March 1, 2007 - Agfa HealthCare has received the 2007 Frost and Sullivan American Medical Informatics Competitive Strategy Leadership of the Year award for execution of strategy set to reinforce the company�s position as a leading provider of medical informatics solutions for the healthcare enterprise and for its competitive strategy in the North American medical market.

Merge Healthcare recently announced the name of its North American direct business unit will be changed from Merge eMed to Merge Healthcare North America.

"The shift follows a significant reorganization initiative that has unfolded over the past few months to better align our cost and revenue structures, reduce operational redundancies across the organization, and optimize synergies and economies of scale from the 2005 merger," said Kenneth Rardin, Merge Healthcare CEO.

March 1, 2007 � Plasmon, Inc., rolled out three new archiving solutions at HIMSS 2007 that included UDO2, UDO Archive Appliance and UDO Archive Appliance Xpress, as part of the company�s strategy to provide long-term archiving solutions that do not go obsolete.

March 1, 2007 – Siemens Medical Solutions demonstrated at HIMSS 2007 its new web-enabled addition to the syngo Suite, allowing radiologists to use digital dictation, 3-D viewing tools and lab results from anywhere.

The single-sign on system uses progressive transfer of DICOM images, reportedly securely transferring up to 50 MB per second, point-to-point over WAN Wifi.

March 1, 2007 � GE Healthcare announced at HIMSS 2007 that it has launched the first site using Centricity Web, allowing radiologists to access both an EMR and PACS online.

Radiologists using the beta site, www.urologyofcolorado.com, have reportedly been successful in sending EMR orders into the PACS, use a DICOM modality worklist and send links to results and images back into the EMR system. Centricity web is now commercially available.

February 26, 2007 - In the next decade the amount of healthcare providers and patients will have access to twice as much data, stressed Microsoft Corporation CEO Steve Ballmer is the keynote address of HIMSS 2007. The key, he said, is managing that data.

�There�s going to be an explosion in the amount of data for healthcare providers (and consumers),� said Ballmer. �There�s only one path to deal with all that, and it�s automation.�

March 1, 2007 - Neurostar Solutions debuted at HIMSS 2007 its next-generation version 6.4 Virtual Radiology Network (VRN) clinical image workflow platform, a web-based solution for converting to a digital radiology environment, enabling users to outsource reading radiologists.

Feb. 26, 2007 — Microsoft Corp. announced a deal to acquire Medstory Inc., a developer of intelligent Web search technology specifically for health information, representing a strategic move for Microsoft in the consumer health search arena and signals a long-term commitment toward the development of a broader consumer health strategy.
Medstory’s intuitive technology is designed to improve access to health information and empowers consumers to make better-informed health decisions.

By Mary Beth Massat

Interoperability and integration are once again two key issues addressed at this year’s HIMSS conference. Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) showcased system and device interoperability in its exhibit by following the path of a patient through the care process. In each step, the exhibit demonstrated the integration of systems by enabling the electronic transfer of the patient record from an ambulatory to an acute care environment.

Brit Systems Inc. has rolled out a clinical context object workgroup-enabled workstation, Brit Lite, which uses vendor-independent HL7 CCOW standards. This enables viewing of medical images and reports within a patient context set by disparate clinical applications at the point of care. Lite integrates multivendor and multispecialty applications with a single interface, single log on, and sharing of patient context information among different applications associated with the electronic medical record.

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