Registration for the Med-e-Tel 2011 conference and exhibition can still be done at the early bird rates until March 11th. Submit your registration now and be part of one of the few truly global networking events for telemedicine and eHealth.

 

 

Registration includes access to all conference sessions, to the expo and networking area, to the Welcome Reception on April 6th and Sponsor/Attendee Reception on April 7th and provides you with all conference materials.

For any questions related to registration and participation, contact info@medetel.eu or call the Med-e-Tel secretariat at +32 2 269 84 56 or +32 478 59 36 99.

In a presentation during the Med-e-Tel 2011 opening session, David Benton, CEO of the International Council of Nurses (ICN), will be looking at where nursing and telenursing has been in the past, where it stands now and where it needs to go in the future.

 

"In considering where we have been in the past, telenursing will be placed within a wider conceptualization of advances in health technologies," says Benton."In short, the past century has seen a period of phenomenal technological advancement, the integration of technology with our health care delivery system is almost the norm and the potential for these continuing trends will be highlighted." Alongside this, Benton's presentation will also consider the changing demographics of society and what this will mean in relation to technology use into the future.

 

The International Council of Nurses has undertaken a range of activities to support the development of telenursing and its application to practice.Several initiatives including key publications, the ICNP (International Classification for Nursing Practice) development program and the ICN's future orientated eHealth program, will be explained.In addition to ICN's developments, a range of wider factors distilled from their global understanding of telenursing development will be discussed - including, the technology device, quantum progression, regulation and ethics, competence development and the evidential base.

 

The presentation will conclude by exploring where telenursing needs to be as we move into the second decade of this millennium. Issues of connectivity and interoperability, next-generation telemetry, a more proactive rather than reactive delivery model and the role that nurses as architects of future change and policy development will be explored.

 

The Med-e-Tel opening session, providing a Global Telemedicine and eHealth Update, is scheduled for 6 April 2011. Full Med-e-Tel conference program details are available here. 

Regions and regional authorities are often the drivers of new initiatives in telemedicine and eHealth, both from an economic development point of view as from a care organization point of view. One of the Med-e-Tel 2011 conference sessions will look at Regional Initiatives in Telemedicine and eHealth and more specifically at some initiatives that foster Regional Economic Development.

Contributors to this session include:
                      
                          


   

David Ford, Director of the eHealth Industries Innovation Centre (ehi²) will present how Wales has invested in the establishment of a new university-based centre (ehi²), which has been designed to bring together health provider organizations, commercial eHealth solution providers and university researchers in collaborative research and innovation activities with the goal of driving the development of the Welsh economy by developing an ecosystem in which businesses can thrive and succeed in the rapidly growing global eHealth marketplace.

The Limousin region will present its "Home Automation and Health Pole of Guéret" (Pôle Domotique et Santé de Guéret), an interesting example of a regional approach aiming to capitalize on the opportunities that innovations in domotic ("home automation") services could present for meeting both social and economic needs in the area.

Another initiative that will be presented in the session is "Brainport Health Innovation" based in the Noord-Brabant region in The Netherlands, which is a network between healthcare organisations, research institutes, the healthcare industry, health insurers, government and patient organisations, with a strategy to develop a long-term program aimed at promoting innovation at the intersection of healthcare and technology.

The Flanders region in Belgium will present its new policy initiative "Flanders' Care" (initiated by the Flemish Ministries of Health, Innovation and Economy) whose mission it is to measurably improve the quality of care through innovation and responsible entrepreneurship.

The Welfare Tech Region project, based in the region of Southern Denmark, is utilizing the market potential by creating projects that are promoting business growth and new jobs through collaboration between industry, research, and government to develop, produce, and implement technological products for healthcare, rehab, and eldercare that are useful to society and improve the daily lives of its citizens. The project focuses on telemedicine, assistive technology, robotics, and information technology. During the course of three years, the goal is to create 50 new companies, 500 new jobs, and 100 new projects in the region.

The Iavante foundation of the Andalusian Regional Ministry of Health (Spain) aims to facilitate and promote the development and comprehensive training of medical professionals using the most innovative learning methods and to play a leading role in the development and innovation of new technologies to be applied in the healthcare system, particularly those based on ICTs.

An additional session on regional initiatives in the Med-e-Tel conference program (following the above one on "Economic Development" initiatives) will provide insights into some specific experiences with Regional Care Organization and Care Networks in several European regions such as Piemonte and Lombardia (Italy), Madrid (Spain), Rhein-Neckar (Germany), Dnepropetrovsk (Ukraine) and the Baltic region.

i2Cat Technological Centre (Spain) will present the  Help4Mood project at the Med-e-Tel 2011 conference. Help4Mood aims at supporting the recovery of people with major depression at home.Major depression will affect between 5 and 10% of the population of the European Union during their lifetime. The estimated cost of this illness to the European economy is €118 million per year or €253 for each EU citizen.

