Sponsor/Exhibitor Visitor Educational
Program 		Hotel
Travel 		Press
Center 		Partners Proceedings Knowledge
Resources
News: Newsletter 5

back

 

March 8, 2002

In this newsletter:

  • Details of the Telemedicine Trade Fair's educational programs
  • Attendee update
  • Vitaphone: telemedicine and disease management
  • Philips brings more introductions to the Telemedicine Trade Fair
  • DICOMDISK and DICOMZIP: convenient PC viewing and high performance image compression products from Insitut für Telematik
  • ITU/BDT implements another telemedicine project in Africa
  • Australian E-Health Market Report
  • TIE: global navigational tool for telemedicine
  • More information on telemedicine information resources at the Telemedicine Trade Fair's Media Corner
  • Bringing the fun back to the fair!


As outlined in the previous newsletter, the Telemedicine Trade Fair's educational sessions will consist of several different programs (click on the titles below to see the list of presentations and speakers).

  • A first one are the parallel sessions. For a listing of these 30 minute presentations, made by exhibiting companies and other field experts, click here.
  • A second series of programs are the plenary sessions with contributions by European Commission - IST Program, NATO Telemedicine Panel and International Telecommunication Union.
  • Then there are two programs organized by AMMD & Schweitzer Insurances (www.risk-management.lu), namely the 3rd Luxembourg Risk Management Workshop and E-Health Risk Management Luxembourg Conference.
  • Also a Conference on Telemedicine organized by the Luxembourg Society of Nuclear Medicine (SLMN), sponsored by AGFA, will take place during the Telemedicine Trade Fair.
  • A Lunch Debate organized by Deloitte & Touche, Health Centre of Excellence will also be among the events held in conjunction with the Telemedicine Trade Fair.

The 3rd Risk Management Workshop and E-Health Risk Management Conference, the Conference on Telemedicine, and the Deloitte & Touche Lunch Debate require an invitation by the organizing instances. For information, feel free to contact us at . Finally, there are some closed meetings scheduled which will not be open to the public (Board Meeting of the European Association of Hospital Managers, Meeting of the NATO Telemedicine Panel).
For a complete overview of the schedule of all events taking place during the Telemedicine & Telecare International Trade Fair, click here.


Attendee registrations from 43 countries worldwide have now already been received. If you have not yet registered, and in order to speed up your registration formalities upon your arrival at the trade fair itself, make sure to send in your visitor registration form in advance. Your personalized entrance badge will then be ready for you upon your arrival and you will be all set to participate during 3 days in the exhibition, educational programs and social events.


Vitaphone is a service provider with state-of-the-art solutions for the healthcare industry in the telemedical sector. Its international patents for key technologies for the data transmission of biosignals via mobile telephone have made Vitaphone the market leader in this sector, and it continues to set new standards.
As a pioneer in the telemedical sector, Vitaphone provides support to both primary care physicians and specialists and enables them to optimize their treatment of patients with chronic illnesses and their families. Vitaphone’s focus is on improving diagnostics and therapy. For patients, this means regaining mobility and security, which leads to a vast increase in quality of life. Optimized diagnostics and therapy bring about improvement in the quality of treatment, results and patient care in the area of chronic illness. With its services and products, Vitaphone provides patients, physicians and insurers with effective tools for disease management.
Now Vitaphone’s Herz Handy® makes it possible for heart patients to record, store and send an EKG at any time and without any assistance. Internists and cardiologists at the Vitaphone Service Center evaluate the EKGs and send them to the patient’s physician. In an emergency the doctor can discuss whatever measures may be required with the patient and can inform the emergency service provider. Using the GPS satellite navigation system which is integrated into the Herz Handy®, the patient’s location can be determined and mapped within a radius of approximately 15 meters.
With the VasoPhone® mobile phone, blood pressure levels can be transmitted all over the world. In Germany, the Vitaphone Service Center evaluates the data using software made especially for this purpose, after which they are provided to physicians and patients. One of the benefits of this technology is the easy and cost-efficient monitoring of the success of the treatment for hypertension without the patient needing to go to the doctor’s office.
For more details about these and other Vitaphone products and services, click here, and make sure to arrange a meeting with them at the Telemedicine Trade Fair.


Philips Healthcare Professional Services introduces a videoconferencing and telemedicine solution - VISU at the Telemedicine & Telecare International Trade Fair in Luxembourg. VISU is a teleconsulting solution that enables clinicians to integrate medical information and share it in real-time with other experts and colleagues at different locations. The contents of any patient file can be shared and discussed remotely, instantly, effortlessly, and with total security. Clinicians can share everything from X-rays, CT and MRI Scans, to still and dynamic ultrasound images, video sequences, audio notes and lab results etc. VISU has been developed in cooperation with Philips’ partner ETIAM.
The Philips Clinical Assessment System (CAS) helps manage the demand for health services. Too often, patients with urgent conditions are kept waiting while scarce resources are devoted to treating patients who, with a little knowledge, could be treated just as effectively at home. CAS is a triage solution, triage being the process of assessing patients at the outset, broadly categorising their conditions, prioritising them according to urgency and then allocating them to the most appropriate levels of care. What’s new to this solution is the application of electronic decision-support tools to help expedite the work of experienced triage nurses. The software behind CAS has proved its resilience worldwide over five years. Most notably, it was selected by the British National Health Service to drive NHS Direct, the UK’s free, national call-centre-based assessment and advice service. The CAS solution can be applied both in call-centre applications, and in hospital environments, such as Accident and Emergency.
Philips Medical Systems is a division of Royal Philips Electronics. To find out more about Philips Medical Systems and about Philips HeartCare Telemedicine Services (see previous newsletter), visit them at the Telemedicine & Telecare International Trade Fair in Luxembourg in April.


