ISfTeH Logo  
Newsletter
January 2015

"Sharing this Newsletter with over 20,000 Telemedicine & eHealth Professionals around the Globe"

In This Issue
Join the ISfTeH
Upcoming Telemedicine Events
Lifetime Achievement Awards
ISfTeH Board Members
New ISfTeH Members
Partnerships
ISfTeH Partners News
Letter from the Executive Director
ISfTeH Meetings and Conferences
Corporate Member Spotlight
National Member Spotlight
Board Member Spotlight
Changes in the Board
Member News
Working Groups
Announcements
Join Our Mailing List

Join the ISfTeH

Are you heading a national telemedicine/eHealth organization?

 

Do you offer telemedicine products and solutions?

 

Are you doing research on telemedicine and eHealth applications and technologies?

 

Does your organization provide (or wants to offer) care services by means of telemedicine/eHealth technologies?

 

Are you engaged in healthcare policy?

 

If so, you may be interested in joining the ISfTeH network to expand your global reach or to learn from existing experiences and best practices.
  

 

Or send an 
e-mail with your question or membership request.

Upcoming ISfTeH-Supported

Telemedicine Events

 

BIOSTEC 2015 

Lisbon, Portugal

Jan 12-15, 2015

__________

  

East Europe eHealth Innovation Summit 

Warsaw, Poland

Jan 15-16, 2015 

__________

    

20th Anniversary Conference on eHealth in Finland 

Espoo, Finland

Apr 9-10, 2015

__________   

  

Med-e-Tel 2015 

Luxembourg

Apr 22-24, 2015

__________

  

eHealth Week 2015 

Riga, Latvia

May 11-13, 2015

__________ 


ICT4AgeingWell 2015 

Lisbon, Portugal

May 20-22, 2015
__________


 

6th International Conference on Transforming Healthcare with IT 

Bangalore, India

Oct 16-17, 2015

__________


 

20th ISfTeH International Conference & 7th Brazilian Telemedicine and Telehealth Congress

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

 Oct 28-30, 2015

__________ 

  

For more information on Overall Telemedicine Conferences and Events, click here.

ISfTeH Lifetime Achievement Awards

Prof. Louis Lareng, 2012 Recipient 
Prof. Robert Merrell, 2013 Recipient 

ISfTeH Board Members

President

Dr. Andy Fischer

Switzerland

 

 

Secretary and Treasurer

Mr. Frank Lievens

Belgium
 

Other Members

Dr. Pirkko Kouri 

Finland 

 

Prof. Rifat Latifi  

 Prof. Rifat Latifi  

U.S.A.


 

Dr. Markus Lindlar

Germany 

  

Dr. Moretlo molefi  

Dr. Moretlo Lynette Molefi

South Africa

 

    

Prof. Anthony Maeder 

Australia  

 

 

Dr. Andre Petitet

France


 

Dr. Roberto Rocci

Italy 

  


Dr. Adolfo Sparenberg

Brazil 


 

Executive Director

 

Prof. Yunkap Kwankam

 Switzerland

ISfTeH New Members

       

 

National

 

Ukrainian Association of Development IT in Medicine,

Ukraine

 

 

Institutional

 

Telehealth Nurses LLC,

U.S.A.

 

Corporate

 

Abu Dhabi Telemedicine Centre,

U.A.E.

 

Independent Living Technologies,

United Kingdom

 

Individuals

  

Carole Lapra,

France

 

Behzad Emad,

U.S.A.

 

Omar Ghazanfar,

United Kingdom

 

 

Dirk Peek,

Netherlands

 

Raquel Gomez Bravo,

Spain

 

Joanna Rybka,

Belgium

 

Students

 

Baptiste Omarini,

France

 

Jabulani Takaendesa,

Zimbabwe

 

Mohammad Reza Khazaei,

Iran

 

Youstina Demetry,

Sweden

 

Angels Salvador,

Spain

 

Lasse Overballe Nielsen,

Denmark 

 

Imad Bousaid,

France

 

Danyal Maheshwari,

Pakistan

 

Nurses

 

Scheila Mai,

Brazil

 

Gillian Strudwick,

Canada

The ISfTeH Newsletter is published quarterly for members of the telemedicine community to provide up-to-date information regarding current happenings in the international telemedicine and e-Health industry.