The aim is to create a system which monitors the patient's recovery in their own home and sends important information directly to the therapist who is coordinating treatment. Patients will interact with the system through a state-of-the-art virtual agent that will be easy and comfortable to use. The main aim of Help4Mood is to enable people with major depression to recover as fully as possible, thus maximising health, preventing relapse and hospitalisation, and significantly reducing health care costs.  

 

This will be achieved through a novel system that monitors the patient's health through sensors, interactive questionnaires, and diaries. The system will detect relevant changes in the patient's behaviour that indicate whether the person is recovering as intended and send this information to the treating clinician.

 

The patient interacts with Help4Mood through an onscreen virtual agent that asks questions about the patient's health and guides them to simple exercises that have been carefully designed to follow the principles of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, the most effective non-pharmaceutical treatment for depression.

 

For this ambitious, pan-European project, a consortium of eight partners has joined forces. The University of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, UK), coordinates the project and is responsible for the technical scientific management. Babes Bolyai University, (Romania), is the clinical scientific leader and will be working with clinicians locally and from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and the Parque Sanitario Sant Joan de Déu de Sant Boi, Spain. The other partners are Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh, UK), specialists in creating robust voice interfaces for computer systems, Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña (Barcelona, Spain), experts in biomedical sensing and monitoring, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (Valencia, Spain), specialists in clinical decision support, FVA (Rome, Italy), an innovative graphics and web design agency, i2CAT (Barcelona, Spain), specialists for dissemination and technology transfer, and OBSMedical (Abingdon, UK), an international company that provides innovative solutions for telemedicine and eHealth.

 

Meet i2Cat representatives at the Med-e-Tel 2011 expo and hear about the Help4Mood project in one of the sessions of the Med-e-Tel conference program that will focus on "Virtual Reality, Mental Health, Stress-Related Disorders and Rehabilitation". 

A strategy meeting of the Global  eHealth Ambassadors Program (GeHAP) was held on Tuesday March 8th in Cape Town, South Africa in the presence and under the presidency of Arch. Desmond Tutu, the first ISfTeH eHealth Ambassador.

The meeting reviewed and evaluated the Organs of the Program, the Membership Drive and Resources Mobilization Plan. It also established a working plan for the next 12 months. The official launch of the Programme is scheduled for November 11th, 2011 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Also present at the meeting was Dr. Jorge Soares, Director of the Health and Human Development Department of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. The Gulbenkian Foundation is one of the program sponsors. The program is also receiving the support of Microsoft South Africa.

For more information, contact the ISfTeH Secretary, Frank Lievens.

An independent assessment of telemedicine exam cameras has recently ranked AMD Global Telemedicine's General Exam Camera as a top performer, assigning it top marks during its review of several categories of performance.

The study, conducted by the Telehealth Technology Assessment Center (TTAC), compared AMD's General Exam camera with another patient exam camera and several camcorders and point-and-shoot digital cameras. AMD's General Exam Camera ranked highest in ease of use and overall score.

Weighing just half a pound, the AMD-2500 General Exam Camera is the first analog camera to combine power zoom, auto focus, freeze frame capture, and electronic image polarization in one diagnostic device. The General Exam Camera is designed for single-handed use.  With its auto power zoom feature, the AMD-2500 allows the clinician to control the camera and zoom feature all with the same hand, leaving them a free hand to tend to the patient during the exam.

The TTAC's study also notes that AMD's General Exam Camera has "the additional benefit of a polarizing filter that could eliminate the glare of light on moist or reflective surfaces," a feature not found in any of the competitors' cameras and a feature that is critical in aiding diagnosis in tele-dermatology and wound care settings.

This multi-purpose analog camera has wide applications in primary care, emergency medicine / trauma care, dermatology, ophthalmology, wound care and is an excellent device to document sexual abuse or child abuse.

AMD Global Telemedicine's equipment and solutions are installed in over 6,100 telemedicine sites in 80 countries around the globe and the AMD-2500 General Exam Camera continues to be the most reliable and widely deployed patient exam camera on the market.

Meet AMD representatives at the Med-e-Tel 2011 expo and hear about some of their experiences in the Med-e-Tel conference program.

The Luxembourg Convention Bureau has negotiated special rates for Med-e-Tel participants at various hotels in Luxembourg. Click here for a list of rooms and rates.

The room blocks that they were holding have been sold out, but they have been able to secure a few extra rooms.

If you are going to participate at Med-e-Tel and need to book a room, do so now in order to guarantee room availability. Listed rates should still be applicable (but cannot be guaranteed anymore).

A reservation form can be downloaded from here. 

 

If you are flying to Luxembourg, please note that the Air France/KLM group offer discounted airfare. Click here for details, or go to www.airfranceklm-globalmeetings.com and enter Event ID 11176AF.