The Trier based Institut für Telematik (Institute for Telematics), Germany's leading research center specializing in telemedicine, has developed a Patient CD System (DICOMDISK) that allows physicians to create user-friendly, mobile and transferable patient files quickly and provides a tool for compact long-term storage of image data. Images obtained during X-ray, CRT, MRT and ultra-sonic examinations can be stored more conveniently and less costly thanks to the Patient CD System. The system also facilitates the exchange of data.
The Institut für Telematik has also developed an image compression system (DICOMZIP) that reduces internet transmission speeds for medical images from several hours to just a few seconds - a product that will be especially beneficial for emergency medical services. Despite extreme compression rates, no information is lost. More information and demonstrations of these products will be available at the Telemedicine Trade Fair, or click here for further details.


The Telecommunication Development Bureau of the International Telecommunication Union has recently finalized the implementation of a telemedicine project in Senegal. This project was initiated by Sonatel, the main telecommunication operator in Senegal. Sonatel also provided the financial support for the project. All medical applications were coordinated with the Ministry of Health. In line with their needs, three hospitals in three different cities namely Dakar Fann, St. Lous and Djourbel were connected to one telemedicine network using ISDN technology. The telemedicine network will allow to provide distance consultation including medical images transmission and also video sessions when required.
ITU will present several of its projects at the Telemedicine Trade Fair together with project representatives from Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa and with the technology providers of some of these projects


CHIC, the Collaborative Health Informatics Centre, has published an Australian E-Health Market 2001-2004 Report. This study includes a review of both the supply side (IT&T vendors) and demand side (healthcare organisations) of the Australian Health IT&T market. The main objectives of the study are to investigate the current major IT trends and issues in the healthcare sector in Australia, including the major issues affecting the use and implementation of IT (e.g., staff resourcing and emerging technologies), as well as to gain a clear picture of the IT industry supplying to the sector.
An executive summary of the market report can be found by clicking here (including contact details to order the full report) and will also be available at the Telemedicine Trade Fair.


TIE, the Telemedicine Information Exchange, has provided comprehensive telemedicine information on the web since 1995. The TIE is widely regarded as one of the best online resources for telemedicine information for healthcare professionals, researchers, government agency staff and the general public. Information on the TIE is produced with the excellent research and programming capabilities of its staff, as well as input from its users. The TIE's design has received recognition from several web evaluation sites such as MedExplorer, Britannica Internet Guide, Webdata and HardinMD. The TIE is a dynamic data-driven site comprised of focused databases, special collections, and a variety of services for its users. Two of the most popular features are the Biobliographic Database, which offers more than 10.000 citations to the literature of telemedicine, and the What's New column, a bimonthly review of events and news in telemedicine.
Additional TIE information will be available at the Telemedicine Trade Fair's Media Corner.


In addition to the above mentioned TIE, the Media Corner at the Telemedicine Trade Fair will also feature information from a number of other publications, media services and information resources, covering specific telemedicine applications or covering healthcare topics in general. For a list of Media Corner participants, click here. To follow are already details of some of the Media Corner participants:

  • The Royal Society of Medicine Press will provide information on their Teledermatology Guide, Introduction to Telemedicine book, and their highly regarded journal in this field: Journal of Telemedicine & Telecare. To browse the Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare table of contents back to 1996 or to download a free sample issue, click here.
  • Information for Tomorrow is an independent healthcare research and consulting company which specializes in home telemedicine tools and applications. Since 1995 (a lifetime in the very short history of home telehealth), they have produced informational reports that identify key developments underway in the rapidly emerging home telehealthcare arena. Presentations and reports on home telemedicine from Information For Tomorrow are the results of specialized scouring of informational resources, an informed eye to significant details, and personal interviews with experts in this emerging field.
  • The Academic Exchange Quarterly (AEQ) journal will feature in the Fall 2002 issue topics devoted to education in the fields of health informatics and telemedicine. For anyone interested in submitting a manuscript for publication in this issue, see here for the call for papers and instructions.
  • HESI, Healthcare Equipment Supplies International, will feature a telemedicine special in their April issue. For a free copy of the magazine, visit them at the Telemedicine Trade Fair or come by the Media Corner to pick up your personal copy. For information on how to still feature your products or services in the April issue, directly.


In his introduction to the Wilmington Publishing 2001/2002 Diary of Healthcare Exhibitions and Conferences, Alan Cork made a plea to "bring back the fun to the fairs", commenting that conference and exhibition delegates are usually away from home for several days, working very hard, but that it doesn't have to be so serious all the time. We want to respond to this plea by inviting all our exhibitors, visitors, speakers and partners to attend the Welcome Reception, scheduled on Wednesday April 10th at 6pm in the beautiful Cercle Municipal at the Places d'Armes in the very heart of Luxembourg city (see no. 20 on map for exact location). It will be a great "get together" in a relaxed and informal environment after a hard day's work, an opportunity to meet with old friends and get introduced to new colleagues. Without any doubt, it will also be a great networking opportunity, as we all know that a lot of important contacts are initiated during such social events.
On the second evening of the Telemedicine Trade Fair (Thursday April 11th) everyone is again invited to a reception (at the FIL exhibition center) which will follow the plenary debate "Show me the Market!" (more details about this debate will follow in an upcoming newsletter).
Apart from these social events, the exhibition and educational sessions itself will of course feature lots of exciting and entertaining introductions and presentations.

 
 

back