 

Feel free to share this Newsletter with business colleagues by forwarding it to your associates.

If you would like to submit an article or be added to our email distribution list, please email Aliana at [email protected].

Happy New Year!

Wishing you all the best for the festive season and for an excellent start of 2015! May it be a healthy and successful year for you!

We look forward to continue building affordable, sustainable and accessible healthcare systems with you, through the development and implementation of telemedicine and eHealth solutions.

And we look forward to seeing you in 2015 in Luxembourg, Rio de Janeiro or some of the other places where ISfTeH will meet!

Partnerships
Continua Health Alliance


Diplomatic Council
European Junior Doctors
European Medical Students Association
Geneva Health Forum
International Council of Nurses

International Council of Nurses
ISfTeH Partner News 

 

 

ICN Conference Seoul Korea, 19-23 June 2015

www.icn2015.com/

 

 
Journal of the ISfTeH 
  Your Paper submissions are welcome, click on the JISfTeH logo for more info!
Letter from the Executive Director

   

Dear Reader,

 

Welcome to this first edition of the Newsletter for the 2015 calendar. As part of our effort to promote collaboration between the ISfTeH and sister organizations in the telemedicine and mHealth & eHealth space, it is my pleasure to yield my column in this issue to my colleague, Joan Cornet, Director of the mHealth Competence Center (mHCC) of the Barcelona-based Mobile World Capital.

 

Sincerely,

 

Prof. S. Yunkap Kwankam

Executive Director

 

Joan's editorial on mHealth follows.

 

Digitalization of information is changing the world.

It is difficult to find one human activity that is not affected by digital technology. Sometimes we are not even aware of these influences, probably because we are part of the changes. Very few, of us if any, remember when the Internet was not yet part of our societies, or what life was without emails. The way we work, communicate and socialise; the way we organise our leisure time; how we study and learn, etc.; these have all been transformed by digital technology.

 

To underscore the point, only eight years ago, smartphones flooded our communities and our lives, and for the first time in human history there is a communication tool readily available to most of the world's citizens. Mobile phones are a tool that we all love, and to which we are emotionally linked. Most of us, invariably, return home to retrieve our mobile phone, should we happen to have left it behind when we rushed out from home in the morning. It is estimated that although there are only slightly over 7 billion inhabitants in the world, there are 7.3 billion mobile connections and 3.7 billion mobile subscribers. That's a lot of connections and subscribers. And the number is increasing year by year (by 6.10% and 5.3%, annually, respectively over the past 3 years).

 

 

Health care lagging behind in adoption of digitalization of information

However, the picture is not so rosy when it comes to mobile technology in health care. Many experts say that the difficulty lies with health care, not with the technology. In my view it is a complex mix. For years we have struggled with eHealth: electronic medical records, personal health records, e-prescription, digital imaging, telemedicine, tele monitoring, etc. At the beginning technology was not always up to the job, but now we have plenty of reliable technology in eHealth. So, why are some countries more capable of implementing eHealth than others? The answer is not simple. In general, it depends on the health care system. If the health care system is integrated, technology can work properly. On the contrary, if the system is not integrated, it is extremely difficult to make any progress.

 

mHealth adds more complexity

There are more than 90,000 health apps on the market, with 60% of them there focused on wellness. How can we guarantee protection of health data, once it is outside the health care system? How can we have personal identification that is safe enough for accessing personal data? What clinical evidence do we have when we use mobile solutions for chronic diseases? Which standards for full interoperability are needed? How much savings could mobile solutions bring? Where are the business models? In other words, who pays for mobile solutions? And, if we have answers to these questions in the industrialized world, what about developing countries, where the potential for mobile technology in health is even greater? How can they successfully apply mobile technology to support improved health outcomes?

A recent World Bank report tracked more than 500 mHealth studies, and many donor agencies are lining up to support the "scaling up" of mHealth interventions. Yet, there is still a lot to do, as most of the projects are pilots, with limited prospects for wide-scale implementation.

