Article of the Month!

Agfa HealthCare, a leading provider of diagnostic imaging and healthcare IT solutions, has signed over 40 new agreements for its leading Hospital/Clinical Information System ORBIS since January 2009. ORBIS, available in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Belgium and Luxembourg is a hospital-wide IT solution which manages and monitors all patient-oriented processes: medical, nursing, administrative and business.

Aintree University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has gone live with a trust-wide clinical information system from System C Healthcare. Over 1,000 Aintree users, including 700 clinicians, went live with Medway Sigma Clinician's Desktop last week.

One of the main challenges of computed tomography (CT) is to provide excellent image quality while exposing patients to the lowest possible dose of radiation. Reductions in dose application typically lead to increased image noise and loss of image quality.

Australia's largest listed health information technology company has announced contracts totaling about £3 million ($5.4 million) for new hospital information systems at two NHS trusts in England. Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust this month agreed to a six-year contract worth £2.04 million ($3.7 million), while NHS Wandsworth has signed a three-year £965,000 ($1.7 million) deal.

Interoperability and eHealth might at first glance appear as very different concepts - but the actual relationship between the two is extremely important. Microsoft recently hosted a session on interoperability and standards in eHealth as part of its overall interoperability series.

A simple new score which can predict the risk of patients suffering fractured bones due to osteoporosis has been developed using the QResearch database. The algorithm, QFractureScores, can be used by clinicians and patients and calculates an individual's percentage risk of an osteoporotic fracture over the next ten years, allowing early intervention to take place.

Siemens Healthcare presents "Healthcare Lighting", a concept for lighting design in medical facilities, aimed at creating a friendly and colorful environment instead of the common bland hospital atmosphere. Practical experience to date shows that many patients feel more comfortable and are more relaxed when the examination room or the diagnostic device is flooded with colored light and relaxing music is even played at the same time.