Health Industry Insights Europe Predicts Personalized Home Care Will Replace the Old Framework
Health Industry Insights, an IDC company, announced the release of a new report which identifies Western European Healthcare top 10 predictions for 2007. Among the predictions, Health Industry Insights' European team foresees a long-term shift to transform service delivery to a patient-centric model, where prevention of acute episodes is part of patient every-day lives at home, and patients act as gatekeepers to national consolidated electronic health records. 
Health Level Seven (HL7), a preeminent healthcare IT standards development organization with broad international representation, announced it has passed the healthcare industry's first ANSI-approved standard that specifies the functional requirements for an electronic health record system (EHR-S). 
BridgeForward Software, Inc, a leading provider of application integration technology to the US and UK healthcare industry announced that it has been selected by Nuffield Hospitals one of the largest private hospital groups in the UK - to enable them to transition into the fully digital imaging and data-management environment. 
Leading Israeli HMO Maccabi Healthcare Services today announced that it is making its technology-driven health value-added knowledge base, which it currently uses to manage over 30 million patient-HMO interactions annually among its 1,7 million members - more than one-quarter of Israel's total population available for adoption by HMOs worldwide. 
Increasing integration in the European healthcare industry is creating the need for a single point of contact for healthcare IT (HIT) systems, which in turn, is driving the market for HIT platforms. Across Europe, healthcare providers are in search of a single, unified platform for clinical and administrative solutions and healthcare IT vendors with comprehensive product portfolios are attempting to address these needs though individual as well as group solutions. 
A new monthly eNewsletter will be delivered to healthcare ICT professionals across the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region from mid-February 2007.
The RHÖN-KLINIKUM AG and Siemens Medical Solutions signed a contract just over a year ago for the construction and operation of a particle therapy facility. With the permit approval process and application hearing now underway, the high-tech project is beginning to take shape. Construction is expected to begin in the summer of 2007.