Med-e-Tel 2009: the one event you shouldn't be missing this year!
This newsletter is your source for Med-e-Tel updates, news from the Med-e-Tel partners, sponsors, exhibitors and speakers, as well as other telemedicine and ehealth news from around the world.
It's a cliché, but Med-e-Tel 2009 is not to be missed! The extensive and varied conference program and the networking opportunities with users, experts and providers from all over Europe and other parts of the world, are a guarantee that you will obtain new information and insights from the event and that you will establish valuable contacts. Register in advance and simply pick up your entrance badge upon arrival at Med-e-Tel. Click here to go to the online registration form. Hotels can also still be booked via the services of the Luxembourg Convention Bureau ( click here for info and reservation form). Note that several hotels have only a limited number of rooms left available and some may not be able to provide rooms at the preferential rates anymore (this will be confirmed before processing a reservation).
In this issue of the Med-e-Tel newsletter you will find more details of some of the sessions and workshops that will be organized at Med-e-Tel and about 2 of the presentations in the Med-e-Tel 2009 opening session. Full program details are available on the Med-e-Tel website.
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Featured Partner
ICN's (International Council of Nurses) Mission: To represent nursing worldwide, advancing the profession and influencing health policy.
The International Council of Nurses is a federation of national nurses' associations (NNAs), representing nurses in more than 128 countries. Founded in 1899, ICN is the world's first and widest reaching international organisation for health professionals. Operated by nurses for nurses, ICN works to ensure quality nursing care for all, sound health policies globally, the advancement of nursing knowledge, and the presence worldwide of a respected nursing profession and a competent and satisfied nursing workforce. Hear more information on "Telenursing and Global Health" from Claudia Bartz, Coordinator for International Classification for Nursing Practice within the ICN, during the Med-e-Tel opening session on April 1st.
Also a session on Telenursing will be part of the Med-e-Tel conference program on April 2nd.
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. |
Platinum Sponsors
Gold Sponsors
Click here for a list of additional Med-e-Tel 2009 exhibitors and sponsors. |
Featured Media Partners
ICT Results showcases the brightest and best of EU-funded ICT research, from new products and services to behind-the-scenes technological developments that really improve European quality of life.
Technology and Disability communicates knowledge about the field of assistive technology devices and services, within the context of the lives of end users - persons with disabilities and their family members. While the topics are technical in nature, the articles are written for broad comprehension despite the reader's education or training. Technology and Disability's contents covers research and development efforts, education and training programs, service and policy activities and consumer experiences.
Technology and Health Care covers the overlapping areas between physics, engineering, informatics on the one hand and human biology, basic medical sciences, clinical medicine on the other. It also presents a forum for the discussion of socio-economic aspects related to medical technology.
Telemeditalia is a monthly journal wich is about all the aspects of information and communications on e-Health, telemedicine, homecare and health technologies in general. The webjournal is widly read by doctors and other health professionals, as well as by officers in health institutions.
The Ukrainian Journal of Telemedicine and Medical Telematics is published by the Department of Medical Informatics and Telemedicine of Donetsk R&D Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedy. Main subjects of the journal are: telemedicine, medical telematics, medical and clinical computer science, IT in medical research and education, statistical research and simulation in medicine, medical cybernetics and medical equipment.
Virtual Medical Worlds is a monthly Virtual Magazine on Telemedicine and High Performance Computing and Networking for readers interested in computer applications in medical environments. VMW is produced by an editorial team composed of professionals in publishing, and an advisory board with professionals in telemedicine, providing the embedding into the everyday practice and research.
World Pharma News is one of the world's leading web-based pharmaceutical news publications. Our subscribers are continuously informed about the latest and most prominent worldwide pharmaceutical news.
The Med-e-Tel media partnerships provide you with a look at a wide range of healthcare and medical journals, magazines and on-line news and 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 2009! |
Quick Links to recent newsletter articles...
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TEN4Health - citizen services for borderless healthcare in the EU TEN4Health, a European Commission co-funded project, will conduct a workshop at Med-e-Tel (Luxembourg) on April 2nd, 2009 on the subject of "Citizen Services for Borderless Healthcare in the European Union: Practical Solutions."
Initiated by leading public health insurance providers, TEN4Health contributes towards improved healthcare provision for mobile European Union citizens. The TEN4Health service package assures access of citizens to healthcare in participating Member States' hospitals, based on a secure web service and its integration into developing European eHealth infrastructure networks. It greatly enhances and extends its utility by integrating efficient support for electronic post-processing at the Union level. The TEN4Health service is piloted and validated at 11 hospitals directly participating in the consortium, and several other indirectly participating hospital sites across six Member States - Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands.
