Four new serious healthcare games by Dutch gaming companies

Four Dutch gaming companies dug deep into the complex topic of patient safety for a week. Advised and guided by Dutch Game Garden, medical doctors and medical students they each developed concepts for games to help improve patient safety in hospitals.
More information can be found here (in Dutch)

Health data protection standards developed by ISO

Hospital IT Europe featured an article on a new standard developed by ISO which focuses on health data protection.

The International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) has published a new technical specification which will increase protection of personal health information processed, stored and transferred by computer systems for subsequent use by clinicians and others in healthcare organisations. 

ISO/TS 14265:2011, Health informatics - Classification of purposes for processing personal health information defines a set of high-level categories of purposes for which such personal health information can be processed.

The abstract from the ISO website describes the standard as:

ISO/TS 14265:2011 defines a set of high-level categories of purposes for which personal health information can be processed. This is in order to provide a framework for classifying the various specific purposes that can be defined and used by individual policy domains (e.g. healthcare organizations, regional health authorities, jurisdictions, countries) as an aid to the consistent management of information in the delivery of health care services and for the communication of electronic health records across organizational and jurisdictional boundaries.

The scope of application of ISO/TS 14265:2011 is limited to Personal Health Information as defined in ISO 27799, information about an identifiable person that relates to the physical or mental health of the individual, or to provision of health services to the individual.

Radiology: Virtual colonoscopy effective screening tool in older patients

Virtual colonoscopy has been around for a long time already and since the beginning the clinical value was debated. A recent publication in Radiology suggests that it can be used as a primary screening tool for colorectal cancer in adults over the age of 65. There was no significant difference in the accuracy of CT colonography for the detection of large and intermediate-sized adenomatous lesions in participants aged 65 years or older compared with that in younger participants; per-participant sensitivity and specificity among the older and younger cohorts were 0.82 and 0.83 and 0.92 and 0.86, respectively. Radiology: Virtual colonoscopy effective screening tool in older patients

Are free Apps a security hazard for patient privacy?

"You might want to think twice the next time you download a free app to your smartphone. That app could be riddled with malware able to steal information stored on your phone, according to IEEE Fellow Jeffrey Voas. It pays to be extra cautious now, Voas says, because mobile hacking is on the rise, with free apps possibly the most popular tool for gaining access." 

This is the first sentence of a news item at the IEEE 'the Institute' website. If this is actually true the increased use of apps in the medical arena could potentially lead to a privacy risk for patients. An increasing amount of apps are (freely) available that allow to record patient information and data to facilitate the work of the physician and have the information available on their mobile device. However, as shown in the research mentioned above, this could potentially lead to access to that data by others than the physician. The researchers only scanned Android apps,  where the risk may be higher than with Apple because of the fact that every app going into the Apple appstore is checked. In 280000 Android apps scanned they found some kind of malware in about 1 percent of the apps. The actual percentage could be higher because not all malware can be easily detected.

Frugal innovation in healthcare

In Technisch Weekblad of February 18, 2012 an article was published on Frugal Innovation (in Dutch). In frugal innovation the aim is to design prodcuts such that they can be used in less develope countries by taking 80 to 90 percent of the price.
One example they discuss is the development in India by Neurosynaptic, a company that develops medical technology. They have developed a kit that can measure heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, an oxygen. Furthermore, camera, computer and networkconnection is included for below €400. One consult this way only costs about 70 eurocents! Using this they can help patients in rural areas by deploying and using the kit locally and have a medical docter at the other end of the line in the city that can read out all the values and have contact with the patient via video conferencing.
The system works at 32 KB/s datlines and can handle the irregular power supply in India.
Surprisingly, this development is now also brought to the developed countries to be used for home monitoring of patients.

Touch screen mouse by logitech

Logitech introduced the Touch Mouse M600 at about €70.
The complete surface of the mouse is a multi-touch screen. The mouse can be programmed with different functions of the touch interface surface and can be easily configured for both left and right handed use. In radiology I envision this mouse could be used to get a more easy and versatile way of scrolling through datasets.