 

mHealth Competency Center in the search for solutions

To find answers to these questions and collaborate on identifying the right solutions, are two of the main activities of the mHCC. We are a public foundation (non-profit), working closely with GSMA and the telecoms industry to bridge the gap between health care and the mobile technology industry, as well as accelerate the use of mobile solutions in health. We do so in real projects, in collaboration with health care organisations, health and industry professionals, patient groups, universities, etc. Our mission is to promote improvement in the health and welfare of citizen by personalizing services to them, based on mobile technology. We believe strongly in this collaborative approach if we truly want to make things happen. That is why the mHealth Competency Center is honoured and proud to have the possibility to collaborate with the ISfTeH.

 

I invite you to visit our website www.mobilehealthglobal.com, and to keep in touch with us. I trust you will enjoy it!

 

Sincerely,

 

Joan Cornet

Director, mHealth Competence Center (mHCC), Mobile World Capital, Barcelona, Spain. 

 


ISfTeH Meetings and Conferences
Luxembourg
April 22 - 24, 2015 

 Running parallel with: 

 

Med-e-Tel 2015, one of the annual ISfTeH events, is taking place on 22-24 April 2015 in Luxembourg. Join us there for an exciting program providing a view on practical Telemedicine and eHealth experiences and an opportunity to meet and network with ISfTeH members as well as other service and technology providers from around the world. More details at www.medetel.eu.

 

The IHE-Europe Connectathon 2015, co-organized by IHE-Europe  and the Agence eSante Luxembourg, will be held in conjunction with Med-e-Tel 2015 from 20 to 24 April 2015 at the Luxexpo Exhibition and Congress Center. IHE is a worldwide initiative that enables healthcare IT system users and suppliers to work together to enable interoperability of IT systems. The Connectathon is the annual connectivity test marathon where health IT companies test the interoperability of their products in a structured environment with peer vendors. They perform these tests using real world clinical scenarios following IHE Integration Profile specifications across a variety of domains (radiology, cardiology, pharmacy, pathology, patient care devices, patient care coordination, laboratory, etc.)
For more details about the IHE Connectathon, read the IHE-Europe Whitepaper on Connectathon. For more information or to join the Connectathon 2015, contact [email protected] or visit www.ihe-europe.net.

 
For more information, contact [email protected] or visit www.medetel.eu.
___________________________________

 

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 
October 28 - 30, 2015

The annual ISfTeH International Conference is held each Fall.

Visit ISfTeH's Events webpage for more information.

Corporate Member Spotlight
Meditel Srl

Meditel srl is a company specialized in promotion, organization and management of innovative Telemedicine Web based services. Meditel has been founded in 2002 with the aim to widen the offer of clinical telemedicine services through new web based solutions.

 

In 2005, Meditel started remote interpretation of electrocardiograms, holter monitoring and 24 hours blood pressure monitoring services , in cooperation with a team of cardiologists. Started chronic patients monitoring too participating in Lombardia Region chronic heart failure projects. By 2006, Meditel offers the above mentioned remote interpretation services to pharmacies, givig them the opportunity to lease the complete technology necessary to offer Meditel's clinical services. In 2007, Meditel starts developing LifeChart platform according a project of Florence Red Cross to monitor chronic patients. By this time 240 pharmacies have been affiliated. In 2009, Meditel settled many agreements with pharmaceutical groups. In 2010, Meditel won a tender for remote interpretation of Holter monitoring of S. Daniele Hospital. In 2012 Meditel is supplying services to as many as 400 pharmacies and to many health providers. Eventually the company decides to concentrate its business in developing and selling telemedicine systems, so they transfer clinical work to another company.

Currently, Meditel offers services ranging from hardware and software supplies to service organization and business modeling to people interested in entering in the field of telemedicine particularly in:

  • Remote interpretation of ECGs
  • Remote interpretation of 24 hours Holter monitoring
  • Remote ECG monitoring of arrhythmic patients
  • Remote evaluation of 24 hours ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM).
  • Monitoring chronic diseases

Meditel now offers to anyone that wants to enter telemedicine the great experience acquired in projecting and conducting clinical services.

