| | |
|
VMW Monthly -
January 1998
-
ISSN 1388-722X
 |
|
Breaking news - just a click away:
|
| |
 | |
| |
|
Contents
January 1998
Issue
|
| |
| |
| atlantic |
| |
| FORE's ATM technology offers a cost saving quantum leap in performance for PSS/World Medical
|
| Strict pricing policy of Gen-Probe only met by FORE ATM
|
| NAMES Project Foundation gets SUN's aid to introduce AIDS Memorial Quilt on the Web
|
| Telemicroscopy reveals the origins of Alzheimer and Parkinson
|
| |
| |
| euromed |
| |
| The search for the way to your heart through the Virtual Medical World Personal Home Page
|
| |
| |
| Euromed |
| |
| Virtual Reality merges with Euromed's Virtual Medical Worlds through supercomputing
|
| |
| |
| hospital |
| |
| Microturbine and valve system remove arterial plaque from blood vessel
|
| THESIS checks health of hospital management performance
|
| Accurate and affordable radiosurgery treatment through computer simulation
|
| COBRA Elective Surgery Support System benefits from business process re-engineering
|
| WIDE workflow system streamlines Short Stay Surgery
|
| CHILI organises medical images travel over ISDN lines
|
| |
| |
| industrial |
| |
| For your ears only: eavesdropping with the HEARMASTER project
|
| Giant Pentagon seduced by Dutch Dwarf Applicare's medical imaging software RadWorks
|
| Infusion pump releases drugs at the right time and on the right place
|
| HIPOCRAT hybrid circuit turns the new pacemaker generation into smaller yet more powerful prostheses
|
| Luminescence spectroscopy optimises clinical blood gas analysis
|
| |
| |
| planet |
| |
| PHASE or a touch of metacomputing in the drug discovery process
|
| KneesUp lends a virtual hand to improve artificial finger joints implants
|
| Blind may regain sight through optic nerve stimulation
|
| The BARMINT demonstrator: a corner-stone in the development of microsystems
|
| Smart blood micro-pumps improve cirrhotic liver perfusion
|
| Virtual environment surgery simulators for endoscopic training: a helicopter view
|
| WebCDs and Push technologies lined up against breast cancer to try and "Break IT".
|
| |
| |
| snap |
| |
| CHARMing 3-D simulation of the musculoskeletal structure will lead to promising applications
|
| RICHE accomodates Hospital Information Systems to the latest IT needs
|
| Flat panel sensors generate digital real time X-ray images
|
| NICE endeavours 3-D ultrasound heart scan
|
| The 21st century telemedical information society in conference!
|
| Advanced Spectral Bio-Imaging System SpectraCube wins European IT prize
|
| |
| |
| |
|
Leads
January 1998
Issue
|
| |
| |
| atlantic |
| |
| FORE's ATM technology offers a cost saving quantum leap in performance for PSS/World Medical
|
|  |
The old ways of using dial-up modems to transfer data are past history for Physician Sales & Service/World Medical Inc. A new Wide Area Network (WAN) based on Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) technology supplied by FORE Systems, largely improves the performance of a variety of applications between PSS/World Medical's headquarters and its 87 branch locations. Additionally, the moving of its voice traffic over ATM is trimming the monthly long distance costs by no less than 30 percent for this distributor of medical, diagnostic and imaging equipment and products. Remote training facilities and teleconferencing for companywide meetings are future implementing tools of this high-performance network. |
| Strict pricing policy of Gen-Probe only met by FORE ATM
|
| |
Gen-Probe, a developer of advanced genetic probe diagnostic tests for human health care, recently opened a public bid for the installation of a high-performance network in its new corporate headquarters. The price/performance objectives were kept within strict limitations leaving the vendors with the challenge to offer the highest quality for an edged price. FORE ATM was the only one to meet these severe demands without cutting down on service and technical support. The question whether to standardise on FORE ATM was quickly solved. |
| NAMES Project Foundation gets SUN's aid to introduce AIDS Memorial Quilt on the Web
|
| |
The NAMES Project Foundation is a non-profit organisation. Its mission is to try and stop AIDS by making people profoundly aware in a large scale project. The AIDS Memorial Quilt is an impressive tool to deliver powerful messages to the world public. Each part of the quilt is created by someone who has lost a relative or a friend in the struggle against AIDS. Sun Microsystems is providing the technological backbone to bring this original community art project on the Internet. The names and images that make up the AIDS quilt, have been digitised and archived on a Sun workstation TM and server. Together with Informix, Argos, ECOlogic and Masterlink, Sun has announced a development project with the NAMES Project Foundation. |
| Telemicroscopy reveals the origins of Alzheimer and Parkinson
|
| |
