Dear Reader,

How time flies. It seems only a short while ago we were in the process of relaunching the Newsletter. And here we are, already on our third edition of this quarterly bulletin. So, welcome again.

As many of you will know, the International Society for Telemedicine and eHealth (ISfTeH) has two major events every year. The movable event is the Annual Conference, which travels around the continents - this year we will be in Abuja, Nigeria, and next year the conference travels to Takamatsu, Japan. Our fixed event is Med-e-Tel, held in Luxembourg in April, around Easter. Med-e-Tel is celebrating a special anniversary and I have written a welcome message for this occasion. We hope to see very many of you in Luxembourg on April 18-20. But we know that the Newsletter reaches many more people than are able to be physically present at Med-e-Tel. So, let me share with you my message to participants at this special Med-e-Tel.

Welcome to this, the tenth edition of Med-e-Tel. This event, which started life in 2002 as the Telemedicine & Telecare International Trade Fair, continues to offer a unique opportunity to do business, to share ideas, and to view a wide range of telemedicine solutions currently available on the market. It was later rechristened Med-e-Tel. Through threats of war (the 2003 edition had to be cancelled as the invasion of Iraq loomed on the horizon) and ash clouds (the eruption of Eyjafjallaj�kull in Iceland, which paralyzed air travel in most of Europe for six days, hit just as the 2010 edition entered its final day), Med-e-Tel has not only survived, but grown to be a meeting place for 400-600 participants every year. It is large enough to offer a broad spectrum of eHealth stakeholders, from academia, government, industry and civil society. They range from policy makers to designers and users; from chip manufacturers and micro-level engineering companies to systems integrators and satellite and space agencies. Med-e-Tel has even had sessions organized by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) over the years.  However, the meeting is small enough so that there is time to engage more deeply with others, through a broad range of interesting presentations organized around thematic areas in specific sessions. And the sessions are not so packed that each presentation is reduced to a talking head.

What best distinguishes Med-e-Tel, though, is the people - you the participants. Every year at least 50 countries are represented. So, on average, every tenth person you meet at Med-e-Tel is from yet another country. The message is clear. If you want to engage with eHealth practitioners from around the globe in a low-key, almost intimate, environment, Med-e-Tel is the place for you.

But, there is still room for growth.  The vision of the Society, which took over legal ownership of Med-e-Tel in 2009, is to increase attendance to around 1,000 participants - to improve the chances of your making that networking connection which takes your business or personal eHealth work to another level. And to do so without losing the intimacy which has characterized the meeting so far. That way you can meet your eHealth soul-mates without you and them disappearing in the crowd. It is like having your very own professional networking Cloud. There is also a need to grow the number of exhibitors even further, so that there is more show and tell of the genius that people have in using ICT to address health challenges - locally, nationally, regionally and globally.

This year, in addition to the enticing content to which we have become accustomed, there will be an address on behalf of the new ISfTeH Board by our new President, Dr. Andy Fischer, CEO of Medgate - a sort of "State of the Society" address, and outlining a vision for the future of the Society through a new business plan. Med-e-Tel will also feature, for the first time, one of the Ambassadors of the Society's Global eHealth Ambassadors Program (GeHAP) which is chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and was successfully launched in Rio de Janeiro on the 11th of November 2011. Lord Nigel Crisp, former Chief Executive of the NHS in the UK, will give a keynote address on  Day 2 of the event.

A good way to reach the growth targets for Med-e-Tel, by no mean the only way - but a good way all-the-same - is by word of mouth. I recall a discussion with Geoff Parcel - co-author of the best-selling book on Knowledge Management "Learning to fly" when I was at WHO. He said their philosophy when he was at the oil giant, BP, was to promote sharing experiences. If, for example, you wanted to do a project, their thesis was that it was often more productive to hold just one conversation with someone who had done it or done something similar, than to read so many books and papers and do so many Internet searches on how to get it done. The people in your social/professional network are more likely to come to Med-e-Tel because you encouraged them to do so than because they had a Google hit on Med-e-Tel as a conference worth attending.  I have often said that at conferences, the learning is incremental while the networking can grow by quantum leaps. One picks up an idea of two that could improve one's activities. But one can also make a single contact that transforms one's professional life. So, have a productive conference and let us together start a second decade of success at Med-e-Tel in April 2013, with you and five people from your social/professional network.

Prof. S. Yunkap Kwankam

ISfTeH Executive Director

Corporate Member Spotlight
 

SUNPA Image Tel Tech Co., Ltd is one of the biggest telemedicine companies in China, as well as one of the leading telemedicine companies in the world. Following the core idea of 'medical quality' and 'complete medical information', SUNPA has developed over 80 proprietary telemedicine equipments, including peripherals, related digital devices and medical tele-education systems for different specialties such as: tele-consultation, tele-pathology, tele-radiology, tele-ultrasound, tele-endoscope, tele-surgery and tele-ICU.

Teledigital Monochrome/Color Ultrasound Diagnosis System

SUNPA telemedicine systems can ensure complete medical information capture, compression, storage, transmission and display in accordance with the medical quality information standard, so as to create a virtual diagnosis environment just as in a hospital. We also have the ability to interface with medical devices like X-Ray, CT, and MRI which can meet the international standards of HL7 and DICOM 3.0.