Study: U.S. leads other countries in health IT adoption

The U.S. is a leader in health IT use and adoption by physicians, according to a new eight-country study from consulting, technology services company Accenture. The study, which includes Australia, Canada, England, France, Germany, Singapore, Spain and the U.S., shows that the U.S. is one of the few countries in which health IT penetration is nearly equal among primary physicians and specialists.

Study: U.S. leads other countries in health IT adoption

Top 10 uses of iPad in Radiology - SIIM

A SIIM poster by Frederick Weiss discussed the top 10 uses of the iPad in radiology during the SIIM conference in 2011. This poster is now available in text at the SIIM website.

There is also a detailed version available here. However, in my case it took a long time to load the 7.5MB pdf  from their site, so be patient.

Pocket Physio app launched for knee surgery patients

UK Specialist Hospitals (UKSH), an independent healthcare provider to the NHS, has launched a physiotherapy app – Pocket Physio – for patients undergoing major hip and knee surgery. It is available in the AppStore.

Pocket Physio is the first physiotherapy app designed by an orthopaedic provider specifically to help improve patients’ recoveries.

UKSH has also made it freely available in the UK to anyone interested in finding out more about the physiotherapy involved in hip and knee surgery.

Hosital IT Europe

GE Healthcare and Microsoft unite to form Caradigm developing clinical apps on open technology platform

GE Healthcare and Microsoft have announced senior executives and the name of their joint health IT venture, which was announced in December. 

The new company, called Caradigm, is expected to launch in the first half of this year.

By developing clinical apps on an open and interoperable technology platform, Caradigm seeks to outfit health systems with system-wide intelligence meant to improve population health management.

Hospital IT Europe

JAMIA: Cloud computing, while constrained by regs, could make EHRs more appealing

The cost, complexity and inflexibility associated with traditional EHR systems continues to discourage some healthcare organizations from adopting them and although new approaches like cloud computing could eliminate those barriers to adoption, they are currently constrained by federal regulatory legislation and oversight, according to an article in the March issue of theJournal of the American Medical Informatics Association.

Health Imaging News Portals | Image Management & Informatics | JAMIA: Cloud computing, while constrained by regs, could make EHRs more appealing

JHIM: Data mining is essential to healthcare

“Data mining applications can greatly benefit all parties involved in the healthcare industry,” according to an article published in the February issue of the Journal of Healthcare Information Management.

JHIM: Data mining is essential to healthcare

EuroPACS Newsletter online

The EuroPACS newsletter is online here. Also visit their website for more information http://www.europacs.org/

Healthcare only accounted for 1% of data breaches in 2010

Are Healthcare facilities at the highest level of protection against malicious attacks? Or are they attacked less often compared to others?

In 2010, only 1 percent of the 761 data breaches reported concerned healthcare facilities. This is determined in a security report published by Verizon that can be downloaded here.

Health Imaging News Portals | Healthcare IT | Report: Healthcare only accounted for 1% of data breaches in 2010

Health Imaging News Portals | Healthcare IT | Webinar: Providers should more readily adopt social media

The healthcare industry as a whole has been slow to adopt social media tools and to join online social networks, but the presenters of a HealthWorks Collective webinar said hospitals that aren’t utilizing the modern mode of communication are making a mistake and encouraged them to start now.

Health Imaging News Portals | Healthcare IT | Webinar: Providers should more readily adopt social media

Health Imaging News Portals | Healthcare IT | HIMSS: Vendor-neutral archive can solve PACS problems

Implementation of a vendor-neutral archive (VNA) solves most of the problems associated with PACS, can save money over the long term and can prepare an enterprise to participate in a health information exchange (HIE), according to Michael J. Gray of Gray Consulting who presented during a webinar on Jan. 26 hosted by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and GNAX Health.