 

To read the complete article on MEDITEL SRL, click here. 

_______________________________________

 

A different ISfTeH Member will be spotlighted each quarter.

National Member Spotlight
Brazilian Council of Telemedicine and Telehealth

The Brazilian Council of Telemedicine and Telehealth (CBTms) is a private and nonprofit organization. Since it's founding in 2002, CBTms has been promoting the development of Telemedicine and Telehealth in Brazil.

 

The CBTms objectives are:

  • Assembling doctors, health professionals and others, as well as entities and organizations of any legal nature, who are interested in Telemedicine and Telehealth .
  • Propose, analyze, stimulate technical standards, as well as ethical proficiency in Telemedicine and Telehealth, in accordance with the bodies of law to facilitate and improve the practice of Telemedicine and Telehealth in Brazil.
  • Promote and encourage research, studies and courses in telemedicine and Telehealth, as well as continuing education programs for all types of health professionals.
  • Collaborate with public authorities and private entities in the implementation, maintenance and development of good practices in Telemedicine and Telehealth.
  • Promote scientific activities and joint actions with national and international institutions or government agencies to promote and improve healthcare universal coverage.

The insertion of CBTms in national and international scientific communities has been achieved through the biannual promotion of Scientific Conferences, as follows:

2003 - S�o Paulo: I Congresso do CBTms, Centro de Conven��es Rebou�as.

2005 - Sao Paulo: II Brazilian and International Congress of Telemedicine and Telehealth in partnership with ISfTeH.

2007 - Rio de Janeiro: III Brazilian Telemedicine and Telehealth Congress

2009 - Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. IV Congresso Brasileiro de Telemedicina e Telessa�de - II Workshop do Laborat�rio de Excel�ncia e Inova��o em Telessa�de - Am�rica Latina e Europa.

2011- Manaus, Amazon: V Brazilian Telemedicine and Telehealth Congress.

2013 - Sao Paulo: VI - Congresso Brasileiro de Telemedicina e Telessa�de - Avan�a Sa�de Brasil.

 

Read more here. 

_______________________________________

 

A different ISfTeH Member will be spotlighted each quarter.
Board Member Spotlight
Anthony Maeder

Anthony Maeder is Professor in Health Informatics at the University of Western Sydney, and was previously Research Director of the CSIRO eHealth Research Centre in Brisbane from 2004. Prior to that, he followed an academic career as Head of School in Engineering at University of Ballarat and subsequently at Queensland University of Technology Electrical and Electronic Systems Engineering. His earlier appointments were at Monash University in the Department of Computer Science, where he undertook his PhD in Software Engineering. His areas of active research include eHealth and Telehealth, Software Engineering, Digital Imaging, Data Mining and Visualization, and Human Factors.  In 2013 he was appointed Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Department of Information Systems at Rhodes University, and Honorary Professor in the School of Nursing and Public Health at University of KwaZulu-Natal. 

 

At University of Western Sydney, Anthony established the Telehealth Research and Innovation Laboratory (THRIL) in 2010.  This facility consists of a human-computer interaction space for visual collaboration activities, and a "Smart Home for Health" experimental unit.  This provides a flexible setting with moveable walls and furnishings, equipped with various embedded sensor technologies to allow different independent living or care giving situations to be modelled.  Subjects' activities (such as daily living tasks, or health alert events) are monitored by the integrated data capture environment, and augmented by data streams from wearable devices. THRIL is associated with the Australian national Centre for Research Excellence in Telehealth.

 

Anthony is active professionally with several different organisations in Engineering and Health Informatics.  He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Australia and serves as an academic assessor on their national accreditation panels.  He was the foundation President of the Australian Pattern Recognition Society in 1991, and foundation Vice-President of the Australasian Telehealth Society in 2010. He is currently chair of the Standards Australia IT-14-12 Telehealth Subcommittee and a member of the IT-14 Health Informatics Committee Australian delegation to ISO/CEN meetings. He was a Board Member of the Health Informatics Society of Australia and their representative on IMIA WG1 (Education) until 2011.  He is currently co-chair of the IMIA Working Group on Telehealth.  He was elected to the ISfTeH Board in Dec 2013, and has previously served on the International Governing Boards of IAPR and MICCAI.  

