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Electronic patient files, imaging diagnostics, electronic medical records, picture archiving and communications systems, home care, as well as self-diagnostics: The healthcare system has long since arrived in the Digital Age. The ever more intensive use of digital information will completely revolutionize the healthcare system as we know it. According to the PwC study, “Emerging m-health: […]

The WHO has been raising the ‘threat level’ on this issue progressively each year for the last decade, with individual disease reports highlighting the emerging threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). This year’s report however highlights this pandemic like never before, demonstrating it’s global nature and its profound impact on health and economics. I’m a cardiologist and the report speaks to me – actually it screams out loud: “We need to get our act together”.

The European Commission released its proposal for the revision of the EU Medical Devices (MDD) and In Vitro Diagnostics Directives (IVDD) in September 2012. The European Parliament weighed in on the file, voting on its final report in a plenary session last October. And in December we heard reps from the 28 EU health ministries voice their views on key issues. The word on the street is that the EU Council is set to reach its final position by June with trialogue discussions (where the Commision, Parliament and Council negotiate a final text) pencilled in for Q4 2014.

My background in women’s rights has driven me to look into how my current field of work has taken issues which affect women into account. So as an EDMA Communications Intern, I decided to dive into the field of in vitro diagnostics (IVDs) to identify whether the makers of IVDs have played a role in empowering women.  Here’s what my investigation revealed…

When Philippe Croizon broke his first world record by swimming across all four intercontinental channels in August 2012 he declared “I’ve got no big challenges in the near future but “never say never””. Here we are, only a few months later with yet another great achievement…

And what an achievement! As a big sports fan I have been trying to follow exemplary sportsmen, especially those whose lives have intersected with medical technology.

Many times I’ve found myself in situations where I had to explain that indeed in vitro diagnostics (IVDs) are to all extent medical devices but that, in practice, the subject we happened to be discussing would not entirely (or at all) be applicable to IVDs.
It was always a case of: “…yes, yes.. BUT”…
If there is one message you take away from this post, let it be… IVDs have very different risk sets associated to them: no direct contact with patient, value of the medical data they deliver and that they provide no treatment.

When I was first offered the position at Eucomed as a Communications trainee, I must admit I hardly knew what medical technology really was. After a little bit more than two weeks work, I realise that medtech is actually all around us. Take for example, the Olympics…

eHealth is booming, hospitals, doctors, clinics, SMEs, big companies, everybody seems to be developing an app nowadays. It is great to see how many people are throwing their weight behind eHealth initiatives in every possible way: remote monitoring of demented senior citizens by means of image interpreting software, decision support systems, …, you name it. […]

In an ideal world we would have the same rules on devices in each country.  As patients, as we live or travel in different countries, we can be confident that should we fall ill, the devices used to help us are as safe as the ones at home.  As businesses, we would be confident that […]