Fluke Biomedical, the global leader in medical device quality assurance systems, launched Advantage Training, an online centre aimed at providing accessible training to the biomedical engineering community. The Advantage Training Centre features curriculum that covers the full spectrum of medical device preventive maintenance and quality assurance for biomedical and diagnostic imaging equipment. Training is available for all skills levels, and course topics range from introduction to basic terminology to advanced technical applications. The curriculum was developed by subject matter experts, including faculty from the Biomedical Engineering School at the University of Vermont.

For the patient, surgery involves extreme physical stress, and in older patients especially this can lead to disorders of consciousness or cognition. The acute confusional state known as delirium, however, can often be prevented by specialist nursing care after the operation, as Torsten Kratz and co-authors show. In their study delirium liaison nurses were employed to help care for surgical patients aged 70 years and over. In every patient, the risk of postoperative delirium was reduced compared to patients who received routine care.

Delirium is a frequent occurrence after surgery in older patients: among those aged 70 and older, up to one in two is affected. Besides age, risk factors for delirium include mental illness-such as dementia-and infections. The approach to care assessed by Torsten Kratz and co-authors focuses on patients’ cognitive problems. Specially trained nurses support patients to achieve early self-feeding, improved cognitive activity, and restorative sleep. In this study in a Berlin hospital, one patient in five receiving routine care suffered from postoperative delirium, whereas in the group receiving support from delirium liaison nurses, fewer than 1 in 20 developed cognitive disorders. The authors point out that the study was unable to identify which specific measures reduced the risk for delirium-that would require more studies in larger numbers of patients. EurekAlert

Thousands of patients die each year in hospitals across North America due to medical errors that could be prevented were doctors and nurses provided with instant access to patient records via wireless technology. Cue the catch-22: the electromagnetic radiation caused by those very devices can interfere with electronic medical equipment and thus lead to serious clinical consequences for patients.

Luckily, that could soon change thanks to new research from Concordia University that helps define a clear rule of thumb for how close health-care workers with their Wi-Fi devices can be to electronic medical equipment.

In a study researchers from the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science assessed the risk that a medical device will malfunction when radio waves that emanate from portable devices like tablet computers are present in a hospital room.

Hospitals often specify that staff members carrying wireless transmitters not approach sensitive electronic medical devices any closer than a designated minimum separation distance (MSD).

Scientists at the University of York have discovered a potential new treatment for prostate cancer using low temperature plasmas (LTPs).

The study is the first time LTPs have been applied on cells grown directly from patient tissue samples. It is the result of a unique collaboration between the York Plasma Institute in the Department of Physics and the Cancer Research Unit (CRU) in York

Two UH engineering professors have developed novel optical probes with potential applications in improving diagnosis and treatment for patients with kidney disease.

Wei-Chuan Shih, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Chandra Mohan, Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Endowed Professor of biomedical engineering, began collaborating just over a year ago. Shih