Our new online editor, Loren Bonner, attended Medica last week in Dusseldorf, Germany. Maybe you saw some of the stories she posted from the show in our online news section.

For those of you who are not familiar with Medica, it's held every year in Dusseldorf and is considered one of the largest, most attended, world trade shows for the medical industry. There are exhibitors from all over the world showing off products that range from surgical gloves to ultrasound devices. Over the years, the show has grown from primarily German players to non-German players, and many come to Germany to seek business with people in other countries, not just in Germany. Loren told me that the final press release tallied a record breaking 416 companies at the show from the U.S. this year. She also said that other leading companies on the exhibit floor came from China, the UK, Italy and France.

Loren said that health IT was a big theme at the show (what a surprise!). A lot of the presentations Loren attended, and many of the vendors she spoke to, saw health IT as the way forward. She thought it was interesting that the same health care issues that the U.S is facing-- and trying to solve through health IT-- are the same in Europe: reducing hospital readmissions and overuse of emergency departments, managing chronic disease and caring for a growing aging population.
As for the developing world, Loren said that ultrasound was clearly growing for this market, mostly because it's a low-cost and relatively portable technology. All the big OEMs-- Siemens, GE, Philips-- had updates to their ultrasound products at Medica that claimed to have better cost of ownership, improved image quality and could be used for a wide range of clinical applications.

Personally, I think it will be interesting to see how ultrasound branches out from OBGYN and into new areas like surgery.

If you plan to attend next year, book your hotel and flight in advance because it fills up fast.

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