The ECRI Institute is a US-based, independent, non-profit organisation that researches the best approaches to improving the safety, quality and cost-effectiveness of patient care. ECRI Institute experts have compiled a Top 10 list of important technologies and technology-related issues that hospital and health system leaders should pay close attention to this year. The list takes into account the convergence of critical economic, patient safety, reimbursement, and regulatory pressures. The effort began with an open call for nominations throughout the ECRI Institute. This resulted in a nominated list of more than 30 technologies and related issues. The list was then circulated among key ECRI Institute thought leaders who individually ranked their Top 10 choices. Once all rankings were compiled, the top 5 technologies emerged fairly quickly. A number of technologies competed for rankings 6 to 10, so a ratings consensus panel was convened to reach agreement on the final Top 10.
For the benefits of its readers in healthcare communities outside the USA, International Hospital presents the essence of the ECRI Top10 watch list in a series of three articles to be published in consecutive issues of the magazine. In this first article, we take a look at the three imaging technologies ranking number 3, 4 and 8 in the Top 10
Number 3. Digital Breast Tomosynthesis
Adoption of full-field digital mammography since it became commercially available in the United States in 2000 has been slow because of controversies that included costs, data storage needs, disagreement about risks and benefits of screening by age group, and trade-offs between how to reduce false positives without increasing false negatives. As of July 2011, 22% of mammography facilities still operated film-based mammography.
Enter the new twist on full-field digital mammography
Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) must lose its status as a dedicated application that is primarily controlled by the radiology department. PACS projects will increasingly require a strategic vision by IT and hospital management. This article focuses on ‘consolidation’ both in the technological infrastructure and at application level.
by Erwin Bellon, Jan Demey, Tom Deprez, Willem Van Damme, Michel Feron, Reinoud Reynders and Bart Van den Bosch
About a decade ago, digitally acquired images on workstations replaced light boxes with diagnostic film mounted on them. These impressive workstations are merely the visible part of the PACS which has to manage, present and distribute billions of images. Due to its special technological requirements, a PACS was often viewed as a separate system for radiology, on dedicated servers with dedicated storage, maybe even managed by the radiology department. With today
Multiple strategies have been deployed to reduce catheter associated urinary tract infections. These include employing correct hand-washing procedures, avoiding breakages in the urinary collection system and taking measures to prevent commensal bacteria from the patient contaminating the catheter. As well as changes in clinical practice, we need to be mindful of the potential technological and equipment solutions. This article highlights the potential use of silver-alloy urinary catheters to reduce catheter associated urinary tract infections.
by Michelle Beattie
Catheter associated urinary tract infections are often accompanied by an increased period of hospitalisation and morbidity, resulting in poor outcomes for patients as well as their families, and significant economic costs to service providers. Despite the high risk of infection and other potential complications, urinary catheters have many beneficial uses in healthcare including diagnostic, prophylactic and therapeutic uses. Regardless of whether the urinary catheter is used for therapeutic or diagnostic purposes, catheters should only be inserted when deemed absolutely necessary, due to their association with significant morbidity and mortality [1].
Catheterisation and sources of infection
As urinary catheterisation involves the insertion of a catheter into the bladder via the urethra, the patient is at a higher risk of infection, as essentially the body treats the presence of a catheter as a foreign body. The body
According to World Health Organisation data, cancer accounted for 13% of all deaths globally in 2008. Largely because age is a fundamental and unmodifiable risk factor, and the average age of the world population is rising, deaths from cancer are projected to increase to over 11 million per annum by 2030. However on world cancer day earlier this month the really good news was that the survival of children with solid tumours has increased from 30% up to 90% within four decades. Of course this dramatic improvement is the result of multidisciplinary efforts involving more effective treatment as well as diagnosis, but improved imaging techniques have played an enormous role in the continually improving survival rate.
The imaging techniques used at diagnosis, and for evaluating tumour response during and after therapy as well as before and after resection, include ultrasonography, CT, MRI, PET or combinations of these modalities, depending on local conditions and the healthcare professionals involved. But in spite of the developments in modern imaging, which are inexorably lowering the dose of radiation to which patients are exposed during procedures, imaging does involve potentially dangerous ionising radiation that may induce other cancers in later life. There is a small, but crucially not zero risk, one which is greater in paediatric patients. An article published last month by authors from the Harvard and Johns Hopkins medical schools reported that in the USA CT scans are proliferating, with seven to eight million per year being performed on paediatric patients. The authors state that many of these paediatric scans are either not justified or could be carried out with imaging techniques involving lower or no radiation, such as MRI and ultrasonography. Should a CT scan really be indicated, paediatric CT protocols should be optimised based on the patient
The number of peer-reviewed papers covering the field of anaesthesiology is huge, to such an extent that it is frequently difficult for healthcare professionals to keep up with the literature. As a special service to our readers, International Hospital presents a few key literature abstracts from the clinical and scientific literature chosen by our editorial board as being particularly worthy of attention.
Regional anaesthesia with sedation protocol to safely debride sacral pressure ulcers
April 2024
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