Hegenberger Medical Announces a Strategic Distribution Partnership with Benetec BV

Hegenberger Medical is pleased to announce that Benetec BV has been appointed as a strategic Enterprise Partner and the exclusive distribution partner of the Hegenberger Retractor in the territories of Belgium and Luxembourg.

The Hegenberger retractor, invented by Danish midwife Malene Hegenberger, is a unique, innovative and award-winning device, which transforms postpartum exploration and suturing by providing a clear view of the vaginal walls and perineum, improving outcomes for women with postpartum tears. The Hegenberger Retractor is the first innovation in this field of obstetric practice for over 150 years.

 

Benetec BV is a leading company in the distribution of medical, medical equipment, instruments, and consumables to the Benelux healthcare facilities. Benetec provides a vast clinical experience and a deep knowledge of the local market thanks to 35 years providing innovative and quality healthcare solutions, offering continuous education through our range of workshops, webinars and other courses.

Rob Maas, Managing Director said, “We are pleased to partner up with Hegenberger Medical. The Hegenberger retractor is simply better than another set of hands during suturing. We are convinced that this innovative product will help many clinicians to improve efficiency and most of all the outcome for their patients.

 

Hegenberger Medical is delighted for the support provided by the Department of International Trade (DIT) in Belgium by providing a better understanding of the market entry strategy. Mathieu Vanoverberghe, Head of Trade at British Embassy in Brussels said, “DIT Brussels, the Trade Promotion Agency of the UK Government in Belgium, is honoured and proud to have been able to support Hegenberger’s entry into the BeLux market. Benetec BV is a strong name within the sector in Belgium, and we are delighted that this partnership has been established. We are confident this product will improve obstetric practices for medical practitioners in general and improve patients’ quality of life in particular, as clearly demonstrated in other European markets”.


Artificial Intelligence and Anesthesiology: New Tool for better Accuracy

The use of AI in medical imaging continues to expand, and a new tool can help anesthesiologists deliver quicker and more accurate care.

Healthcare systems are adopting new ways to use artificial intelligence to improve workflows, patient care and more, from chatbots that screen for COVID-19 symptoms to more accurate cancer diagnoses.

In the field of anesthesiology, Intel and Samsung Medison recently collaborated, using AI to create a tool that makes administering a nerve block faster and more accurate. NerveTrack is a real-time nerve tracking ultrasound feature created using Intel’s OpenVINO toolkit, says Alex Flores, medical imaging director of Intel’s health and life sciences division. The toolkit helps organizations develop apps and platforms that use AI to emulate human vision.

Anesthesiologists are using NerveTrack to help identify the median and ulnar nerves in patients’ arms, where nerve blocks are often injected before surgeries and to relieve recovery pain.

New Levels of Nerve Scanning Accuracy

NerveTrack offers support similar to the way self-parking cars help drivers who struggle with parallel parking, Flores says. With some nerves as small as 2 millimeters in diameter, it can be time-consuming and difficult to identify them with an ultrasound machine.

“What anesthesiologists find is twofold,” Flores says. “One, they may need some assistance in finding that nerve block within that forearm. Or two, it’s very tedious, and they want to automate that process so they can spend more time working with a patient.”

The new technology reduces the possibility of complications and cuts scanning time by up to 30 percent compared with using a regular ultrasound, Flores says. It also increases the accuracy of scanning the nerve by 20 percent.

Source: Philips, “Future Health Index 2021: United States,” May 2021

“Essentially, the way it works is Samsung has a data set — a lot of different images that it uses to create an algorithm or a model that helps detect the actual nerve block in the arm,” Flores says.

Though NerveTrack is a nascent technology, sonographers, medical students and residents at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’s teaching hospital are already using the tool. The Pain Management Center at Seoul National University Hospital in South Korea has also deployed the technology.

Using high-performance computing and AI technologies in medical imaging is one of the best ways to help healthcare professionals worldwide, says Dr. Won-Chul Bang, vice president of product strategy at Samsung Medison.

“As AI is rapidly growing in other fields, its application is increasing in medical imaging as well,” he says. “AI can be used for workflow simplification, image quality enhancement and to support the clinical decision.”

AI Growth and Usage in Medical Imaging

The healthcare industry has expanded its use of AI in medical imaging and other functions, including clinical decision support, says Mutaz Shegewi, IDC’s research director for provider IT transformation strategies. “From a diagnostic standpoint, you have AI being increasingly used to see what clinicians can’t see in medical imaging to be able to identify certain lesions, certain manifestations of disease,” he adds.

When it comes to clinical decision support, he says the benefits of AI to physicians and patients could be immense. “If AI can tap into the global evidence base and convey that know-ledge into a real-time process that complements physicians’ own intelligence, the benefits are tremendous for the patient in terms of diagnosis, the clinical course of management and the treatment being more likely to be effective, affordable and feasible,” Shegewi says.

Bron: Artificial Intelligence and Anesthesiology: New Tool for Better Accuracy | HealthTech Magazine (ampproject.org) by Wendy McMahon


ISUOG just Taught its First-Ever “BT” Practical Course Using Volutracer O.P.U.S. in ONLINE Modality

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Attendees from All Over the World Took Part of the Novel Experience at the Same Time!

Last weekend, 20 participants from Belgium, Holland, Ghana, Lebanon, and many other countries performed supervised obstetric and gynecological ultrasound simulation practices, each plugged in from his or her corner of the world in real time.

ISUOG BT’s Director Gihad Chalouhi from France and Professors Suresh Seshadri from India, Shabnam Bobdiwala from the United Kingdom, Catalina Valencia from Colombia, and Mauricio Herrera also from Colombia were the ones who gave the theoretical-practical lectures and evaluated the students in 7-hour sessions each day.

The first day, Saturday 17, they went over ISUOG’s official scanning approaches: The 20 + 2 Planes Approach to the Routine Mid-Trimester ScanThe 6-steps ApproachFetal and Gynecological Ultrasound, among other subjects. The professors used their Volutracer OPUS simulators to showcase each step of the scanning process: the sequence of hand movements one must do while holding the transducer to reach each target plane, the measuring of the resulting image, and the final interpretation.

Next day, Chalouhi, Suresh, and Shabnam lead live practical sessions with all the students divided into two virtual rooms. The method was fully interactive: the students shared their screens and were evaluated and guided by the professors in real time.

To top off this original initiative by ISUOG, the students will have to compete in a contest: the OPUS Academy 10-Strike Challenge. The winner will receive an honorable mention on ISUOG’s webpage and a journal membership.