Representatives of the European Commission and of the European Parliament have highlighted the TEN4Health project as an example for improving cross-border healthcare services in Europe. Both citizens and hospitals are seen to benefit.
The practical solutions to be presented at the workshop during Med-e-Tel include two operational examples of hospitals providing the service to tourists in skiing resorts in Austria, another one at the North Sea coast in the Netherlands and the operation of this service solution in hospitals in the Czech Republic. The service solutions allow health care providers to reliably and online determine that a patient is covered by health insurance and rapidly receive reimbursement through online billing processes being an integral part of the service package. In a further presentation the EHIC Portal "AOK Europa" - a web portal solution offered by German hospitals for healthcare provision to foreigners from all over the world will be presented.
The TEN4Health workshop at Med-e-Tel is addressed to all interested in realising an integrated European health services market, in sharing visions, experience and opportunities for cooperation. It is aimed at government executives, policy decision makers, EU officials, representatives from healthcare organisations, healthcare professionals, industry and other healthcare stakeholders.
The workshop program is available on www.ten4health.eu and www.medetel.eu.
Interested parties may also want to attend the NETC@RDS workshop on cross-border healthcare services at Med-e-Tel in the afternoon of April 2nd, following the TEN4Health workshop. |
Telemedicine in clinical trials Telemonitoring and tele-healthcare are actively being implemented through health care providers for general patient care, specifically in patients with heart failure, diabetes and hypertension. The transition and implementation of telemedicine in clinical trials provides many benefits to the conduct of the study, but it is important to recognize limitations based upon available technology as well as key considerations for successful implementation of telemedicine in a clinical trial.
The use of Telemonitoring Self Measured Blood Pressure (T-SMBP), allows for remote collection of blood pressure (BP) data from a subjects home.
The benefits of implementing T-SMBP include:
- Electronic capture of BP data - remove transcription errors in diary.
- Based on trial design, it may be possible to reduce the number of office visits required by the subject.
- T-SMBP provides for real-time access of the subjects BP data via study webportal. This can include alert criteria process as well as real-time view of data trends and treatment effect.
Medifacts International, a global leader in cardiac safety monitoring services will present (in cooperation with colleagues from Novartis) on home BP monitoring and insights into telemedicine in clinical trials. The session will also review key considerations for successful implementation of T-SMBP within the clinical research environment, and will provide some case study examples.
Med-e-Tel 2009 conference program details are available here. |
Sustainable collaborations in healthcare open source software
Seeking effective healthcare solutions, would you like to receive support from Free/Libre Open Source Software communities? And if yes, would you allow partners to access your own additional developments and know-how?
These topics will be discussed during a meeting of the EFMI (www.efmi.org) LIFOSS working group at Med-e-Tel (3 April 2009), explaining and discussing the website in construction at: www.chos-wg.eu.
The 3 main groups of questions to be discussed during the workshop are:
- Introduction: what does the open source approach mean and what are the motivations in healthcare? (morning session)
- Development issues: which aspects can be shared as common software modules, between different projects. How to manage collaborations between projects, sharing resources at international level? (morning sessions)
- Sustainable support services: what are the conditions in order to install and maintain sustainable implementations based on open source softwares? How to manage recurrent yearly maintenance services in a professional way and as a traditional business model at regional level? (afternoon session)
Participants interested in this workshop, are invited to provide notes and/or links to external web pages, in advance of the meeting. Send your comments, notes, suggestions, questions to Thomas Karopka (tkaropka@googlemail.com) and Etienne Saliez (etienne@saliez.be). Particularly about requirements, needs and wishes which could be shared with other users.
The questions and suggestions raised during the workshop will be used to improve and to extend the next version of the website in construction. And the workshop will prepare a roadmap for the next activities of the working group. |
The Rockefeller Foundation eHealth initiative for the global south
Over the past year, the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) has explored how to catalyze systems-strengthening activities that create broader access to affordable, high-quality health services in developing countries through its Transforming Health Systems (THS) Initiative which includes: 1) strengthening health system stewardship capacity 2) harnessing the private sector in health and supporting innovative financing strategies and 3) harnessing information and communication technologies (ICTs) to improve health systems performance, otherwise known as eHealth.
Further complementing this work was a month-long Bellagio conference series focused on eHealth in the global south held in the summer of 2008, which brought together key global experts and leaders to discuss how to raise the visibility of eHealth in the developing world. The "Making the eHealth Connection: Global Partnerships, Local Solutions" conference focused on eight specific areas including issues surrounding interoperability, access to health information, eHealth capacity building and national eHealth policies.