Health Imaging News Portals | Healthcare IT | HIMSS: Vendor-neutral archive can solve PACS problems

Smart Hospital Room equipped with RFID tagging

HITExchange cameras give hospitals and healthcare providers nationwide a look inside the RFID Health Consortium's Smart Room, showcasing some of the best RFID capability in healthcare technology

Electronic Ordering with Imaging Decision Support Well Accepted

A study that looked at 4.1 million imaging studies performed at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston between 2000 and 2010 indicates that fears that clinicians may reject electronic ordering of imaging studies with built-in computerized decision support may be unfounded.

The study, which appears in the February issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology, found that implementing a computerized physician order entry (CPOE) system with clinical decision support for radiology had many benefits for the organization and potentially patients as well.

Check out this article on NewsWire and the abstract of the paper.

New Interactive Table

New development based on the Microsoft Surface software by Samsung. They introduce a surface table utilizing a new technology called PixelSense. PixelSense means that the screen can detect motion without the use of cameras.
Building from the innovation of the first version of Microsoft® Surface® and Samsung's leading display technology, it is now possible for people to share, collaborate and explore together using a large, thin display that recognizes fingers, hands and other objects placed on the screen.

Fastfourier transform can be performed faster

Computerscientists of MIT have achieved a significant approvement of the fastfouriertranform which was originally developed in the 1960's. The algorithm is the basis for the image acquisition using Magnetic Resonance Imaging. The new algorithm is a smart version of the original one that looses 9 out of 10 frequences of the Fourier Transfer without any loss of quality. This new development could really speed-up image processing in MRI.

Denmark taps InterSystems for nationwide HIE

Some countries do manage to go for a nationwide HIE system.

Denmark taps InterSystems for nationwide HIE

How Secure Is Cloud-based Image Sharing?

Check out this entry on the security of cloud-based image sharing on Diagnostic Imaging.
They state that interest in cloud-based image sharing has swelled in recent months. The topic has appeared on national conference agendas, and a growing number of vendors now offer clients the ability to transfer images anywhere worldwide. But the rising popularity of sending images via the Internet doesn’t mean everyone in the radiology industry is comfortable with the idea.
I a poll Diagnostic imaging did they found that 70% of respondents are concerned about the security of cloud-based image sharing. Two major concerns are: Will images viewed through the cloud be of high enough quality to render a diagnosis, and will a cloud sharing system protect the large number of patient images effectively?
In this article they discuss these issues with some of the vendors that have cloud-based image sharing on the market today.

Providers should more readily adopt social media

The healthcare industry as a whole has been slow to adopt social media tools and to join online social networks, but the presenters of a HealthWorks Collective webinar said hospitals that aren’t utilizing the modern mode of communication are making a mistake and encouraged them to start now.

“The most important thing that hospitals can be doing is participating in those communities,” said Ed Bennett, who manages web operations for the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore and also maintains a blog, Found in Cache, on social media resources for healthcare professionals.

Webinar: Providers should more readily adopt social media

New serious game in the AppStore: Prognosis

Now availble free to download from the Apple store: Prognosis.
Prognosis provides a large number of cases in which the 'patient' is presented and the user has to go through the process of the clinical case evaluation to come to the diagnosis by a number of multiple choice questions. At the end, the results are rated. Each case will take you a couple of minutes to complete so it is perfect to do a couple of them while waiting for the bus or any other spare time you might have.

Free IPad magazine on HIT

HITExchange magazine is now available for free through the Apple iTunes store. It deliveres an HIT interactive magazine that really starts to use the capabilities of digital magazines to the iPad for free.
HIT Exchange magazine connects healthcare executives who set strategy for their organizations and the IT professionals charged with implementing this strategy throughout their facilities. Each issue covers the most salient IT issues, innovations, and trends from both business and technical perspectives throughout their facilities-reaching more than 72,000 HIT decision makers nationwide.