Accelerate Diagnostics, Inc. announced the release and CE marking of its latest Accelerate PhenoTest™ BC kit, declaring conformity to the European Directive 98/79/EC on in vitro diagnostic medical devices.

The new CE-IVD Accelerate PhenoTest™ BC kit now includes phenotypic antimicrobial susceptibility test (AST) results for ceftazidime-avibactam and ceftolozane-tazobactam for Enterobacteriaceae and P. aeruginosa bacteria, and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole for A. baumannii bacteria.

In addition, the new BC kit contains updates to clinical interpretive breakpoints bringing 144 organism and antimicrobial combinations current to 2019 EUCAST (European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing) guidance. AST results are available in approximately 7 hours, with organism identification results available approximately 5 hours prior.

“We continue to hear from clinicians that there are fewer treatment options for patients with bloodstream infections,” said Chad Brueck, head of global marketing for Accelerate Diagnostics. “As antimicrobial resistance continues to rise, it is critical that the tools used by the laboratory continue to adapt to provide clinically actionable, phenotypic susceptibility results to expand treatment options for these patients.”

The new CE-IVD Accelerate PhenoTest™ BC kit (catalog: 10102028) is available to hospitals and health systems within the European Economic Area and other regions that recognize the European Directive.

The US-IVD Accelerate PhenoTest™ BC kit (catalog: 10101018) received clearance for in vitro diagnostic use in February of 2017.

About Accelerate Diagnostics, Inc.

Accelerate Diagnostics, Inc. is an in vitro diagnostics company dedicated to providing solutions for the global challenges of antibiotic resistance and sepsis. The Accelerate Pheno™ system and Accelerate PhenoTest™ BC kit combine several technologies aimed at reducing the time clinicians must wait to determine the most optimal antibiotic therapy for deadly infections.

The system and kit fully automate the sample preparation steps to report phenotypic antibiotic susceptibility results in approximately 7 hours direct from positive blood cultures. Recent external studies indicate the solution offers results 1-2 days faster than existing methods, enabling clinicians to optimize antibiotic selection and dosage specific to the individual patient days earlier.

The “ACCELERATE DIAGNOSTICS” and “ACCELERATE PHENO” and “ACCELERATE PHENOTEST” and diamond shaped logos and marks are trademarks or registered trademarks of Accelerate Diagnostics, Inc.

For more information about the company, its products and technology, or publications, visit axdx.com.

LogiMed (16^th– 17^th  October) Is  the only dedicated annual gathering of European medical device and diagnostics supply chain leaders

The 2019 agenda encapsulates the current issues and future challenges that are top of mind for Supply Chain Leaders, including:

• Demystifying Digital –Listen to inspiring and innovative case studies and get a better idea of how to approach new technologies to initiate and drive a realistic and practical Supply Chain transformation
  

• Transforming Traditional Supply Chains – Understand and reflect on how to evolve your supply chain models and operations processes in order to drive customer centricity in a digital age

• Competitive AdvantageThrough Customer Collaboration –Listen to customer presentations on challenges and requirements to find out what is the role of healthcare digital supply chain transformation

• Enhancing Customer Centricity – Examine how you can evolve your supply chain models and operations processes in order to drive customer centricity and differentiated supply chain services further
  

Over 50+ speakers have been confirmed to date for 2019, including:

• Frank Debus, Vice President Customer Service Managed Logistics, Siemens Healthineers
• David Wilson, Director EMEA Supply Chain Planning Competence Centre, Medtronic
• Hugo Bakermans, Senior Director Global Logistics & Order Management, Philips Healthcare
• Nico Nürbchen, General Manager, Global Supply Chain Management, OLYMPUS Surgical Technologies Europe
• Anthony Ward, Global Head of Supply Chain, Danaher
• Dan Bøgsted Andersen, Global Head of Digital Health, Coloplast
• Jimmy Khoo, Vice President, Supply Chain Europe & EMA, Becton Dickinson

And many more!

Download the agenda here to find out exactly who is speaking, what the hottest topics are and how LogiMed can benefit you.

Then, take a look at the bookings page to get 15% off your ticket price with code: HHM19

We look forward to seeing you in Rotterdam in October!

