Bringing hope to the world! Hope Hospitals, India

Around two-third of mid-sized businesses will look to increase their use of cloud computing over the next year, according to a new survey. Technology firm IBM found that over half of the 2,000 companies questioned will see their IT budgets increase over the next 12 to 18 months, with many looking at cloud computing and virtualisation. Furthermore, 62 per cent of those questioned said that customer relationship management will be among their most critical IT priorities as many firms try and get the most out of every customer. Andy Monshaw, general manager for IBM Midmarket, said that the figures reflect a positive outlook for the industry as they look to "advance their role as engines of economic growth". "When we spoke to midsize firms 18 months ago, most were focused on reducing costs and improving efficiencies," he added. "Today, the conversation is also about expanding their business, connecting with customers and gaining greater insights." ...

A pilot program to connect electronic patient information among local hospitals is expected to go live in mid-February, officials said recently. "It's coming. It is not a theoretical idea. It is something that's just around the corner," said Sam Spicer, vice president of medical affairs for New Hanover Regional Medical Center, during a discussion about health information exchanges during the BizTech Conference & Expo this month. During the past couple of years, Spicer and other health care providers in the region have been deliberating about a patient data exchange that would connect hospitals in seven area counties. The hospitals are part of Coastal Connect, which is sponsored by the Coastal Carolinas Health Alliance. CCHA is made up of 11 hospitals along the coast of North Carolina and South Carolina. At the beginning of the year, Coastal Connect became its own 501(c)3 nonprofit group, Spicer said. "Having waited a little bit and not jumped in it right...

The NHS Confederation thinks doctors are blocking telemedicine. Sophie Curtis thinks there are good reasons for this I am a genuine believer in the revolutionary power of ICT to reduce inefficiencies within society, but just occasionally I come across an example of when this ‘digitalisation’ trend goes a step too far. A report released on 20 January by the NHS Confederation – which represents about 95 percent of trusts and other NHS bodies – enthusiastically embraces telemedicine and IT programmes, claiming that “active and passive resistance” from clinicians is holding back technological innovation in the healthcare sector. “For too long the development of digital health tools has been stifled by assumptions about what patients want,” the report states (pdf). “There are doubtless many patients for whom remote services have little appeal or value. However, the current approach is an indiscriminate one – predominantly offering only a face...

Emerging markets gaining ground in medical technology innovation; USA maintains lead, says PwC Article | 19 January 2011 Print This ShareThis The USA to lead the world in its capacity to produce the latest in medical technology innovation, but emerging markets led by China, India and Brazil are catching up, and their market power is shifting innovation resources and activity overseas, according to a new PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report Medical Technology Innovation Scorecard: The race for global leadership. While the USA is expected to maintain its leadership for the foreseeable future, even a narrowing of the gap has implications for US jobs, exports and Americans' access to advances in medical technology. The report is based on the findings of the PwC Medical Technology Innovation Scorecard, a new, multifaceted assessment of the capacity of countries to adapt to the changing nature of innovation. Enjoying this article? To contin...

The power of the cloud alanpa 6 Feb 2008 2:02 PM Comments 0 I finally got around to putting Vista on my laptop this week. My experience with Vista has been that clean installs work better, so that's what I did. I use my laptop a lot - I would guess of my 3 main computers (the others being my home and work desktop computers) that my thinkpad gets over half of my total computing time. There was a time, years ago, when clean installing an OS was close to an all day affair. Between copying the important files someplace safe, installing the OS, installing applications, and restoring the "safe" files to the system, finishing in anything under 8 hours was considered productive. For the last year or two, I've been using Groove more and more to store my data. I have three Groove workspaces - two are collaborative projects I'm working on with others at MS, and the other one is for all of my stuff. The biggest day to day advan...

10 Reasons Why Cloud is Changing IT Michael Mansour 5 Jan 2011 8:01 PM Comments 5 As we continue to see a rapid migration of infrastructure and services to the cloud, we list the top 10 reasons why cloud is changing the consumer and business landscape: 1. Cost: an on-prem solution requires the constant purchase & maintenance of hardware. A public cloud offering negates such cost – as IT management is handled off-prem. Saving estimates range anywhere between 35-65% depending on hardware investments. Companies can now channel those funds towards business innovation instead of IT assets. 2. Service Availability: outages not only affect a customer’s productivity but can also violate SLAs with the customer’s customers. Cloud providers are far better equipped to ensure availability to the end-customer. 3. Efficiency: virtualization of servers will continue to proliferate in order to optimize hardware utilization. Microsoft System Cen...

Medical Tourism Medical tourism is a new global niche market that is growing interest to a lot of people in both the medical industry and the tourism industry (Hunter, 2007) and also it can be defined as a form of tourism that involves medical interventions that are substantial and have long-term effects (Connell, 2006). Essentially, it has an attractive potential for people and governments to promote this industry. Therefore, the government attempts to support this industry by setting up infrastructure or facilities for the tourism market. The medical tourism is currently flourishing all over the globe and especially some Asian countries such as Singapore, Thailand, India, Korea, etc. are eager for emerging as a highly developed country in the sphere of medical tourism industry as well as promoting this market. Basically, the major reason to draw attention to develop medical tourism for those countries is that they want to enrich their nationwide image and attain economical benefit...