UK Government Launches National Debate on the Future of Care
Health Secretary Alan Johnson today launched an intense six month debate about the future shape of care and support services. A rapidly ageing population means that in 20 years' time a quarter of the entire adult population will be over 65 and the number of people over 85 will have doubled.
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Top Inventors Honoured at European Inventor of the Year
Medical technologies dominated the field at the European Inventor of the Year Awards, which were handed out at a ceremony in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on 6 May. The inventors of a pioneering antiviral therapy, a new eye-scanning system and a robot surgery process were all honoured for their work, as was the team responsible for making car frames both lighter and safer.
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UCL researchers publish Summary Care Record (SCR) evaluation
A UCL (University College London) research team, led by London GP Professor Trisha Greenhalgh, has published its independent evaluation of the first year of the Summary Care Record (SCR) programme. The team found that although the SCR offers real benefits for treating patients in emergency and unscheduled care settings, the "complicated" technical system needs to be refined before being rolled out.
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EHTEL Paves Way to Sustainable HealthCare
The findings of a report recently published by the European Health Telematics Association (EHTEL) is presented at the eHealth High Level Conference in Portoroz, Slovenia 6-7 May 2008. "Sustainable Telemedicine: paradigms for future-proof healthcare" presents the current achievements and best practice examples drawn from a number of either on-going or completed pilot projects across Europe.
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Simulating Surgery to Reduce Implant Complications
A computer simulation breakthrough could mean fewer medical complications and better surgical outcomes for patients undergoing hip, knee or spinal implant surgery. Each year surgeons across Europe perform a staggering 900,000 hip, knee and spinal implant operations. Implant surgery is one of the most remarkable advances in medical science. Such operations restore increased mobility and a vastly improved quality of life to millions of Europeans.
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European Doctors Catch the eHealth Bug
The majority of European doctors have caught the information technology (IT) bug, according to a new Europe-wide survey on e-health. In total, 87% of European doctors now use a computer in their practices, while 69% have an internet connection. However, lack of training, inadequate technical support and maintenance costs are preventing a wider take-up of e-health applications across Europe.
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Survey Takes Pulse of eHealth in Europe and Prescribes Wider ICT use Among Doctors
The European Commission today published a pan-European survey on electronic services in healthcare (eHealth) that shows 87% of European doctors (General Practitioners) use a computer, 48% with a broadband connection. European doctors increasingly store and send patients' data such as lab reports electronically.
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