Neurological diseases such as Parkison's and Alzheimer's are associated with the breakdown of components of the nervous system. The cellular and molecular basis for this degeneration has been extremely difficult to visualise in the past. A high-resolution 400.000 volt electron microscope is able to obtain images from much thicker specimens than conventional instruments can, thus allowing examination of 3-D biological structure and discovery of cellular changes that may result in disease. To promote remote access to such scarcely found high powered microscopes like the one residing at the San Diego National Centre for Microscopy and Imaging Research (NCMIR), a plan has been developed to build a "Collaboratory for Microscopy and Digital Anatomy" (CMDA), using Internet and high performance computing to support biomedical researchers. |
| |
| |
| euromed |
| |
| The search for the way to your heart through the Virtual Medical World Personal Home Page
|
| |
In the VMW November issue, we reported on the twenty building blocks of the Euromed framework as a guiding structure to create the telemedical information society. One of the main active components constitutes the navigation around the web to gather the required medical data related to a particular patient. Since these data are kept in several databases over the Internet, a time gaining procedure of methodical search has to be developed to reduce the burden of surfing the web. Responding to this need, Euromed has defined the concept of Virtual Medical Worlds. Basically, this is the electronic health card record for each patient, dispersed over the network but accessible from one initial html page: the Personal Home Page. |
| |
| |
| Euromed |
| |
| Virtual Reality merges with Euromed's Virtual Medical Worlds through supercomputing
|
| |
One of the important goals Euromed is striving at is to introduce Virtual Reality within the concept of Virtual Medical Worlds. This integration requires a vast amount of computing which has to be achieved by building up a meta-centre, similar to what is currently being developed in the USA through several initiatives such as the CASA Gigabit network. Euromed's collaborative network, consisting of the Universities of Calabria, Amsterdam, Joensuu and Athens and connected by the Internet, already has realised this Hierarchical Computing Facilities Infrastructure (HCFI) offering a virtual computing centre supplying heterogeneous computing platforms. At present, this meta-centre is creating complex VRML medical models to support activities such as the medical imaging requirements of the Virtual Assisted surgery. In this regard, Euromed is focusing on the ANALYZE project lead by the Mayo Clinic in San Diego to serve as a model. |
| |
| |
| hospital |
| |
| Microturbine and valve system remove arterial plaque from blood vessel
|
| |
At the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe a microturbine and a valve system are being developed to be integrated on cardiac catheters. Prototypes have been designed to open occluded coronary arteries and to test the in-vitro cutting of calcified arterial plaque. The research is being embedded in the Esprit project IMICS. The institute plans further research in close cooperation with hospitals for specific applications in order to optimise the integrated catheter system for commercial production. |
| THESIS checks health of hospital management performance
|
| |
Transformation of Healthcare for Excellence in Srategy, Information and Service: this is the mission of the Esprit supported THESIS project in a nutshell. Unlike the WIDE or the COBRA project, THESIS emphasises the efficiency of the hospital management process rather than the organisation of the clinical workflow in order to gain competitive advantage through the implementation of information services. Thesis Health Check (THC) is a PC-based software tool which allows analysis and improvement of the hospital key indicators to match their strategic targets and to combine them with the stakeholders' objectives. Both the Athens Medical Centre and the UK Teddington Memorial Hospital serve as pilot sites for this Business Process Re-engineering program. |
| Accurate and affordable radiosurgery treatment through computer simulation
|
| |
Cancer forms one of the major causes of death in Europe. Radiosurgery constitutes an important help in a great deal of cases but often treatments fail, either because the tumours are not precisely located or the irradiation does not reach every part of them. In clinical practice, commercial treatment planning systems are used which do not fully take account of the patient's internal anatomical structure. On the other hand, the much more accurate Monte-Carlo simulation system is far too expensive and time-consuming. The RAPT project has addressed this problem by developing a low-cost parallel Monte-Carlo code where the individual patient data are captured from CT images using a graphical interface. |
| COBRA Elective Surgery Support System benefits from business process re-engineering
|
| |
