July 2016
Following a call for expression of interest, the European Commission recently selected 30 members to participate in its eHealth Stakeholder Group 2016-2018.
The EC eHealth stakeholder group is an expert group which aims to contribute to the development of legislation or policy related to eHealth by providing reports, opinions and relevant data, and acting as consultative body for the European Commission. The ESR was a member of the previous EC eHealth Stakeholder Group established in 2012, which ended its activities last year and published four main reports focusing on interoperability, patient access to EHR, telemedicine deployment and eHealth inequalities.
The EC eHealth Stakeholder Group represents both users (in terms of health professionals, citizens, patient groups, healthcare managers, hospitals, health insurers, eHealth experts and public health organisations) and industry with a direct interest and core activities centred on Information and Communications Technology (ICT).
The first meeting of the renewed EC eHealth Stakeholder Group took place on May 18 in Brussels. Prof. Emanuele Neri, Chair of the ESR eHealth & Informatics Subcommittee and ESR representative to the EC eHealth Stakeholder Group participated in the meeting.
Intersociety Working Group on MR Safety publishes recommended responsibilities for the management of MR safety
The Intersociety Working Group on MR Safety was established by the European Society of Radiology (ESR), European Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and Biology (ESMRMB), International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM), European Federation of Organisations in Medical Physics (EFOMP) and the European Federation of Radiographer Societies (EFRS) in response to the enactment of the EU-directive on physical agents (electromagnetic fields, Directive 2013/35/EU), which defines exposure limits to electric and magnetic fields in the work place.
The directive must be transposed into national law within the EU by July 1, 2016. After years of successful multi-stakeholder engagement by the Alliance for MRI, a derogation for MRI was obtained. According to the directive, the EU expects the MR-community to display a high degree of self-regulation, and develop effective training programmes for workers in the field. As a first step it is then necessary to define the roles and responsibilities of workers, so that appropriate training programmes can be developed, which may ultimately be offered by multiple providers.
The Intersociety Working Group on MR Safety recently published a document providing recommended responsibilities for the management of MR safety (link above).
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