E-Health Europe’s industry news roundup 29.02.08

In the first of a new fortnightly series, E-Health Europe rounds up the European industry news for the week ending 29 February.

GEN2PHEN Project – using the Web to study genetic variations

A new project funded by the European Union now aims to harness the Web to capture and unify genetic information that impacts a person’s health and disease processes. With a price tag of €12 million, the Genotype-To-Phenotype Databases, or ‘GEN2PHEN’ for short, will be led by Professor Anthony Brookes at the University of Leicester, UK. The project involves 17 leading European research institutes, and another two from India and South Africa. GEN2PHEN will build a set of database components, tools and technologies that will help all research results pertaining to genome variation and disease to be properly integrated and immediately available for holistic analysis via the internet.

Philips restructures health informatics business

Royal Philips Electronics has announced a new structure for its Healthcare Informatics business to align its entire portfolio of clinical information solutions including patient monitoring, enterprise and clinical image management, anesthesia information, women’s health information, and cardiology information systems. The realignment will allow Philips to meet the clinical workflow and information needs demanded by its clinical customers. At the same time, this allows Philips to harmonise clinical systems with the infrastructure and integration needs required by informatics customers.

Open e-health Foundation announces new members

The Open e-health Foundation has announced that Agfa HealthCare, InterComponentWare (ICW), and Sun Microsystems have joined as foundation members of the new Open e-health Foundation, an Open Source initiative that is unique in the healthcare IT arena. The Open e-health Foundation will provide software components under an Open Source license that will boost the open standards-based exchange of medical information.

Carestream Health sign new EU contracts

Healthcare imaging vendor Carestream Health has signed new contracts for the delivery of radiology IT and supplies throughout the EU. A number of healthcare facilities will implement Kodak Carestream RIS/PACS radiology information systems and picture archiving communication systems as a result of the contracts, including six deals in Germany and three in Finland. Health centres in Italy, the Netherlands and England have also signed deals.

G2 Speech to open Irish office

G2 Speech are to open an Irish office to target healthcare organisations in the country. Henry Gallagher originally of Kildorrery, County Cork and James O’Sullivan from Killenard in County Laois are directors of G2 Speech, who devised the first medical-specific speech recognition system which when linked to its digital dictation products allows medical staff to have their notes written up in minutes as opposed to weeks with conventional method, are now looking to launch their product in Ireland. G2 Speech is already being installed at two sites in Eire and more are likely to follow, the company says.

AeroScout Launches Wi-Fi Temperature Monitoring Solution

AeroScout, a provider of unified asset visibility solutions, has launched a wireless temperature monitoring application for the healthcare industry. Part of AeroScout’s healthcare visibility suite, the temperature monitoring application is a complete solution for logging and alerting staff of temperature fluctuations for critical healthcare items and products, over any standard Wi-Fi network.

Arrange your diary with our guide to e-health events across Europe – just click the events tab above. In the next edition, E-Health Europe will provide a round-up of industry news from the World Health Care Congress Europe conference, in Berlin.

As EHE is a partner of the congress, E-Health Europe readers are eligible for a 25% discount for attending the congress, just register to attend at https://www.worldcongress.com/register.cfm?confCode=HR08015 and mention the special promotion code of AJS364 when you pay.

Joe Fernandez