June 10, 2008 - Press Ganey Associates Inc. today released “The 2008 Emergency Department Pulse Report: Patient Perspectives on American Health Care,” which reports longer emergency department (ED) visits and also indicates communication about delays was the top priority for improvement.
The Emergency Department Pulse Report analyzes the experiences of more than 1.5 million patients treated at 1,656 emergency departments nationwide in 2007.

June 10, 2008 – The design of the University of Chicago Medical Center’s New Hospital Pavilion offers flexibility by basing the entire structure on an innovative grid system, a matrix of modular cubes, that can easily be reconfigured as needed to accommodate a range of uses, from inpatient beds to radiology suites to operating rooms, without changing the basic frame of the building.

June 10, 2008 - World-wide inventors and leaders in radio frequency identification (RFID), bar coding, and other automatic ID technologies will gather at Merrimack College in North Andover, MA for an annual symposium organized by AIDC 100 (Automatic Identification and Data Capture).

Researchers are using speckle tracking imaging in heart ultrasound to monitor the health of transplant acceptance, and clinicians are redefining how to predict and classify the risk of a heart attack among women. These are some of the hot topics being presented at the 19th Annual Scientific Sessions of the American Society of Echocardiography (ASE), June 7-11, in Toronto.



Small and large medical imaging equipment suppliers alike are struggling with slowed equipment sales resulting from tighter capital budgets that stem from the Deficit Reduction Act (DRA) of 2005, which took effect January 1, 2007.
To survive the draconian reimbursement cuts in medical imaging, these suppliers must either adapt or die. The trick is to reduce cost without cutting corners on quality, and a few of the leading manufacturers have found the right formula for doing just that.



Could the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease one day become as routine as treating high cholesterol?



Biomarkers are key indicators for pharmaceutical companies in determining which types of drugs to develop for various clinical indications. Currently, the role of biomarkers is evolving in the clinical setting, assisting in the design of personalized treatments specific to each patient’s condition and genetic make-up.
Aim of biomarkers


June 13, 2008 - The FDA granted tentative approval for Covidien’s Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) for its Kit for the Preparation of Technetium Tc 99m Sestamibi Injection.

Covidien’s tentatively approved product is a generic of Cardiolite, which is a myocardial perfusion imaging agent used for detecting coronary artery disease. The branded product is utilized in nearly 60 percent of the 15 million myocardial perfusion imaging studies performed in the U.S. annually, according to the company.

June 13, 2008 - Codonics brought to SNM 2008, the Virtua Medical Disc Publisher, designed to set a new standard for speed, efficiency and ease of use in automatic disc recorders.

This medical device is a DICOM-compliant network appliance that can concurrently record and label multiple medical studies onto CD and DVD media.

The company will also showcase Integrity, a compact, stand-alone, network-based disc import station that reads, reconciles and stores medical studies.

June 10, 2008 – Screening for lung cancer with computed tomography (CT) may help reduce lung cancer deaths in current and former smokers, but it won’t protect them from other causes of death associated with smoking, according to a new study published in the July issue of the journal Radiology.

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