The 6th Annual World Health Care Congress is scheduled for April 14-16, 2009, in Washington, DC. The Congress will convene over 2,000 CEOs, senior executives and government officials from the nation's largest employers, hospitals, health systems, health plans, pharmaceutical and biotech companies, and leading government agencies, according to event organizers.
GE Healthcare has announced the introduction of Discovery PET/CT 600, a positron emission tomography/computed tomography system. Recently cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Discovery PET/CT 600 is part of GE's Discovery family of scanners designed to enable earlier detection and accurate monitoring of disease with molecular imaging technology in both hardware and software, according to a GE release.
Breast MRI is showing double-digit growth in 2008 and is one of the fastest growing procedures in the MR departments, according to a newly released imaging market guide from Arlington Medical Resources. AMR representatives said its market guide is an audit of conventional x-ray, CT scanning, MRI, ultrasound, nuclear medicine, and cardiac cath lab procedure volumes, with iodinated contrast agent and radiopharmaceutical usage information in hospital and non-hospital settings.
The recent economic crisis has many IT leaders tightening their belts and preparing for sparse spending in the coming months. A September survey of some 50 CIOs by an association for IT executives showed that more than half of those polled have put nonessential projects on hold and about one-fourth have decided to freeze IT hiring. And 61% of those surveyed admitted they were reevaluating their 2009 budgets.
Microsoft is co-sponsoring a study to see if people who undergo genetic testing to identify their risk for developing certain diseases actually change their behavior to mitigate that risk.
San Diego-based research lab Scripps Translational Science Institute will offer genetic scans to up to 10,000 employees, family members, and friends of Scripps Health that provide a detailed analysis of their risk for more than 20 health conditions. The conditions are ones that can be changed or prevented by people's lifestyle choices. Scripps will then track changes in the participants' behaviors over 20 years to see if people who learn they are at risk for certain diseases or conditions will actually take preventative measures to avoid them.
Misys Healthcare Systems and Allscripts let go 44 people as the two software companies merged into a single business. Glen Tullman, CEO of the new Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions, said the terminated jobs were redundant and that the newly combined company is trying to fill more than 100 vacancies in software sales and product installation. The new company's business plan is to sell Allscripts products to Misys customers. Allscripts supplies electronic health records to about 40,000 physicians.