The world’s leading medical school is embracing state of the art virtual reality software to push student’s learning to new heights. Oxford University has partnered with Oxford Medical Simulation to train medical students using virtual reality. Students can now practice medical emergencies using true to life virtual scenarios without risking patients’ lives.

The technology, developed by UK-based Oxford Medical Simulation (OMS), allows medical students to practice treating acutely unwell patients in a simulated, virtual environment as often as they like. Training in this way improves patient care in real life by allowing repeated practice in simulation to build competence and confidence.

Oxford University decided to employ this innovative technology as a way to get more students through simulation. Simulation – where trainees practice medical emergencies as they would present in real life – is widely regarded as one of the most effective ways of training healthcare professionals. Simulation is traditionally practiced with high fidelity plastic mannequins in mocked up hospital wards. However, this form of simulation is time, space and budget consuming meaning medical students may only get to experience one physical simulation in an academic year. With virtual reality simulation, students are now able to practice simulated scenarios as often as they like.

The system is being used at the OxSTaR centre based at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford – the main teaching hospital for Oxford University Medical School.

Rosemary Warren, Centre Manager at OxSTaR commented, “As a world-leading institution, it is important for us to remain at the forefront of changes in the types of learning opportunities we offer our students. Embedding virtual reality simulation into what we do has enabled us to give a far greater number of learners access to simulation in a shorter space of time. It’s encouraging to see how quickly our students have adopted the technology. I’m excited to see how they progress clinically as they use it more and more. Simulation is a vital part of medical education and students just don’t get to do it enough. The OMS virtual reality platform allows learners to enter simulation as often as they like to transfer their knowledge to practice.”

The OMS system works by providing students access to libraries of medical emergencies that allows them to simulate the treatment of a range of conditions such as sepsis, diabetes, cardiac failure, pancreatitis and many more. Students enter the interactive virtual scenario using an Oculus headset and are greeted by a virtual nursing assistant and their patient. Learners are able to question, comfort, examine and treat the patient as they would in real life. Every action the learner takes up to – and including – diagnosis and resolution is recorded and fed into the system’s inbuilt feedback engine. Once the scenario is complete, the learner is taken through this feedback to understand what went well and what they need to improve on.

The emphasis is on training effective decision making, critical thinking and clinical reasoning. Healthcare learners have a safe space where they can apply their knowledge and learn from their mistakes. Dr Jack Pottle, Medical Director at Oxford Medical Simulation said: “We’re delighted to be working with the world’s leading university to bring our virtual reality simulation platform to Oxford medical students. We have developed OMS out of a belief that training healthcare professionals in a flexible, zero-risk environment will transform patient care around the world. We learn best when learning from experience and our system allows users to do just that – without putting patient’s lives at risk.”

The 9^th edition of MEDICAL FAIR THAILAND makes its move to a new and bigger location at BITEC, Bangkok, from 11 to 13 September. The biennial exhibition will bring together 1,000 exhibitors from 60 countries including 21 national pavilions including for the first time representation from Brazil, Denmark, Hong Kong and Indonesia.

Over three days, more than 10,000 medical and healthcare innovations from around the world serving the hospital, diagnostic, pharmaceutical, and rehabilitation equipment sectors will take centre stage at MEDICAL FAIR THAILAND 2019.

As Thailand’s largest international medical and healthcare exhibition of its kind, MEDICAL FAIR THAILAND is organized by Messe Düsseldorf Asia, and is the ideal sourcing and procurement platform for the industry. Complementing the internationality of the exhibition and the strong sourcing opportunities is the knowledge-sharing and thought leadership focus of the exhibition. This year’s line-up includes events such as the 4th ARTeC conference, WT Wearables Technologies Conference 2019 ASIA, and more

What’s new: Community Care Pavilion and Start-up Park

• Community Care Pavilion
  With the ageing population in Southeast Asia expected to make up 15 per cent of its total population by 2035, in Thailand it is estimated the number of individuals aged over 60 will increase to 25 per cent by 2040 and 37 per cent by 2050 – this has given rise to a growing demand for complex and technology-intensive medical interventions and solutions. Making its debut at MEDICAL FAIR THAILAND 2019 is the Community Care Pavilion with companies featuring remote healthcare monitoring solutions, geriatric care, rehabilitation products and assistive devices.