_______________________________________

 

A different ISfTeH Member will be spotlighted each quarter.
ISfTeH Board Members
                          
Changes in the Board
                              

Mr. Steven Normandin has served on the ISfTeH Board for two consecutive terms of 3 years, representing the corporate membership. He has also acted as Vice-President of the Board since 2012. As a member of the executive committee, Steven made important contributions to structuring the financial basis of the Society and ensuring that the Society operated efficiently and effectively. Furthermore, Steven acted as the dedicated international liaison to our partners abroad. His expert view on the worldwide business potential of telemedicine helped the Society benefit greatly from a time of rapid growth in international telemedicine.

 

We very much appreciated his great support and loyalty to the Society over all these years. 

                                        

Prof. Dr. Rupert Gerzer has served as a National Member on the ISfTeH Board for the last 3 years. As former Chair of the Science Council of the City of Cologne and a member of the Medical Advisory Board to the German Minister of Defense since 2008, Prof. Gerzer placed his vast medical and consultancy know-how at the disposal of the Society. In great demand, Prof. Gerzer has also been head of the University Council of the University of Applied Sciences Bonn Rhein-Sieg and of the DLR Institute of Aerospace Medicine during his tenure on the Board. We thank him for his valuable time and expertise.

 

In the name of the ISfTeH I sincerely thank both leaving Board Members for their efforts and wish them all the best in their private and professional futures.

 

At the same time, it is my pleasure to announce two new Board Members. Dr. Markus Lindlar, President of the German Society of Health Telematics joins us as the new National Member. Also, Dr. Roberto Rocci, CEO of MediTel Italy joins us as a Corporate Member. Please join me in wishing them both a warm welcome.

 

Dr. Andy Fischer
President ISfTeH  

ISfTeH Member News 

 

Institutional Member News

 

AKDN's CAHSS Project Wins Manthan Award for eHealth

 Aga Khan Development Network eHealth Resource Centre (Pakistan)


The AKDN eHRC is proud to announce that the eHealth Programme under Central Asia Health Systems Strengthening (CAHSS) Project has won the 2014 Manthan Award in the eHealth category. The award recognises the best use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and digital tools to create holistic and comprehensive impact on people in South Asia and Asia Pacific.

 

The CAHSS Project was selected as one of seven finalists in the eHealth category which identifies applications and initiatives that provide health-related solutions through the use of ICT. The Project was later declared a winner at the 11th annual Manthan Conference and Awards for Best South Asian Digital Content held in New Delhi, India, on December 4, 2014. The AKDN eHealth Programme beat out several finalists from South Asia to win the award. 

    

"It is such an honor to see the eHealth Programme under the CAHSS Project receive the Manthan Award and be recognised on an international platform," said Saleem Sayani, Director, AKDN eHRC. "Not only does this award acknowledge AKDN's significant efforts to provide high-quality, low-cost, equitable health care through eHealth to communities in South-Central Asia, it also validates the importance of and need for such projects, especially in the developing world. I only hope that this is the first of many such awards and honors for AKDN and its eHealth programmes and initiatives." To learn more about the CAHSS Project, click here. 

_________________________

 

Corporate Member News

 

The First Telemedicine Center in Abu Dhabi

MEDGATE (Switzerland)

Together with its partner Mubadala, an Abu Dhabi based investment and development company, Medgate has opened its first Telemedicine Center outside Switzerland. Abu Dhabi Telemedicine Centre's patients can receive medical consultations over the phone from expert physicians - in Arabic and English - around the clock. The patients' calls are answered by Telemedical Nurses (licensed and experienced healthcare personnel), who take down the patients' health concerns and organize callbacks from the physicians. Within 30 minutes, physicians call the patients for full medical consultations. Eligible patients need not provide any credit card details before, during, or after their teleconsultation, as the Centre bills Daman directly, as with any clinic or hospital visit. By the end of the call the patients have the medical guidance to treat their conditions and manage their care.