Next to THESIS and WIDE, Esprit supports yet another project involved with hospital management. The COBRA project represents an exercise in Core Business Re-engineering for which it builds upon the RICHE IT Architecture. This approach offers considerable savings by reducing duplication of work in hospitals. The IT solutions transform the clinical and administrative procedures in theatre and day surgery into efficient processes enabling the staff to improve the general performance and make more effective use of the existing facilities in these areas. |
| WIDE workflow system streamlines Short Stay Surgery
|
| |
At the Catalonian Hospital General de Manresa (HGM), a new procedure has been organised since 1996 to try and integrate the Short Stay Surgery process into a smooth running automated workflow system. The HGM staff is collaborating with the SEMA Group, provider of the FORO method which is dedicated to the definition and use of workflow engines. FORO is being implemented in the Esprit-supported WIDE-project dealing with workflow management of enterprise-wide processes in a cooperative, distributed environment. Manresa Hospital offers an ideal project embedded into everyday reality in order to prove the efficiency of the WIDE workflow tool. |
| CHILI organises medical images travel over ISDN lines
|
| |
Physicians since a long time have made use of medical images on film, a rather slow and expensive way of image distribution. The Steinbeis-Transferzentrum Medizinische Informatik (TZMI) in Heidelberg was selected among the European IT prize finalists 1997 because of their CHILI teleradiology system which offers a cost reducing and faster solution for medical image delivery over computer networks or ISDN lines. CHILI can improve the cooperation between radiologists and clinicians via teleconferencing and patients in rural areas suffering from complicated disease are able to get consultation from experts without having to face a dangerous transport. Additionally, CHILI can be enhanced with new functions for advanced image analysis tasks, such as 3-D reconstructions or operation planning. |
| |
| |
| industrial |
| |
| For your ears only: eavesdropping with the HEARMASTER project
|
| |
Two Danish companies have worked together within the Esprit Hearmaster project to set up promising techniques of mixed-signal testing for the new generation of hearing aids, using Digital Signal Processing (DSP).
Oticon A/S, a hearing-aid manufacturer, founded in 1904, introduced the world's first digital hearing-aid, DigiFocus, in 1995. The test system vendor, MicroLEX Systems A/S, has managed to develop a revolutionary method for qualifying DSP features so the DigiFocus product can adapt better than earlier models to the surrounding sound environment, providing maximum speech recognition and avoiding unpleasant sound distortions. |
| Giant Pentagon seduced by Dutch Dwarf Applicare's medical imaging software RadWorks
|
| |
The US army constitutes the largest single care provider in the world and is aiming at implementing a network system through PACS in all its six hundred military hospitals in order to view, transport, archive and print medical images. The US Ministry of Defence selected Applicare Medical Imaging, a Dutch software company founded in 1987 and now forming part of an IBM consortium, to provide the workstations technology software for this huge project. Applicare's RadWorks visualisation package is the first one running under Windows NT. This is exactly the environment the Pentagon has chosen to standardise in all of its medical facilities. The multinational competitors still having to deal with their Unix past, the immediate availability of Applicare's technology formed a decisive factor for their final selection, according to the Automatisering Gids and de Volkskrant. |
| Infusion pump releases drugs at the right time and on the right place
|
| |
Many patients suffering from chronic disease need treatment with continuous drug application. Without exact control of dosage and frequency, side effects may be caused affecting the quality of the patient's life. Within the Esprit program, a modular microsystem for controlled medical drug release has been developed consisting of an implantable programmable infusion pump, an external processing unit, a telemetry device and a printer. At the European IT Conference Exhibition held in Brussels last November, MICROMEDES demonstrated a prototype with closed-loop application. The next step in the project will hopefully lead to a system's test in practice. |
| HIPOCRAT hybrid circuit turns the new pacemaker generation into smaller yet more powerful prostheses
|
| |
Four companies are working together in the Esprit supported project HIPOCRAT to develop a miniature low power hybrid circuit devoted to human implantable cardiac prostheses such as pacemakers and defibrillators. The overall aim is to design a family of three integrated circuits (ASICs) using technologies based on submicronic mixed Analog/Digital CMOS and high voltage protection processes. The new hybrid circuit is intended to be half size and three times less consuming than its predecessors. Since this kind of prostheses is lasting longer, the cost savings for health care systems are considerable.