SUNPA has also developed telemedicine system configurations for different levels of hospitals (including national, provincial, and county-level) as well as medical institutions to meet various requirements. In addition, SUNPA has developed and incorporated over a hundred medical information software solutions, including but not limited to: Hospital Information Systems, Electronic Medical Records, Lab Information Systems, Picture Archiving and Communication Systems, and Electronic Healthcare Records.

SUNPA Medicenter TH Series-Tele-high precision interactive consultation system

Throughout the years, SUNPA has successfully undertaken several telemedicine projects in China, South Africa and India, among which are:

• 2011, China National Telemedicine Engineering Center
• 2010, Joint Research project on Regional Healthcare Information Platform' with National Development and Reform Commission and Ministry of Health.
• 2009-present, 'Research and Industry of Telemedicine Intelligent Digital System Project',
• 2006, 'Sino-South Africa Telemedicine Collaboration Project'
• 2001, the Torch Plan from Ministry of Science and Technology --'Telemedicine and PACS System Project'.
• South Africa Limpopo Province Telemedicine Project  

More information on SUNPA can be found at:  

www.sunpaimage.com/en/  

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A different Corporate Member will be spotlighted each quarter.   

National Member Spotlight
   

Mission

Introduction of Telemedicine  and creation of eHealth network in Nigeria  for the aim of providing  the national medical community and the general population with a rapid, reliable and cost effective way of healthcare delivery services; medical education including research, development, practical application and supplementary training to promote national health telematics particularly telemedicine and e-Health.

Motto

Technology for Improving National Health

•  How to achieve our Mission

Objectives

• Support co-operation between non-governmental organizations/ institutions and governmental institutions/organizations in implementing national telemedicine and e-Health strategy in Nigeria.
• Support national telemedicine and e-Health programs 
• Promote the cause of telemedicine and e-Health within public and private health institutions within Nigeria and other International Institutions/organizations.
• Contribute initial and supplementary theoretical training in the field of telemedicine and e-Health, including its application throughout the health sector regardless of professional or geographical limits.
• Bring together telemedicine and e-Health users, Scientists, researchers, sponsors, advisers, manufacturers, distributors and their scientific personnel.
• Promote the formulation and publication of rules for good practice and guidelines and information on the course of action.
• Support activities relating to establishment of appropriate legal outline, conditions for telemedicine and e Health applications in Nigeria.

Activities

• Networking with international telemedicine and e-Health communities.
• Dissemination of information and creation of awareness on telemedicine and e-Health issues in Nigeria via the society's websites
• Participation in working groups in Nigeria to promote extensive use of existing standards such as DICOM, HL7
• Offering assistance on legal matters bordering on telemedicine and e-Health.
• Open dialogue and co-operation between industry in Nigeria to promote the development of innovative products, solutions, and services in telemedicine and e-health.
• Offering special discounts for adverts and publications in the Society's official scientific Journal 'The Nigerian Journal of Telemedicine & eHealth'.

Benefits

• If the decision makers in government institutions in Nigeria will take into account e-Health services within the framework of National health policy
• SFTeHIN can play  a role through its objectives/activities in implementing national e-Health strategy that will yield results nationally;
• To improve the quality, efficiency of healthcare services
• To reduce the cost of healthcare services
• To improve access to medical knowledge-makes the patient to become an educated and informed consumer, effective & economic tool to train and educate medical students / doctors and healthcare professionals with international standard.
• To reinforce national Health structures.

Critical Success Factors

• Strong commitment of members of the society, partners, collaborators and participating institutions
• Availability of resources to fund activities
• Demonstrated benefit to members, participating institutions and the entire nation
• Evidence of the objectives/ activities   

 To learn more about SFTeHIN, please visit http://sftehin.net/.      

 

ISfTeH World Congress Comes To Nigeria!

With excitement and anticipation, SFTeHIN welcomes you to the upcoming 17th World Congress of the International Society for Telemedicine and eHealth. This is the first time this conference is coming to Nigeria and as previously documented in the history of the ISfTeH congress, it promises to be another platform for charting a course for the improvement of health care delivery world over and to demonstrate to budding nations like Nigeria what has been proven to work without being unbearably expensive, what is sustainable and what results to expect. It is to this we welcome you and hope that while you share your experience, you will also learn from the experiences of others. We urge you to make yourself at home and enjoy the hospitality offered by the people of Nigeria while you savour the diversity of the culture of the Nigerian people.

 

Click here for more information on the 17th ISfTeH International Conference in Abuja 2012     

18 - 20 April 2012

Luxembourg

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17th ISfTeH International Conference 

Abuja, Nigeria
November 7-9, 2012 

The annual ISfTeH Conference is held each Fall.  

For updated information on this event, please visit www.isfteh.org. 

A first ever Telemedicine/eHealth Lifetime Achievement Award will be given at Med-e-Tel 2012 in Luxembourg at the Opening Session on Wednesday, April 18th. 

Find out more in our next Newsletter!