Expect to meet companies from Hong Kong, China, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and USA, who will showcase products such as: the innovative air mattresses for wound care, an automatic turning bed that can reposition patients, thus reducing care burden of caregivers, a smart diaper solution that helps monitor and gives real-time data and alerts to the caregiver, as well as a fully digitalised innovative healthcare communication system that can help increase efficiency, and many more other products.

•  Start-up Park

The Start-Up Park is a dedicated showcase for innovative and late stage mature healthcare start-ups to meet industry influencers, angel investors, entrepreneurs to incubators and accelerators. Trade visitors can expect to meet Start-Ups from Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and more.

Some of the innovations on show include the Marburg Bone Bank system which is used for the thermal disinfection for bone grafting, an AI software system that helps reduce diagnosis time for sleeping disorders, a one-stop e-platform to locate and book appointments with medical and healthcare professionals and a mobile healthcare app that helps monitor eating habits and help diabetics calculate calories.

Complementing the Start-up Park is the Start-up Podium® – a comprehensive programme that includes a series of fireside chats and panel discussions with industry leaders and experts in their field; topics include Remote Diabetes Monitoring Application, Challenges Facing MedTech companies: A Regional Perspective, Women in Medtech and Life sciences, to the Role of management graduates in healthcare Start-Ups.

Commenting on the relevance of the Start-Up Park at the exhibition, Dr Kakanand Srungboonmee, from the Centre of Data Mining and Biomedical Informatics, Faculty of Medical Technology, Mahidol University, in Bangkok, said: “It is important to have an event like the Start-Up Park as we need investors who understand the challenges faced by life sciences and medical/ health start-ups.

General investors are used to faster development times and seeing quicker returns on their investments in other industry sectors, so when they see the challenges faced by the life sciences and medical/ health sectors such as the longer time needed for development and clinical trials, stricter standards and more restrictive marketing regulations, they are reluctant to invest.”

Industry-led conferences and concurrent events

•  4th Advanced Rehab Technology Conference (ARTeC): 11 & 12 September

Jointly organized by The Royal College of Physiatrists of Thailand, Thai Rehabilitation Medicine Association and Messe Düsseldorf Asia, this edition will focus on the theme – The combination of Ultrasonography and Electrodiagnosis: An innovative approach to neuromuscular disorders. The two day conference includes renowned industry-thought leaders from Canada, USA and Thailand, and will offer insights into specialist topics such as Ultrasound evaluation of Peripheral Nerve and Focal Neuropathies, Normal Neuromuscular Ultrasound, and many more.

WT Wearable Technologies Conference 2019 ASIA: 11 September

The 35th edition of this conference will provide networking opportunities and insight into how wearables are digitalising the healthcare industry, as well as uncover a new era of fitness wearables and the latest enabling technologies in this extravagant line-up that discusses everything from latest generation rechargeable microcells, adaptive analytics, to infrastructure for precision medicine and connected healthcare platforms.

•  Nursing and Health Literacy for Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) Management: 12 & 13 September

With chronic diseases – particularly NCDs being a problem to health and at the same time, threatening the health care system; nursing professionals will have a greater role and involvement in helping to solve NCDs – helping to promote and prevent NCDs at healthcare facilities and also as advocates to promote healthcare. The two-day conference organized by the Thai Nurses Association will cover topics such as Policy and Strategy on Prevention and Control of NCDs, Service delivery of health care system for NCDs: The Challenges of an ageing Population, Concept and Experience using alternative medicine in NCD practice, and more.

As the region’s largest international medical and healthcare exhibition, MEDICAL FAIR THAILAND 2019 is a must-visit business platform and will continue to set the stage for the industry, as it shares in the expertise of MEDICA – the world’s No.1 medical exhibition and MEDICAlliance, the global portfolio of medical exhibitions under the Messe Düsseldorf group in Germany.