|
| Luminescence spectroscopy optimises clinical blood gas analysis
|
| |
Since quite some time, the Austrian biomedical research and development company AVL List GmbH has been focusing on the production of opto-chemical sensors. At present, AVL is selling a portable optical blood gas analyser, called OPTI 1, based on fluorescence intensity. Yet, AVL researcher Paul Hartmann recently has designed and tested within the Esprit funded QUANTUM project an imaging oxygen sensor based on luminescence lifetime or decay measurements. This new approach offers the possibility of non-invasive, quantitative and calibration-free imaging of the skin 'respiration'. The method may play an important role in the diagnosis of chronic venous insufficiency, ulcerations, wound healing, burns, amputations, micro-circulatory disturbances and the effects of drugs for improvement of circulation. |
| |
| |
| planet |
| |
| PHASE or a touch of metacomputing in the drug discovery process
|
| |
The Esprit project PHASE aims at developing and implementing a Distributed Pharmaceutical Applications Server in order to deliver the power of high-performance-computing onto the desks of small and medium sized industrial companies operating in the field of drug target identification and modelling. The main advantage for the users of leased high-performance processing lies in the easy access and the less prohibitive costs. PHASE not only provides the server architecture allowing introduction of job requirement specifications and submission to an automated load-balancing scheme that distributes the parallel tasks to the best suited hardware platform. It also offers a unified work-flow for the bio-informatics applications GeneQuiz, MaxHom, DRAGON and MSAP which all four contribute to the analysis of protein sequence and structure. |
| KneesUp lends a virtual hand to improve artificial finger joints implants
|
| |
Patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis or some kind of physical trauma often are faced with artificial finger joint implant's surgery. Most common used nowadays are one-piece silastic implants which unfortunately tend to fail within about five years. The HPCN-TTN organisation has engaged itself in the KneesUp-project to develop techniques simulating the movements of prostheses. In collaboration with the Sheffield University, the so-called SIGMA glove has been designed to output real-time kinematic data of the finger movements. Interfaced to a digitised skeleton of the hand on a PC, the 'virtual hand' on screen precisely indicates by means of finite element analysis techniques the critical stress-spots in silastic prostheses. |
| Blind may regain sight through optic nerve stimulation
|
| |
The best way to rehabilitate blindness is to directly act upon a peripheral and passive neural structure instead of direct stimulation of the visual cortex or of the retina. This is only possible when the optic nerve fibres are electrically activated in a safe and selective manner. Researchers have developed a prototype of a Microsystems based Visual Prosthesis (MIVIP) interfaced with the optic nerve. This three years Esprit supported project might be able to help about 140.000 blind people in the industrialised countries. |
| The BARMINT demonstrator: a corner-stone in the development of microsystems
|
| |
Under the wings of the Esprit program, researchers from various universities, institutes and laboratories throughout Europe since 1993 are engaged in a long term project called BARMINT. Together, they work on the identification of processes and tools needed for the development of microsystems. The results of their research form a substratum of elements to be used for the production of medical and other devices. Recently, a demonstrator has been finished which includes a micropump, a multisensor measuring chamber and the allied electronic technologies, the whole associated with 3-D assembly processes. |
| Smart blood micro-pumps improve cirrhotic liver perfusion
|
| |
Alcohol abuse is the major cause of liver cirrhosis in the western world whereas the infection with hepatitis B and C viruses affect the livers of about 800 million patients in the underdeveloped countries. This development of fibrous tissue in the liver causes an important decrease of portal blood flow amounting to portal hypertension. Thus, an unstable network of blood vessels is created. These varices in turn are the cause of uncontrollable bleeding of which a patient can die without swift intervention. Researchers now have designed an implantable blood micro-pump to go inside the hepatic portal veins and by driving blood through the liver reduce the intra-portal pressure. The people responsible for this IMALP project hope to prolong the active lives of liver patients until a transplantation can be offered. |
| Virtual environment surgery simulators for endoscopic training: a helicopter view
|
| |
The Department of Computer Science at the University of Hull and the Orthopaedic Department of the Hull Royal Infirmary and Castle Hill Hospital are currently developing a Virtual Environment Knee Arthroscopy Training System (VEKATS) offering trainee surgeons an effective environment to acquire skills such as triangulation, orientation and dexterity, necessary to perform an arthroscopic procedure. VEKATS is trying to integrate the advantages of both video-disc based and computer graphics based surgical simulators in order to serve diagnostic as well as operative purposes. Deformable objects are introduced permitting the trainee to interact in real-time with soft tissue. At present, the research team is working on a prototype force feedback device allowing the student to get a feel for the hardness of the bone and the flexibility of the soft tissues. |
| WebCDs and Push technologies lined up against breast cancer to try and "Break IT".
