Mental health chiefs in the West Midlands have chosen an e-prescribing system from Ascribe after winning £500K from a government fund to improve patient safety. Ascribe, part of EMIS Group, will provide its Electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration (ePMA) system to Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust.

The COCIR New Code, setting the standard for member companies in their interactions with healthcare professionals, preannounced in May 2014, is now enforced since 1 January 2015. It contains additional guidance on topics such as public procurement of medical technology, industry support of third party conferences, provision of educational grants and interactions with independent third parties (e.g. agents, distributors and consultants).

Population health management specialist Orion Health™ has been named as top-ranked vendor in the annual Clinician Network Management (CNM) report from Chilmark Research. This follows just weeks after the company's work on the Northern Ireland Electronic Care Record (NIECR) helped win both the HSJ Award for "Enhancing care by sharing data and information" and EHI Award for "Best use of IT to support integrated health services" in recognition of its outstanding contribution to informatics.

By Jane Rendall, UK Managing Director at Sectra.
When I started my career as a radiographer some 20 years ago, I was in awe of the NHS. Its brand and its sheer size was and still is like no other organisation anywhere in the world. But it did not take long to learn that this national institution does not fully harness its potential reach, power and influence as a provider or as a customer.

iMDsoft announced that Kerckhoff Klinik in Germany has implemented the MetaVision clinical information system across their entire continuum of care. The hospital, which specialises in cardiothoracic, vascular and rheumatic diseases, now uses MetaVision in their OR, ICU, general ward and intermediate care unit, in a total of 317 beds.

Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG; AEX: PHIA) and Volcano Corporation (NASDAQ:VOLC), a global leader in catheter-based imaging and measurement solutions for cardiovascular applications, have entered into a definitive merger agreement.

Agfa HealthCare has announced that the Cremona Hospital and the Oglio Po Hospital, both part of the Azienda Ospedaliera 'Istituti Ospitalieri' di Cremona, in Italy, are upgrading to direct radiography (DR) with Agfa HealthCare's Fast Forward program. The wireless DX-D 100 was chosen for its image quality, potential dose reduction capability and ergonomic, easy-to-use design.