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IGEH/INRO NEWSLETTER SUMMER 2005 September 2, 2005
To: All Supporters, Friends and Colleagues Dear all, Summer is in its second half and it is already not so hot and sunny as it has been a week ago. I write this newsletter while enjoying my vacations as usually in Croatia, Omisalj, sitting in local pub and listening to Croatian songs about the sea and fishermen. One could say that the summer season is in its highest since number of emails coming in is really low. I hope you enjoy your vacations, too. Now to more professional topics. First, personal news. I was shocked to hear, that Annalise, who has the UN fellowship in Cairo, was present at the spot of recent bombing in Egypt, fortunately not injured. She shared her feelings with many of us right after the event. Alexandra has received an extension of her fellowship in US and will stay there for another year. When she will be back next year, IGEH will gain trained epidemiologist. We have a new colleague, who successfully passed her exams for PhD studies - Dr. Katja Scherbow, who is an MD, working currently with the International Institute for Applied System Analysis in Austria. She will focus on public health effects of TBI in European countries. The team of IGEH focused all efforts to develop a series of papers on the Austrian project to be published in the Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift in the end of this year. Two papers were already fully finished before the summer: Introductory one where the methodology is described in details; Epidemiology of TBI describes results from hospital data on causes and consequences of TBI. More papers are under development: one on prehospital management, two on intensive care approaches, one on surgical procedures involved and one on TBI guidelines and consequences for quality of care. Once the papers are ready to be published, the team will start developing papers with colleagues from Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia&Hercegovina to be published in international journals. Early this year the team presented a paper TBI Guidelines Implementation, Compliance and Outcome in Selected Austrian Hospitals prepared by M. Rusnak, I. Wilbacher, I. Janciak, W. Mauritz at the 11th Meeting of the European Shock Society. The discussion indicated considerable interest in the topic. Data from Austrian, Slovakian, Croatian, Bosnian and Macedonian centers were added to the new EuroTARN website. The website can be found at: http://www.tarn.ac.uk/eurotarn/eurotarn2/intro.htm . This is the first step in larger European cooperation in quality improvement for trauma care. IGEH continues its participation at a project entitled "EU Injury Prevention Network", financed by the EU SANCO. This year we are going to share our experiences with Evidence Based Guidelines with the project team. EU Project with Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia continues for the last year, focusing on evaluation of results. One of the outcomes is already mentioned EUROTARN contribution. Major focus is put on summarizing the results and developing recommendations for countries involved. The results will be presented at scientific conferences in Austria, Croatia and Macedonia before the final report is finalized. We spent almost a year developing the first financial report to Brussels!!! Thanks to all participating centers as well as our accountant we finally booked the first report. The next one will be easier, as we were told. A preproposal for a project with Russian and Georgian centers was sent to Brussels. We will see soon, if we were successful. If yes, we will develop a full size project. The database exceeded one thousand cases. The version currently used became too slow and we had to upgrade our server. Thank to understanding from the Erste Bank and their donation of two computers we are able to improve the performance of the server. We have updated the ITCP software, too, thank to generous support from Bll Informatik GesMBH. Ivan will start distributing new version once he will be back from US in the beginning of September. We want to start a new initiative: helping students and young professionals to enhance their skills and knowledge on Evidence Based Medicine in the field of trauma and TBI through tutoring. IGEH posses considerable database and a network of experienced professionals from different medical and health professions. Using these resources we would like to offer them to all who would like to contribute to research within the field of TBI. In October we will take a part on international symposium on future research in TBI, which will set up new direction for the TBI research. If you or your colleagues are interested to join this initiative please contact me. There is also a call for applications for EU Marie-Curie fellowships: http://www.cordis.lu/mariecurie-actions/ . We at IGEH would be happy to assist you in developing an application. We also started new service: to group distribute news from INRO, TBI relevant information, events, and opportunities to all of you. If you are interested please subscribe to the service DOMEUS. If you have not received an email with a subscription, please go to our website http://www.igeh.org/ and register yourself. Let me also mention the work and support from the IGEH' Board of Directors. Without this we would not be able to develop IGEH' activities in this scope. We are also thankful to all supporters from Austrian companies and individuals for their financial contributions. Thank to international TBI community and our sister foundation in US, we are able to progress in thinking and developing new ideas. Thank to you all (for a complete list of supporters and co operations see our website with the Annual Report 2004). With the best regards, Martin Rusnak, M.D., CSc Executive Director
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