The TRUMPF iLED surgical and procedure light from TRUMPF Medical Systems won the “Best in Show” and the “Architect’s Choice” awards in the Annual Symposium Distinction Awards competition, which honors design teams and individuals who have made a profound contribution to the healthcare design industry. In addition, it recognizes products exhibited at the Healthcare Facilities Symposium & Expo.

Drinking red wine may help defend against a fatty diet and help obese people live a longer, healthier life. A new study shows obese, middle-aged mice fed a fatty diet supplemented with resveratrol, an antioxidant found in red wine, seemed to be spared most of the unhealthy effects of their extra weight and lived longer than those fed the same fat-laden diet without resveratrol.

Royal Philips announced Thursday that customers rated its Medical Systems division number one in overall service performance for Patient Monitoring Systems and Ultrasound All Systems, comprising Radiology/OB-Gyn and Cardiology instruments, in the annual IMV ServiceTrak surveys. The results of the 2006 IMV analysis also show Philips earning top ranking in overall manufacturer satisfaction for patient monitoring and another first-place ranking for probability of repurchase for both ultrasound and patient monitoring.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued a final rule for Medicare payment for hospital outpatient services in calendar year 2007 that will implement new steps to make payments more accurate and to promote higher quality and value in outpatient care. Included in the final outpatient prospective payment system (OPPS) rule are provisions expanding quality reporting requirement for hospital inpatient services as well as expanding the list of services for which Medicare will make payment to ambulatory surgical centers in 2007.

Mid-Atlantic Group Network of Shared Services (MAGNET), a U.S. healthcare group purchasing organization, signed a five-year contract with Eastman Kodak Company that makes Kodak’s digital imaging products available to MAGNET member facilities.
Under this contract, MAGNET participating healthcare facilities can now purchase Kodak computed radiography systems, Kodak digital radiography systems, Kodak laser imaging systems as well as a variety of x-ray films.

Siemens has been given the okay to acquire the diagnostics division of Bayer Healthcare without restrictions. The approval was granted yesterday by the European Commission, following the earlier approval by U.S. antitrust authorities at the beginning of October. For Siemens, this follows the acquisition of the Diagnostic Products Corp. (DPC) at the end of July. Upon completion of the Bayer acquisition, which is expected by early 2007, both companies will be merged and will operate as "Siemens Medical Solutions Diagnostics."

Eastman Kodak Co.’s Health Group recently launched KODAK Business Diagnostics Services, focused consulting services that enable healthcare facilities to deliver improved productivity, revenue gains and reduced waste when implementing new digital imaging technologies, including picture archiving and communications systems (PACS).

Thinking Systems Corporation released a new version of ThinkingPACS, which supports the new DICOM 3.0 2006 standard for color and grayscale presentation states, key objects and structured reporting.

The University of Wisconsin Comprehensive Cancer Center is the first site in the U.S. to install Siemens’ Inveon, a PET, SPECT and CT hybrid-imaging device, which researchers at the university hope will allow them to better visualize and characterize disease.
Inveon’s modular design allows users to image individually or with all three modalities in combination. The system is instrumental for imaging molecular biomarkers enabling the identification of disease pathways, evaluation of disease progress, tracking response to novel therapies and may speed drug development.

A large California-based study has shown that patients with heart failure who start taking statins, compared with those who don't, will live longer and have a lower hospitalization risk regardless of cholesterol levels, presence or absence of coronary disease, and other CV drug therapies, “Heartwire” reported this week.

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