were reviewed.
Alcatel-Alenia Space (incorporated, since 2006, in Thales Alenia Space),
C2Consultants, IBM and UNESCO all joined together within a consortium for the
project. Two-way satellite services were deployed over 18 SEE research and
higher education institutions from the scientific fields recommended by the
Ministerial Round Table held at UNESCO in 2001.
The
recent expert meeting aimed at pursuing the project in a
specific scientific field. NGOs, scientific organizations and private companies
specialized in telemedicine and ehealth scientific research, space
applications, economics and development participated in the discussion.
The
group agreed to work together for the design and the implementation of
projects, and for mobilizing resources among their
institutions, their networks and their authorities. One of the major possible components
for the project the group could envision, was partnerships for joint research,
development and activities in the field of health ICT. Several follow-up meetings and actions are planned during Med-e-Tel 2008 in Luxembourg and Giuseppe Tritto, President of the World Academy of Biomedical Technologies, is also scheduled to provide an update on the project during one of the Med-e-Tel conference sessions.
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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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