Global growth consulting company Frost and Sullivan presented fifteen awards at its 2008 Excellence in Healthcare Awards Banquet held in Berlin last week. Global growth consulting company Frost & Sullivan presented fifteen awards at its 2008 Excellence in Healthcare Awards Banquet held in Berlin last week. Among the awards conferred were those for product innovation, technology leadership, customer service leadership and market leadership.

Delivering the keynote speech, Dr. Keith Schlagbauer, Frost & Sullivan's Head of Healthcare in Africa noted that healthcare globally is facing considerable challenges to the existing paradigms under which care is administered to patients. He said that these challenges are particularly in the arenas of unsustainable cost increases, changing demographics with increasing numbers of elderly patients and quality of care issues.

"Frost & Sullivan is working with our clients to facilitate their adaptation and adoption of the emerging trend towards a preventative approach in healthcare, utilising personalised, individual genetic make-up determined, healthcare solutions," Dr. Schlagbauer said. "These cover bio-pharmaceuticals, medical devices, patient monitoring and diagnostic products all feeding into intelligent predictive software environments. We are without doubt in the early phase of a revolution which will see significant improvements in quality of life of populations on a global basis."

Technology leadership awards were bestowed on Capsule Technologie, Ziehm Imaging and Philips Speech Recognition Systems while ACIST Medical Systems and T.B.R. Group were honoured for exceptional technology innovation.

Contura and AMC Holding GmbH were commended for their successful efforts at product differentiation innovation. Integromics, S.L., 3mensio Medical Imaging and Thommen Medical AG were recognised for their noteworthy initiatives in product innovation.

Philips picked up the Kenyan Medical Device Market Leadership Award while the Market Penetration Leadership Award for the global radiology information systems market was bagged by Carestream Health, Inc. GE Healthcare received the European Patient Monitoring Industry Innovation and Advancement Award.

Customer-based initiatives were also given their due at the award's ceremony with Endometriosis.org being lauded for its customer service innovation and Merck Serono - A Division of Merck KGaA - acknowledged for its efforts at customer value enhancement.

This year's event was attended by over forty industry leaders with participants, delegates, and guests commending Europe's top performing healthcare companies.

The following is a complete list of award recipients is:

• Philips - 2007 Kenyan Medical Device Market Leadership Award
  
• Capsule Technologie - 2008 Global Patient Monitoring Technology Leadership Award
  
• Ziehm Imaging - 2007 European Medical Imaging Technology Leadership of the Year Award
  
• T.B.R. Group - 2007 European Dental Implants Technology Innovation Award
  
• Philips Speech Recognition Systems - 2007 Global Speech Recognition Technology Leadership Award
  
• ACIST Medical Systems - 2007 European Auto Injectors Technology Innovation Award
  
• Contura - 2007 European Cosmetic Procedures Product Differentiation Innovation Award
  
• GE Healthcare - 2007 European Patient Monitoring Industry Innovation and Advancement Award
  
• AMC Holding GmbH - 2007 European Hospital Information Systems Product Differentiation Innovation Award
  
• Integromics, S.L. - 2007 European Bioinformatics Product Innovation of the Year Award
  
• 3mensio Medical Imaging - 2007 European Medical Imaging Product Innovation Award
  
• Thommen Medical AG - 2007 European Dental Implants Product Innovation Award
  
• Endometriosis.org - 2007 European Endometrioisis Therapeutics Customer Service Innovation Award
  
• Merck Serono (A Division of Merck KGaA) - 2007 European Head and Neck Cancer Therapeutics Customer Value Enhancement Award
  
• Carestream Health, Inc. - 2008 Global Radiology Information Systems Market Penetration Leadership Award

Source: Frost & Sullivan