Lecture at the Management Circle Intensive Seminar

The declared purpose of the Management Circle Seminar is to assist in improving communication with and service to customers, and show how our Web presence can be optimized cross-medially and interactively.
The topics covered in the seminar include: health portals as modern communications solutions, health reform and electronic health records, and the eHealth site as a marketing tool, on Wednesday, October 22 and Thursday, October 23, 2008.
Further information: www.managementcircle.de

ICW regrets Dr. Warda’s decision and thanks him for his successful work. The company wishes him all the best for his personal and professional
future. ICW’s CEO Peter Reuschel will take over Dr. Warda’s responsibilities for an interim period.

Download Press Release about Personalia Dr. Frank Warda 

At the eHealthCare Congress in Nottwil on the 24th and 25th of September, the cooperative partners will be presenting their combined product for the first time: At Stand 32, visitors will be able to receive a voucher for a free personal health check-up. The check-up measures the body-mass index (BMI), blood pressure and blood oxygen content, as well as respiratory function. The test results will be entered automatically into ISIS prävent and used to produce a personal report that can be filed in the LifeSensor personal health record. These data will then be available for use in later check-ups or can be provided to other attending physicians. Visitors also have the option of receiving a LifeSensor personal health record that they can test for six months free of charge.

The Swiss Prevention Centers shows enterprises feasible ways to improve the health-related behavior of their employees. Holistic health check-ups (medicine, laboratory, nutrition, fitness, life balance, selfness) are specially designed for employees in management and key functions. The Swiss Prevention Center works with its customers to promote the philosophy that health is an investment in the future.

ICW is an international eHealth specialist. In Switzerland, it offers its LifeSensor personal health record, which enables anyone to store copies of health-relevant information easily and independently with regard to time and location. Only the owner of the record has access to this personal information. Record owners can however provide this information to others if needed - doctors, pharmacists, hospitals or other health care providers.

Stock Informatik is a specialized provider of preventative occupational medicine software solutions and is the leading German system house in this area. With its ISIS prävent, Stock Informatik is offering a management and documentation solution for health check-ups as a part of employer health care management. ICW and Stock Informatik have already been cooperating closely in Germany: Stock Informatik was the first ICW Certified Integration Partner to integrate the LifeSensor personal health record into its portfolio.

Download press release about Cooperation of ICW, Stock Informatik and Swiss Prevention Center 

Online capability for components of the telematic infrastructure is a necessary precondition that must be met before the electronic health card can come into widespread use. The full value of the electronic health card will only then be fully realized once services such as ePrescription, emergency data or access to personal health records are fully implemented. Online capability is a major precondition for the next step towards a networked health care system.

The ICW Healthcare Connector is a cooperative development of ICW and Cisco based on Cisco's proven Integrated Services Router (ISR) technology. The Connector establishes a highly secure connection from the local IT systems in medical practices and pharmacies to the central telematic infrastructure.

Download press release about ICW connector for ProOnline-VSDD

A key feature of the solution is the ability to leverage an organization’s existing infrastructure. Darryl Low, president of MZIHC comments, “Our partnership with ICW allows us to offer a viable solution to the problem of connectivity for system-wide network communications that allows the creation of consolidated electronic patient records, simplifying administrative and medical processes for physicians.”

A defining characteristic of ICW’s solution is its flexibility in aggregating data from EZ‑CAP along with other data sources such as pharmacies, laboratories, hospitals, and physicians offices, and providing core information in the form of an electronic patient record.

Jeremy Coote, CEO of InterComponentWare Inc., notes, “Connectivity and the ability to deliver true interoperability are critical factors in the success of this partnership. By combining the EZ‑CAP platform and ICW solutions, we can deliver relevant data to all stakeholders in the care continuum, when and where it is needed. Moreover, our customers will have an extendable platform, ready for the integration of value-added applications.”

ICW has recently implemented its interoperable solution at an existing EZ‑CAP customer in southern California.

Download press release about EZ-CAP and ICW

How does the new Diabetes Risk Management System work?

The Diabetes Risk Management System consists of various software solutions offered by ICW and Accu-Chek blood glucose measurement devices provided by Roche Diagnostics. The components of the risk management system automate data flow and documentation and thus facilitate diabetes management that conforms to current treatment guidelines.

During the course of the study, ICW will provide patients with the personal health record LifeSensor®. Roche Diagnostics will supply patients with blood glucose meters (Accu-Chek® Aviva and the information management system Accu-Chek® SmartPix) free of charge. On a regular basis, patients will measure their blood glucose values at home. Via Accu-Chek SmartPix they will be able to analyze easy-to-understand blood glucose graphs and statistics on their personal computers.

The Roche Diagnostics glucose meters can save up to 400 values. At the patient’s next consultation, these data will be transferred to a physician’s computer and uploaded to the CDM Diabetes Monitor, a software solution based on ICW’s Care and Disease Manager application. The CDM Diabetes Monitor improves management of diabetes patients in the primary care study setting.

