Five big U.S. employers launched a computerized health record system for employees on Wednesday that they hope will help set a standard for America's messy health care system, and save money and lives.

Patients would control who can see their records, which they can access even if they change jobs or doctors.

The five companies will make the system -- which will store an individual's information on a secure Web site -- available to their 2.5 million employees and retirees next year.

The World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre on Patient Safety (Solutions), the World Alliance for Patient Safety and the Commonwealth Fund today announced a seven-country collaborative project that will leverage the implementation of five standardized patient safety solutions to prevent avoidable catastrophic events in hospitals. The "Action on Patient Safety" project will be coordinated by the WHO Collaborating Centre, which is led by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and its affiliate Joint Commission International.

Siemens Medical Solutions has introduced the Axiom Luminos dRF, a new remote fluoroscopy system with flat detector technology, and announced enhancements to the Axiom Aristos FX Plus, the company’s fully automatic digital radiography system.

Luminos is a remote radiographic and fluoroscopic solution with FD technology that makes the system a fully digital solution for fluoroscopic and radiographic examinations. The system is specially designed for fluoroscopy imaging of obese patients, supporting up to 500 pounds static weight.

The University of Maryland's Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center is among the first cancer centers in the nation to treat patients with Trilogy, a new image-guided radiation therapy system from Varian Medical Systems that delivers high-dose radiation to even the smallest tumors. The equipment can target an area as small as a pencil point, minimizing the damage to healthy tissue. It also reportedly delivers radiation doses more than 60 percent faster than conventional linear accelerators used to treat cancer, which means that patients can receive treatments in much less time.

A key milestone in the imaging of Alzheimer’s Disease has been reached by radiochemists from the University of Pittsburgh and GE Healthcare. The university is conducting a study aimed at obtaining preliminary information on the performance of flourine-18 labelled Pittsburgh Compound B (F-18 PiB) to identify amyloid deposits in subjects with a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. Early results are encouraging, researchers said.

Medicsight PLC and 3mensio Medical Imaging BV have announced a partnership agreement to incorporate Medicsight's ColonCAD and LungCAD image analysis software tools within 3mensio’s medical imaging product offerings.

The full line of Infinix-i series 3-D vascular labs from Toshiba America Medical Systems Inc. were displayed during the Radiological Society of North America’s annual meeting in Chicago last month.

The systems, including the Infinix VC-i/3D vascular X-ray, are designed to improve visualization of structures and devices when conducting complex vascular procedures, Toshiba said. The planning tools available for Infinix reportedly improve the visualization of bones and vessels to assist in surgical planning and enhance the accuracy of interventional procedures.

Toshiba America Medical Systems Inc. demonstrated software upgrades for its Aquilion series of CT scanners. The Version 3.0 software improvements include enhanced DICOM protocols and upgraded user interface for fluoroscopy applications. The new software began shipping in August. Enhancements include a new V3 software release on the CT console that enables faster scanning and data analysis, intended to improve efficiency and achieve more accurate diagnoses.

Durable balloon angioplasties can be done without exposure to contrast material or radiation, when performing endovascular treatment of occlusive and stenotic lesions of the femoral- popliteal arterial segment. Research about this new treatment was published in the December issue of the Journal for the Society of Vascular Surgery.

Toshiba America Medical Systems, Inc. introduced at RSNA the first floor-mounted, multi-axis vascular X-ray system in its latest addition to the Infinix-i series family - the Infinix VFi/BP, a system designed to provide flexibility for greater patient access.

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