At the upcoming Med-e-Tel 2009 conference, Prof. Yunkap Kwankam, former eHealth Coordinator at WHO and now Executive Director of the International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth and an RF grantee, will present his views on global eHealth and how the RF programs and strategy will contribute to accessible, affordable and quality health services.
This presentation will be part of the opening session on April 1st. Additional Med-e-Tel conference program details are available at www.medetel.eu. |
Secured handling of personal health information in proposal of .HEALTH (dot health)
ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the organization responsible for the world wide governance of domain names and ip-addresses, launched a proposal for new gTLD's (generic Top Level Domains) during its previous meeting in Cairo (November 2008). Today this marketplace is mostly occupied by the .com, .net, .biz, .info (gTLD's) and many others like .be, .lu, .nl, .de, the so named ccTLD's (country code Top Level Domains). They all apply different registration policies, whereas the definition of the attribution of a domain name to an individual or a company or organization is decided by the appropriate registry (license holder of the TLD). A secured and certified attribution for specific markets such as the medical world, are not in place.
The arrival of this new window for Top Level Domain applications is a very welcome solution for the medical world. A perfect occasion for the medical/healthcare world to start working on a proposal for a secured and stabilized platform of communication within the medical/healthcare world.
At EU level, the introduction of eHealth services is facilitating access to healthcare, whatever the geographical location, thanks to innovative telemedicine and personal health systems. eHealth is also breaking down barriers, enabling health service providers (public authorities, hospitals) from different Member States to work more closely together. If a particular treatment can be provided to a patient more effectively in another country, eHealth systems make it simpler to organize and carry out treatment abroad. Suppliers of eHealth tools - such as databases for patient records, mobile monitors which transmit data automatically, or handling systems for patient call centers - also benefit from the development of a European market in the sector, which has enabled them to build a strong base from which they can tackle the global market.
The increasing presence of cyber crime - we all have at least received once spam mail for medical products such as Viagra and others, popular identity theft, phishing attacks, and many more - are reasons enough to go for a global platform being able to secure and to certify access to and from medical entities without any doubt of identity of the acquiring individual or organization.
With this perspective in view, the Internet Society Belgium (ISOC Belgium) and the International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth (ISfTeH) gathered together in a constructive meeting which resulted in the creation of the project "dot health (.health)". Ambitious, but not out of perspective of what is considered being critical for the medical support of the human health. Both organizations decided to go for a consortium structure having one important mission: establish the basics for the creation of the gTLD .health.
The goal and mission of the project is to respond first of all to the request expressed by ICANN to propose a generic Top Level Domain .health with a global and community based focus. It is not the intention of the consortium to go for financial benefit, but to generate the required technical structure, to build up the necessary legal processes and to integrate all medical staffing and related structures in this project.
The dot health consortium's basic methodology consists in bringing together interested and qualified partners in order to be able to cover all levels of medical authorities, staff and participants as well as the appropriate and qualified technical partners to accomplish the basic goals of the project. It is evident that also government will be invited, as many of the issues to be handled in cross border situations will depend on national and intercontinental law.
Rudi Vansnick, President of the Internet Society Belgium, will provide more details and background on this project in the Med-e-Tel 2009 opening session (April 1st). |
Vitaphone Telemedical Service Center certified
Vitaphone GmbH, founded in 1999 as part of the Vitagroup GmbH, is one of the worldwide leading providers of telemedical services and devices for remote patient diagnosis, monitoring and management. Vitaphone offers a unique service and product portfolio and occupies an unrivalled position with a strong market presence in 16 countries to date. Vitaphone develops key technologies for the transmission of biosignals and biochemical parameters with the help of mobile communication devices embedded within telemedical monitoring and care systems. Vitaphone holds a number of international patents on data transmission of biological signals via mobile phone and is the market leader in the field of telemedicine, setting new standards. The company is running a 365/24 Telemedical Service Center (TSC) in Chemnitz, Germany, staffed with cardiologists and medically qualified personnel. With full reimbursement by insurance companies, the team serves thousands of patients, thereby covering the full spectrum of chronic disorders, i.e. cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The TSC has recently been certified by the VDE Prüfinstitut according to DIN EN ISO 9001:2000 and the "VDE Recommendations of Application for Telemonitoring". Europeanwide, this quality standard has been set as a benchmark for operating telemedical centres. Hear more from Vitaphone representatives about these new quality standards for telemedical service centers in the Med-e-Tel conference program. And see the latest from Vitaphone's products and solutions on the Med-e-Tel expo. |
Newsbriefs To follow are links to some interesting and recently published articles, studies, interviews and reports (if you would like to suggest an article for inclusion into a following newsletter, feel free to send details to info@medetel.eu):
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