11/17/2011

Medica Excellence Award

On Thursday night, Medica honoured outstanding and innovative joint projects of hospitals or healthcare centres and companies. In his welcoming address, Daniel Bahr, German Federal Minister of Health and patron of the event, praised the innovative
strength of German medical technology companies which he said successfully supports Germany’s global competitiveness.

Measuring intracranial pressure is vital to any successful hydrocephalus therapy.
© Raumedic

For the first time the Medica Excellence Award was presented in four categories at the world’s largest medical trade fair. In the category “Excellence in Daily Operations,” process- or product-related optimization ideas in areas such as hospital IT and imaging and diagnostic IT were nominated. The winner is Raumedic, a company that in cooperation with the University Hospital Saarland developed a telemetry system for measuring intracranial pressure (ICP) in patients with hydrocephalus syndrome. Raumedic developed a system to measure ICP the first cordless such measurement system worldwide suited for mobile in-patients
who are under stringent medical monitoring.

Hybrid imaging system at University Hospital Düsseldorf: state of the art images.
© Philips Deutschland GmbH

The new technology avoids long hospital stays, unnecessary surgical interventions and radiation exposure. Since the patient is mobile, the physicians can also collect data from different everyday patient situations. Among projects nominated as “Successful Cooperation,” the winning project is a partnership between medical technology enterprise Philips and University Hospital Düsseldorf: the partners aim to improve planning and increase safety of complex catheter interventions with the help of hybrid imaging. Philips installed a unique hybrid system for integrated cardiovascular fusion image data sets generated by x-ray, XperCT, 3D echocardiography and cardiac MRI. Moreover an individual digital 3D heart model can be generated from the relevant imaging modalities.

University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorfdorf is one of the largest and most modern hospitals
in Germany. © UKE

Recognized as a “Visionary Hospital” is the University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) thanks to its cooperation with medical technology enterprise Siemens. UKE is one of the most highly digitalized hospitals in Europe – made possible by the Siemens hospital information system (HIS) Soarian® Clinicals. Siemens’ workflow-oriented HIS Soarian® Clinicals flexibly supports clinical and administrative processes in the hospital and together with Soarian® Health Archive forms the basis for UKE’s electronic patient record. During the EHEC-virus crisis, this electronic patient record proved its mettle: within hours interdisciplinary therapy teams were set up, external staff was integrated and a therapy quality standard was established.

In the category “Newcomer,” smaller companies or start-ups could enter projects or solutions that have not yet been presented at Medica. The winner is ODOS, a start-up that developed a laser therapy for macular edema. A young company founded in 2008 and based in Teltow, OD-OS developed Navilas®, a unique computer-assisted retina laser system which was tested in a pilot study at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. Navilas is the first device to allow Retina Navigation. The therapy is planned stepby-step on a previously generated digital fundus image. During the intervention itself this annotated planning image is automatically
overlaid on the live image and the physician positions the laser. Navilas then continuously corrects involuntary eye movement.