Agfa HealthCare announces that at ECR 2012 it will demonstrate how its products and portfolios create complete and integrated solutions to meet the specific needs of healthcare facilities at the departmental, hospital and regional levels, regardless of size, workflow design or budgetary considerations.

Laser light in combination with certain drugs – known as photodynamic therapy – can destroy cancer tumours, but is today used mostly to cure skin cancer. The reason that internal tumours are not treated with the method is that the technology does not exist to check that the precise amount of light is administered.

he European medical technology industry recognises the need to strengthen the current European regulatory framework for medical devices. Eucomed, the European industry association for medical technology, compliments the European Commission on its swift reaction and clear proposal for a joint plan of immediate measures to strengthen the European medical devices legislation.

The Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust has announced the go-live of its clinical portal across the trust. The portal will allow vital patient information, stored on a variety of systems, to be called up in a single view and in real-time reducing the length of clinic times and improving patient care and services.

Patients’ ratings of hospitals tally with objective measures of the hospital’s performance, according to an independent study published today in Archives of Internal Medicine. Since 2008, patients have been able to post comments on and rate hospitals using the NHS Choices website, in the same way as they might rate a hotel on Tripadvisor.

On St. Valentine’s Day, we want to be close to the ones we love. Researchers from Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands and the UK are testing whether one day that special person in our life could be a robot. Experiments have shown that children, for example, can become extremely attached to a robot playmate, but can the robot in turn can develop a bond with a human being?

PENTAX Life Care, experts in high definition endoscopy, has introduced the world’s first HD (high definition) video bronchoscope. The newest addition to PENTAX Life Care’s well established range of high definition HD+ endoscopes, the EB-1990i HD+ Bronchoscope sets a new standard for state-of-the-art bronchoscopy and provides incomparable image quality in pulmonology.

General Electric Co. (GE), through its healthcare IT business, and Microsoft Corp. announced several developments for their planned 50-50 joint venture. The new company, to be named Caradigm™, is expected to launch in the first half of 2012, pending customary closing conditions.

Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI) and the Catharina Hospital in the Netherlands, a leading interventional cardiology center, have teamed up to showcase current solutions and future developments that shape the diagnosis and minimally invasive treatment of heart rhythm disorders.