It seems as if everyone wants to do eHealth for the iPhone! From the Website eHealth Europe:
A new Web 2.0 iPhone service has been introduced in Germany, which shows what pharmacies are open during Christmas and a map of how to get there.
The new service details Christmas opening times and locations for nearly all of the 21000 pharmacies in Germany. The service is offered by Apotheken.de, one of the biggest German-language pharmacy websites.
Opening the website prompts the user to enter their postcode, which then returns a choice of nearby pharmacies displayed, together with directions, using Google Maps.
As well as details and locations of pharmacies that are open, the service also includes details of GPs on duty, though this part of service is still under development and doesn’t yet cover the whole country.
Apotheken.de’s is one of the first iPhone specific medical services in Germany, where the iPhone has been available for two months. However, other online pharmacy services such as e-medication still remain at an early stage in Germany.
“Pharmacy networks and pharmacy marketing alliances are reluctant to even think about the possibility of using electronic medication services to help patients keep track of their medication electronically“, Harald Sondhof of the Tübingen-based health-IT company Careon, told E-Health Europe.
This, he stressed, was wrong because e-medication services not only improve medication safety and patient compliance but “also can be used to win or keep customers.”
Careon is offering a web-based, patient-centred personal health record (PHR). It is available in various forms dependent on the adoption scenario. One version focuses on medication issues, with services like interaction check or reminder functions for medication times. Pharmacists could offer it to patients as an additional service.
Sondhof managed to persuade ten German pharmacies to take part in a pilot project, due to start early 2008. The pharmacists will offer the e-medication PHR service to chronically ill patients. “It will be easy to use, because it is integrated into the enterprise resource planning software. So pharmacists can add medication to their customer's PHR almost automatically”, Sondhof said. The IT partner in the project is ADV, and with around 800 pharmacies as customers it’s a medium size provider of pharmacy IT in Germany.
Given their affinity with the iPhone, pharmacists might be persuaded of e-medication services as soon as PHR are offered in iPhone versions. Indeed, the Walldorf-based company ICW has recently presented an iPhone version of its PHR ‘LifeSensor’.
Another reason to consider the iPhone a perfect e-health-present for Christmas 2007?
Links
iphone.apotheken.de/
www.careon.de
www.icw.de
Showing posts with label Europe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Europe. Show all posts
Monday, December 31, 2007
Friday, June 22, 2007
Antibiotic Noncompliance
I found this article by Jill Stein in Medical News Today! - obviously it is a little dated.
NICE, FRANCE, April 20, 2006- Only slightly more than a third of individuals polled in a recent global survey know that noncompliance with a prescription for antibiotics can lead to antibiotic resistance, according to data recently released at the 16th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID).
Researchers involved in the COMPLy (Compliance, Modalities by Population, Lifestyle and Geography) survey examined noncompliance rates and factors affecting noncompliance in 4,500 persons who were 18 years of age or older and had taken a self-administered antibiotic over the last year.
Participants, who were drawn from eleven countries, were considered noncompliant if they had omitted doses or days or if they had leftover antibiotics even though they had been told to take them until they were gone.
Overall, 22 percent of respondents said they had not complied with their last antibiotic treatment, and the noncompliance rate exceeded 30 percent in some countries, COMPly Steering Committee Chairman Jean-Claude Pechere, MD, emeritus professor of medicine at the University of Geneva in Geneva, Switzerland, said. Fifty one percent believed that leftover antibiotics could be saved and used later on, and 73 percent of those who had leftover antibiotics said they saved them.
Not surprisingly, the number of doses per day was directly correlated with noncompliance. Thus, a 15 percent noncompliance rate was noted in persons taking one dose per day versus 27 percent in persons taking three or more doses per day.
Eighty percent of those polled believed that antibiotic-resistant germs represent a serious problem but only 61 percent knew that improper antibiotic use can diminish efficacy.
Dr. Pechere said that misperceptions about appropriate antibiotic use is the main reason for noncompliance in some countries, while a lack of faith in their doctor's ability and concern about their doctor's ability to manage their illness may be a more important factor for patients in other countries.
Results also identified age as an important factor. Of respondents 18 to 29 years of age, 30 percent were noncompliant versus 14 percent of persons 60 years of age or older.
Antibiotic resistance is considered a major public health concern.
Pfizer Inc. funded the COMPLy survey.
By Jill Stein
NICE, FRANCE, April 20, 2006- Only slightly more than a third of individuals polled in a recent global survey know that noncompliance with a prescription for antibiotics can lead to antibiotic resistance, according to data recently released at the 16th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID).
Researchers involved in the COMPLy (Compliance, Modalities by Population, Lifestyle and Geography) survey examined noncompliance rates and factors affecting noncompliance in 4,500 persons who were 18 years of age or older and had taken a self-administered antibiotic over the last year.
Participants, who were drawn from eleven countries, were considered noncompliant if they had omitted doses or days or if they had leftover antibiotics even though they had been told to take them until they were gone.
Overall, 22 percent of respondents said they had not complied with their last antibiotic treatment, and the noncompliance rate exceeded 30 percent in some countries, COMPly Steering Committee Chairman Jean-Claude Pechere, MD, emeritus professor of medicine at the University of Geneva in Geneva, Switzerland, said. Fifty one percent believed that leftover antibiotics could be saved and used later on, and 73 percent of those who had leftover antibiotics said they saved them.
Not surprisingly, the number of doses per day was directly correlated with noncompliance. Thus, a 15 percent noncompliance rate was noted in persons taking one dose per day versus 27 percent in persons taking three or more doses per day.
Eighty percent of those polled believed that antibiotic-resistant germs represent a serious problem but only 61 percent knew that improper antibiotic use can diminish efficacy.
Dr. Pechere said that misperceptions about appropriate antibiotic use is the main reason for noncompliance in some countries, while a lack of faith in their doctor's ability and concern about their doctor's ability to manage their illness may be a more important factor for patients in other countries.
Results also identified age as an important factor. Of respondents 18 to 29 years of age, 30 percent were noncompliant versus 14 percent of persons 60 years of age or older.
Antibiotic resistance is considered a major public health concern.
Pfizer Inc. funded the COMPLy survey.
By Jill Stein
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