|
| |
WebCD based technology for electronic publishing is aiming to achieve inter platform cross-amplification between two complementary media and can be divided into three levels of ascending complexity. The first solution presents hyperlinks between the CD and the Web sites, both different in format and layout and merely convergent at the information structuring level. Web gateway exists from the CD with in window activation of the Web site whereas the Web pages allow optional off-line cross-reference to the CD contents. The second option rapidly becoming prevalent now permits CD and Web to share the same information type and interfaces. Thus, a 100% portability of the codes is granted between the two media if sufficiently large bandwidths and payment services are taken care of. Unfortunately, the "free usage syndrome" is bound to undermine the commercial position of priced CD versions. |
| |
| |
| snap |
| |
| CHARMing 3-D simulation of the musculoskeletal structure will lead to promising applications
|
| |
Many separate research fields would certainly profit by an information database as a comprehensive resource on the human body and its dynamics. Starting from medical data out of the Visible Human Database (VHD), the CHARM project, supported by Esprit, is developing a Comprehensive Human Animation Resource Model to generate a 3-D computer model of the human body including bones and soft tissue structures in order to define associated simulation procedures for finite element deformation. Initially, the project has been focusing on the shoulder-arm complex which constitutes one of the most complex articulations in the body. |
| RICHE accomodates Hospital Information Systems to the latest IT needs
|
| |
The hierarchical health care system depends on profound mutual collaboration between general, specialised and local hospitals. Additionally, it has to offer an ever growing range of services without any supplementary budget being provided. Group Riche, a non-profit making organisation, has acknowledged this need since 1989 by promoting an open approach to Information Technology in order to transform the Hospital Information System (HIS) into a smooth running organisational tool. |
| Flat panel sensors generate digital real time X-ray images
|
| |
Conventional methods of X-raying rely on photographic film technology which is quite expensive, time-consuming and inconvenient because of the necessarily applied radiation doses. Among the results of the Esprit program, the MEDID project offers an efficient alternative for digital radiography in the shape of a non-chemical flat panel detector. This solid-state device is based upon silicon technology and digital signal processing to convert X-rays into a high-quality digital image. As a major advantage, the system provides real time performance with low radiation doses. The digital images can also easily be stored and retrieved, visually enhanced as well as transmitted to other locations for remote consultation. |
| NICE endeavours 3-D ultrasound heart scan
|
| |
During the European IT Conference and Exhibition which took place in November 1997, the people responsible for NICE, one of the Esprit projects devoted to medicine, showed a video presentation of 3-D ultrasound scanning on the human body and on the human heart in particular. The realisation of real-time volumetric imaging will mean no less than a breakthrough in clinical diagnostics since conventional ultrasound systems only use linear, one-dimensional arrays. |
| The 21st century telemedical information society in conference!
|
| |
It appears 1998 will turn out to be a promising year for the 21st century telemedical information society. The new and actually first International Conference on the Telemedical Information Society (ITIS '98) will be organised at HPCN Europe in Amsterdam from the 21st until the 23rd of April 1998. Several key figures in the world of telemedicine will present their expert view in a lecture or will actively attend the workshop. |
| Advanced Spectral Bio-Imaging System SpectraCube wins European IT prize
|
| |
At the European Information Technology Conference, the jury of this year's European IT competition, organised by the Esprit program in collaboration with the European Council of Applied Sciences and Engineering, Euro-CASE, awarded a prize to the SpectraCube based on a new modality of imaging. This intensive technology system using SKY or Spectral Karyotyping is capable of precise location and characterising of genetic aberrations in chromosomes in order to enable better diagnosis and therapy of cancer and genetic abnormalities. Winner of the trophy, the Applied Spectral Imaging (ASI) Ltd company based in Israel, developed the SpectraCube also for prenatal diagnostics research and for many other applications in medicine which are still being developed. |
| |
| |
| |
|
Interested in searching through our archives? Please, do not hesitate to consult our
back issues on the VMW Web site.
VMW also hosts a Virtual Medical Worlds Community. The VMWC platform initiative is aimed at creating a dynamic synergy between advanced IT technology suppliers and researchers on the one hand, and clinical users and companies in the (tele)medical sector on the other. Check out the VMWC home page for more details on how you can join.
© 2006, Genias Benelux
|
| |
| |