 

Abu Dhabi Telemedicine Centre's medical teleconsultation services are offered exclusively to customers of the local health insurer Daman - who since July have been able to receive expert medical advice over the phone at any time, from any place. Read more.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

 

DOCTOR 24/7 Project

TELE-MT (Russia) 

 

November 2014: the DOCTOR 24/7 project has been selected as one of 30 companies out of more than 250 that took part in the "Innovation Projects Track" during the Russian Interactive Week 2014. The interest for the project was very high, indicating also that the interest for Telemedicine in general and remote health control technologies is strongly growing in Russia. We also got the opportunity to introduce the project related to "pregnant women monitoring"  to the Minister for Telecommunication and Mass Communications of Russia. He found the project and the deployed technologies used quite up to date and extremely important. Our TELEMEDICINE TECHNOLOGIES team will introduce this project in details to the Minister during another personel meeting set for next month.

_______________________

 

Individual Member News

   

eNCA�s Tech Report- Checkout the YouTube Interview with Makano Mosidi and Dr Molefi  

sent in by Dr. Moretlo Molefi (South Africa)

 

Please see below YouTube link to the story covered around Telemedicine Africa and the partnership with Dimension Data, Internet Solutions, IDC and MTN. Makano has been a great support and advocate of this technology and in Makano's own words and I quote "Technology will play a critical role in South Africa's ability to deliver quality healthcare, a crucial element of community upliftment and well-being. What's particularly exciting is that we will enable improved service delivery in health, and in turn thousands of citizens who are not able to physically travel to hospitals can get assistance via the telemedicine facility," says Makano Mosidi.

How do we fit in? Dimension Data is providing the ICT Infrastructure and is responsible for the connectivity set-up between the hub and the referring sites, facility preparation and on-going support and maintenance. Internet Solutions is supplying the bandwidth to enable the telemedicine services and host these services on their cloud. Check out the clip and well done to our Public Sector Executive, Makano Mosidi and Dr Moretlo Molefi and Sherinda Chakwawa from TMA for flying the Dimension Data flag high and making us proud.

 

Click the link to view: http://youtu.be/_QVMV7Wo9kU

_________________________

 

Student Member News

 

Ingrida Jaselskyte (Lithuania)

 

I would be interested in organizing randomized trials changing behaviour of lifestyle, monitoring big data or checking efficiency of measures from the Public Health perspective. If any wearable devices could be used, this would offer great possibilities to collaborate with private companies. Furthermore, how to analyze the earth's magnetic field interactions and its possible impact on human health is another subject open for much deeper future discussions.

 

Please contact me at [email protected]
Working Groups 

 

WoW (Working Group on Women)  

 

Women Session at Med-e-Tel 2015

  

For its third participation the Working group on Women (WoW) and its partners, Millennia2025 Foundation, Connecting Nurses, Connecting Midwives and Klughammer, is organising a Women and eHealth session at Med-e-Tel 2015.

 

The selected theme is "Empowering Women in Telemedicine and eHealth through Education". The session aims at creating the momentum along the various tools for education using ICTs to reach women as beneficiaries, healthcare professionals and leaders in Telemedicine and eHealth.

Speakers will be coming from South East Asia, Central and Latin America and Europe. Participants will be proposed to share their experiences in education with the speakers during an open dialogue session. Young women are encouraged to share their experience and ideas in the session. We hope to have a creative and fruitful session.

 

You are welcome to submit an abstract ASAP.

 

The WoW team

____________________________

 

Tele-Ophthalmology 

 

Prof. Yogesan Kanagasingam has been nominated as one of the finalists for Australian of the Year 2015, in honour of his work in Telemedicine and Ophtalmology. Read more here.

Announcements

ISfTeH Discussion Forum

 

A discussion forum is open on the ISfTeH website, and is accessible to all duly registered members. Login with your username and password and you will see the "Discussion Forum" appearing on the top menu toolbar. In the Discussion Forum you will find the list of ongoing discussions or messages.

 

We encourage all members to use regularly this communication tool and to participate as such in dissemination of available experiences and information. 

 

Should you have any additional questions, please submit via: [email protected]