In addition to blood glucose data, the CDM Diabetes Monitor collects further information relevant for diabetes patients including basic parameters such as blood pressure, weight, waist and hip size. Moreover, laboratory blood test results are also collected. These data are then transferred via an integrated interface to Roche Diagnostics where it is processed into an Accu-Chek® Mellibase risk report. Based on the patient’s individual health status, the risk report provides him or her with a 10-year risk prognosis of developing complications related to diabetes. The report also explains how this risk can be reduced by optimizing the patient’s diabetes care. This information constitutes the basis for a decision-making process that focuses on the patient’s unique health situation.

The Accu-Chek Mellibase report is made available to physicians via the CDM Diabetes Monitor. Likewise, the report will also be stored in patient’s personal LifeSensor record.

Study design

The study is a prospective, randomized and controlled intervention study. In total 1,200 patients with type 2 diabetes will be recruited. These patients range in age between 38 and 68 years. Twenty-four primary care physicians and one specialist will also participate in the study. The research project is scheduled to be completed within 2 years. During the study period, patients will have at least four health check visits at six months intervals.

The concept for the CDRM research project was designed by the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands in cooperation with the Institute of Medical Sociology and Social Medicine at the Philipps University Marburg, Germany. For further information on the scientific evaluation, please visit the study's homepage.

Diabetes type 2 and secondary prevention

About 90 percent of diabetes patients suffer from type 2 diabetes. Older individuals are particularly affected by type 2 diabetes. However, in recent years, an increasing number of young people and children are afflicted by the disease. When suffering from type 2 diabetes, the body’s cells become more resistant to the effects of insulin. Blood glucose can no longer be transported to the somatic cells in sufficient amounts. Risk factors for type 2 diabetes include obesity and sedentary lifestyles.

Diabetes patients have an increased risk for heart attacks, strokes, diabetes related kidney or eye disease and limb amputations. This is why an integrated treatment approach that considers all relevant risk factors is vital when providing good diabetes care. 

Download press release about diabetes risk management

At the start of the program, participants had the opportunity to undergo a variety of health and fitness tests and enter the results into their own Web-based, LifeSensor personal health record provided by InterComponentWare AG (ICW), the Walldorf-based eHealth specialist. At the conclusion of the program the tests were repeated. This meant that any changes could be graphically displayed in the LifeSensor personal health record, and participants were able to get a quick overview of their training progress.

In a survey conducted afterward, most of the city's employees found the personal health record to be useful. The opinions of participants about the comprehensive and detailed documentation of their own health and fitness data were especially positive. The digital exchange of data between physicians and other health and fitness experts was made possible thanks to LifeSensor - another big plus for many of the city's workers. Particular praise was also given for the ability to provide emergency data in the personal health record, just in case.

The success of this preventative health program is having an encouraging effect: Two thirds of the city's employees want to continue with the program and will be keeping themselves fit at the Pfitzenmeier Wellness & Fitness Park. In order to continue to get the best possible support from physicians and fitness experts, they will be continuing to document their health data in their LifeSensor. "I am glad that so many of our employees participated in this preventative program and want to continue with it. Comprehensive coaching and individual encouragement enabled each participant to influence his or her health and wellbeing more actively”, says Dr. René Pöltl, the city of Schwetzingen's deputy mayor.

The initiators of this preventative health program were the Schwetzingen city government, the Rhine-Neckar Health Initiative, the Schwetzingen Medical Network and the Pfitzenmeier Wellness & Fitness Park.

Download press release about the city that moves

Contact City of Schwetzingen

Press Office
Wolfgang Leberecht
Tel.: +49 (0) 6202 87 105
wolfgang.leberecht@schwetzingen.de

The program’s purpose is to produce improved patient outcomes by centralizing specialized, intense case management for chronically ill patients. Studies have shown that telemonitoring of CHF patients increases the patient’s quality of life and can reduce care delivery costs by avoiding unnecessary emergency room visits and hospitalizations.

ICW’s DCS will manage and securely distribute information to and from the medical devices in the patient’s home. ICW’s PXS serves as the interoperability platform for Coventry’s internal and external networks.  The PXS facilitates the seamless and secure exchange of information between disparate systems both inside and outside of the Coventry umbrella of healthcare services.

Dr. Vishu Jhaveri, Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for
Coventry Health Care, and Executive Sponsor for the program, notes: “We hope to develop specialized intense care management methodologies that bring proven results to patients, providers and health plans. We can’t accomplish these goals without exceptional technology. ICW’s ten-year experience with providing proven eHealth solutions, along with their experience with other cardiac care projects, makes them the obvious partner for Coventry’s new program.”

ICW is involved with two large-scale cardiac care projects in Europe: The Partnership for the Heart, a telemedicine collaborative with Charité university hospital, and AOK Plus, a health plan-driven telemedicine project for serious CHF patients in the German state of Saxony.

Jeremy Coote, CEO of InterComponentWare Inc., adds: “The alignment of patient, provider and case manager is greatly improved by a truly interoperable technology platform capable of sharing data from a multitude of source systems.  ICW has provided these solutions both within the U.S. and Europe with notable success and looks forward to working closely with Coventry as they launch this revolutionary program.”

Download press release about Coventry Health Care and ICW