GE updates molecular imaging system

GE Healthcare has developed an advanced version of its hybrid Infinia Hawkeye system, says Zenopa.

The new Infinia Hawkeye HD Enhanced carries over all the features of the standard device, including its ability to combine anatomical and functional/molecular imaging, according to the company.

It also says the product offers a range of advantages, including NM patient doses that are up to 50% lower than standard cardiac and bone protocols, as well as reduced sitting requirements and scan time.

Nuance Communications and IBM are working to advance Clinical Language Understanding technologies to enable organisations to understand and use clinical information contained in the more than two billion patient reports dictated every year in the US, writes Healthcare Technology Online.

As part of this agreement, teams of leading natural language processing (NLP) researchers at IBM and Nuance are collaborating to integrate the companies' technologies. By working together, Nuance and IBM will advance the use of NLP technologies as a core component of electronic health record workflows, says the report.

With a goal to transform healthcare clinical documentation through advanced technologies, Nuance and IBM are developing systems that are claimed to automatically extract and convert discrete, clinical data from clinician dictated narrative into actionable information that can be used to bring a more evidence-based approach to patient care.

New technologies and software programs are bringing electronic medical records (EMR) to the bedside, giving human nature and memory a little boost, reveals Health Leaders Media.

One such system, dubbed the SmartRoom, was developed by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre, an integrated system with 20 hospitals. It was designed to ensure compliance with best practices, reduce errors, reduce length of stay and associated costs, and improve workflow, efficiency and productivity.

The problem with EMR data, says Tami Minnier, UPMC chief quality officer, is that there is so much of it. "You really have to know where to look and know where to find things. In healthcare, we have literally seconds sometimes to assess the situation and make a decision for patients."