POLISH TELEMEDICINE AND EHEALTH SOCIETY TRIBUTE RYSZARD MĘŻYK (1948-2021)  

Mezyk

The Polish Society of Telemedicine and eHealth expresses its last farewell to its colleague Ryszard Mężyk, a former long-time Treasurer. He graduated in 1970 from the faculty of data processing organisation at the oldest economics university in Poland, the Central School of Planning and Statistics, (now the Warsaw School of Economics). His professional career started as a programmer and then the designer of IT systems at the ETO centre at FSC Starachowice (IT systems designer in truck factory) (1971 - 1978). From 1978–1992, he was the head of the Design and Program Laboratory of the Intercollegiate Information Technology Centre at the Kielce University of Technology. In 1989 he was honoured with the Fund for Science and Culture Award - Stanisław Staszic for outstanding achievements in the development and dissemination of IT culture.
 
From 1992 he was professionally affiliated with the Świętokrzyskie Cancer Centre in Kielce where he was the head of the IT Department from 1992-2012. There, he took care of the integrated hospital information system and the complete computerisation of the hospital. This consisted of constructing the network infrastructure and implementing utility applications in individual areas of the Centre’s activity. The applications include, among others, the hospital technical installations monitoring system, integrated hospital information system, electronic medical documentation, electronic patient record, electronic multimedia patient record and health record, online health account and patient account, specialised systems for video examinations, medical imaging, laboratories, pharmacy, billing, planning, records, costs, human resources, and payroll. He supervised the hospital IT system (structured network, utility applications, computer hardware). Thanks to work on the Electronic Multimedia Patient Record, the Świętokrzyskie Cancer Centre in Kielce has become one of the leading medical centres providing comprehensive medical care in the field of oncological diseases.

Ryszard Mężyk’s work was acknowledged by his peers. He was a finalist of the elite CIO Club (Chief Information Officer) competition "IT Leader 2006" in public benefit organisations and received a special award in the CIO public sector category. The winner of the competition is the one who has not only perfectly carried out a project valuable for his organisation, but above all has demonstrated managerial abilities and the personality of a leader. In 2007, he took second place in the competition Leader of OSOZ 2007 in international cooperation for health. He participated in the implementation of the "e-świętokrzyskie" project. Project Manager "e-Health in the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, expansion and implementation of IT systems in health care units - stage I." In 2013, he was a finalist of the 2013 IT Leader competition.

From 2012-2018 he was the Director's Plenipotentiary for Cancer Epidemiology at the Świętokrzyskie Cancer Centre. He participated in international research projects in cancer epidemiology.1-6 He collaborated with many research institutions: International Agency Research on Cancer, International Association of Cancer Registries, and European Network of Cancer Registries. He conducted statistical analyses in medical research, mainly cancer epidemiology and participated in the Cancer Incidence on Five Continents (VII, VIII, IX edition), EUROCIM, ACISS, EUROCARE, EUROCHIP.

Ryszard was active in several organisations. He was a member of the Audit Council of the Healthcare Information Systems Centre (currently Centrum eZdrowia) and a member of the Świętokrzyskie Branch of the Polish Information Technology Society. He was a co-founder of the "e-Health-life without barriers" section, in which he was a member of the section board. As part of his activities in the section, he organised meetings devoted to using information and telecommunications technologies to support activities related to health protection. He co-organised several annual conferences, "Telemedicine and eHealth" and was also a member of HIMSS Europe.

His cooperation with the Polish Society of Telemedicine and e-Health (formerly the Polish Telemedicine Society), a national member of ISfTeH - International Society for Telemedicine and eHealth, started in 2006. He was a modest and noble person and very valuable and devoted to promoting telemedicine, eHealth, and digital health in his region and throughout Poland. After joining the Association in 2010, he was twice elected and served as the Association's Treasurer. He was honoured successively with the Bronze, Silver, and Gold "Bene Meritus" Badge of the Polish Society of Telemedicine and eHealth. Despite retiring on November 1, 2018, he was still an active member of the Association.

Wojciech, M. Glinkowski

Tomasz Cedro

 

References

  1. Kopczynski J, Suligowska A, Niemyska K, et al. Did introducing a new category of thyroid tumors (non-invasive follicular thyroid neoplasm with papillary-like nuclear features) decrease the risk of malignancy for the diagnostic categories in the Bethesda system for reporting thyroid cytopathology? Endocr Pathol 2020;31(2):143-149. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12022-020-09619-0
  2. Szymonek M, Kowalik A, Kopczynski J, et al. Immunohistochemistry cannot replace DNA analysis for evaluation of BRAF V600E mutations in papillary thyroid carcinoma. Oncotarget 2017;8(43):74897-909. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.20451
  3. Gozdz S, Debska A, Lasota-Bielska M, et al. Five-year relative survival rates in Swietokrzyskie voivodeship (Poland) on the basis of the Swietokrzyskie Cancer Registry data. Przegl Epidemiol 2011;65(4):657-661.  PMID: 22390055 
  4. Bien S, Kaminski B, Zylka S, Mezyk R, Piasta Z. Evolution of the epidemiology and clinical characteristics of larynx and hypopharynx carcinoma in Poland from 1991 to 2001. Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol 2008;265 (Suppl 1):S39-46. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-007-0474-y
  5. Montanaro F, Bray F, Gennaro V, et al. Pleural mesothelioma incidence in Europe: evidence of some deceleration in the increasing trends. Cancer Causes Control 2003;14(8):791-803. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1026300619747
  6. Zylka S, Mezyk R, Siudowska U, Bien S. Changes in the clinical picture of laryngeal carcinoma in the last 15 years based on material from the Otolaryngology Department of the District Hospital in Kielce. Otolaryngol Pol 1995;49 (Suppl 20):105-108. PMID: 9454112 

 

Glinkowski W, Cedro T. J Int Soc Telemed eHealth 2022;10:e8
DOI: https:doi.org/10.29086/JISfTeH.10.e8
Copyright:© The Authors 2020
Open access, published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 BY International Licence
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