Technology
Imaging Market: M&As Likely to Further Strengthen Power Players
Companies are likely to turn toward mergers and acquisitions (M&As) over the next four years to overcome the negative effects of the economic recession. According to a report from Frost & Sullivan, “Consolidation/M&A in Medical Imaging Market,” “...
Frost & Sullivan Honors Siemens for CT Technology
Frost & Sullivan has awarded Siemens Healthcare its 2010 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Technology Leadership of the Year in the computed tomography (CT) imaging market. The award was based on industry analysis and cited Siemens’s long history in dose-...
Juggling Act: How to Design with Multiple Materials
  Above are silicone extrusion, silicone-molded, micromolded, and two-material molded parts. Just a few decades ago, choosing the material for a new medical product was a relatively simple process limited to a few commodity materials. Today, that’s no longer the...
Medical Devices Come Home
Some in-home medical devices and their gateways communicate directly with the patient to offer help and feedback. Other gateways are designed to be passive and effectively invisible. As the population ages and the number of people requiring medical treatment rapidly...
Do Unproven CAD Tools Get the Benefit of Reimbursement?
Although not ubiquitous, computer-aided detection is widely used in mammography. A recent study has found that as long as doctors can get reimbursed for new medical technology, the technology does not have to show clear-cut benefits for them to use it. The findings,...
Building a Plug-and-Play Future for Healthcare
Smart pumps enable clinicians to spend more one-on-one time with each patient. Smart pumps generally incorporate multiple comprehensive libraries of drugs, usual concentrations, dosing measurement units, and dose limits. In late 2009, Lancaster General Health in Lancaster,...
Keeping an Eye on Advances in Ophthalmic Technologies
Almost every American adult is aware of the aging baby boomer population and the panoply of obesity-related and other diseases confronting them, including diabetes and persistent hypertension. Much less known is the explosive growth of degenerative diseases of the eye, some linked...
Where Color Meets Clarity
Color-coded cannula systems must be made of material that offers clarity and remains color-stable after sterilization. Image courtesy of EASTMAN CHEMICAL CO. Clear medical devices are often essential to effective patient care. The transparency of plastic...
Stroke Therapy Project Wins BCI Award
Winning team member Kai Keng Ang (left) stands alongside Christoph Guger, g.tec’s CEO. Although telepathy appears to be at least a few millennia down the road, an increasing number of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) have exciting new medical applications. The 2010...
Wireless Advances Are Afoot
Wireless foot controls, such as the one shown here for cataract surgery, avoid some of the problems associated with cabled controls. Historically, medical device manufacturers that require foot controls have used a cabled unit that plugs into the console of the device being...