For more information on MEDICAL FAIR THAILAND 2019 and to register your visit, go to: www.medicalfair-thailand.com

As part of a technology partnership between the two organizations, Siemens Healthineers and the Herz- und Diabeteszentrum Nordrhein-Westfalen (Heart and Diabetes Center North Rhine-Westphalia, HDZ NRW) in Bad Oeynhausen have developed their first innovative care service for patients with cardiovascular diseases.

The program, known as “HerzConnect,” is aimed at health insurance companies that want to offer improved treatment for policyholders with chronic heart failure. The objective is to ensure patients are treated in accordance with the guidelines, and to provide in-depth remote care to significantly slow the progress of the disease, enable patients to manage their own disease through a process of education, and make a perceptible improvement to their quality of life. One crucial element involves preventing decompensated heart failure, i.e. an aggravation in which an accumulation of water in the lungs and other body parts leads to repeated hospitalization

Siemens Healthineers will be responsible for the entire technical component of this telemedicine solution, including logistical aspects. This includes elements such as the mobile measuring devices, like a mobile ECG, blood pressure meter, and scales to measure
body weight. HDZ NRW is responsible for providing patients with medical care and advice. The mobile app and the care software at HDZ NRW were developed for this project by Siemens Healthineers in partnership with HDZ NRW.

The mobile measuring devices supplied by Siemens Healthineers and certified as medical products record selected vital signs and other patient parameters around the clock and transmit this data via a Smartphone app and a secure data connection to the Institute for Applied Telemedicine (IFAT) at HDZ NRW. There, the data is analyzed both automatically and by specialists using specially developed algorithms, so that treatment can then be systematically optimized to suit each individual patient. This involves providing automated, intuitive feedback to the patient in question, as well as targeted, needs-based contact from the medical specialists at HDZ NRW. The specialists, who have undergone dedicated training in the clinical patterns of heart failure, take down additional information relevant to the patients’ treatment in a series of regular, scheduled phone calls, and guide them toward health-promoting lifestyles that will help them deal with their chronic heart disease.

Communicating knowledge on heart failure and setting individual goals for the course of treatment are intended to increase patient responsibility and improve their individual treatment outcomes. Continuous monitoring and the telemedicine care program will enable faster response times if unusual parameters are detected, in addition to providing care in accordance with guidelines, and ensuring improved adherence to treatment, all of which will ultimately result in better quality of life for the patients. Reducing the number of unplanned readmissions will cover the costs of telemedicine care using HerzConnect.

The first health insurance company to adopt this program is DAK Gesundheit in North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony, which will roll it out for its policyholders starting
summer 2019.

Siemens Healthineers enables healthcare providers worldwide to increase value by empowering them on their journey towards expanding precision medicine, transforming care delivery, improving patient experience and digitalizing healthcare. A leader in medical technology, Siemens Healthineers is constantly innovating its portfolio of products and services in its core areas of diagnostic and therapeutic imaging and in laboratory diagnostics and molecular medicine. Siemens Healthineers is also actively developing its digital health services and enterprise services. In fiscal 2018, which ended on September 30, 2018, Siemens Healthineers generated revenue of €13.4 billion and adjusted profit of €2.3 billion and has about 50,000 employees worldwide. Further information is available at www.siemens-healthineers.com.

The Herz- und Diabeteszentrum Nordrhein-Westfalen (Heart and Diabetes Center North Rhine-Westphalia, HDZ NRW), Bad Oeynhausen, is an internationally recognized center for the treatment of cardiovascular and diabetic diseases. With 35,000 patients per year, including 14,000 in-patients, HDZ NRW is one of Europe’s leading specialist hospitals, and its largest center for heart transplants. It has employed specialists covering a range of disciplines for 35 years. The university hospital provides all the latest treatment procedures for conditions involving heart failure, which can be monitored using telemedicine care programs from the hospital’s Institute for Applied Telemedicine (IFAT). The IFAT is a state-of-the-art care unit established in 2003 and forming part of HDZ NRW and provides in-home care by remote for patients throughout Germany. Its service include prevention, diagnostics, treatment, aftercare, and rehabilitation for patients with chronic cardiac, cardiovascular, and diabetes-related diseases. See www.hdz-nrw.de for further information