Data Revolution in Healthcare and Lifesciences Industry

The use of technology to assist in the delivery of quality patient care covers a vast area from biomechanical devices to robotics to the electronic medical record to email. Sometimes, the term "E-health" has been used very loosely to include any electronic healthcare-related activity. Points to be considered are: 1. E-health is not a surrogate for the clinician. It does provide the means to extend the reach of the provider beyond a face-to-face patient encounter, with the advantage of expanding the delivery of limited resources and expertise. For instance, using electronic images and pictures, diagnoses may be made from a remote location, either within or outside the facility. 2. E-health provides delivery of useful medical information via the Internet, kiosks or other electronic means that may facilitate patient education and provider decision-making. 3. E-health facilitates collaboration between providers and other caregivers through file sharing, email and electronic medi...

Delivery of healthcare is critically dependent on access to data, however much of this data resides across many data repositories and organizations, and is often highly protected and private. The Environmental Drivers Restructuring of the Health System (world wide) to meet the demands of ageing populations (major economic impact) Funding agencies driving multi-disciplinary research initiatives and solutions to healthcare priorities and data sharing needs Increasing pace of growth of the scientific knowledge base (e.g. genomics data) increased need for linking data across disciplines Development and application of high-cost medical technologies and need for Cost/benefit analyses (global benchmarking) Declining availability of specialist skills and thus improving productivity through advanced systems becomes a priority Private-sector healthcare providers taking over more routine procedures from Public providers and data access issues How do we answer a Health Query? Identification of t...

E-commerce has become a commonplace practice in our lives today. Many of us have purchased books from Amazon.com, bid on items on e-bay, renewed our HFMA memberships online, or purchased airline tickets at any number of discount travel Web sites, Very lately I bought an Herbal Purgative Online. Frankly we have all probably wondered what we did before the Internet came along to simplify our purchasing experiences. The online health channel continues to proliferate, despite increased scrutiny due to heightened security fears among consumers.One such example is Drugstore.com (Though in India, we have no good examples till date- Thanks to the Rules!) Match 1: In the fourth quarter ended December 28, 2003, drugstore.com achieved EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of intangible assets, noncash marketing expense and stock-based compensation) of $556,000, the first such profit in the company's history. About drugstore.com Drugstore.com (www.drugstore....

Health Issues in the Philippines Like any other third-world country, the Philippines have been struggling in some health issues and one of it is illegal drug use. A lot of Filipinos are addicted to prohibited drugs. However, the Philippine government has dealt with this issue and although there are still some recorded incidents of drug abuse, the number of drug dependents in the Philippines has gradually decreased. Other concerning health issues in the Philippines, is malnutrition. There have been studies conducted and accordingly, most of the Filipinos that suffer from malnutrition are the poor ones. The Philippine government, thru the Department of Social Welfare and Developments along with the Department of Health has provided projects to help poor Filipinos from starvation.One such big issue is Dengue fever. Health Care System in Thailand Thailand has no established primary health care system- Most of the doctors in Thailand are specialists that is why it is hard to find a reliable...

An ideal healthcare portal India’s huge population poses problems for the nation’s healthcare sector. E-health is a solution that can bring together all the major sectors such as development agencies, health industry experts, public health specialists, policy makers, academicians, technology developers and civil society practitioners to provide schemes that are useful to common people. Aims of an Indian health portal Ambulatory care One of the most profound changes seen in many countries around the world is a shift from a hospital based healthcare system to a more ambulatory system with home care, day care clinics and same day surgeries. We are now treating patients in ways that were thought impossible a few years ago. It is now possible for a patient to come to hospital in the morning, have a coronagraph and be home that same day! You can also have your intravenous antibiotics at home or have adjustment to your anticoagulation regimen on an out patient basis. Chronic diseases manageme...

There are two basic classes of population from the point of pharmaceuticals view. The attitude of these two classes is so divergent that the behaviour which they display towards consumption of medicine is very different.These two classes are sufferers and non-sufferers. Sufferers tend to become hypochondriac and they ensure that they comply with the medicines while non-sufferers believe that nothing is wrong with them and perhaps will go wrong to their health till they cross the border of sufferers. As demographics of India are creating a very powerful force for growth of every industry, pharma is not an exception. Healthy population as well as sick population is continuously getting updated on medical issues through Internet. Now the population who consumes medicine whether it pharma or nutraceutical consists of both sick and healthy patients. They exhibit their behaviour of exhibiting their choice in selection of medicines. Coupled with Internet education and their awareness, they fe...

In today's on-line environment, eCommerce is already changing the healthcare industry. Current business-to-consumer sites include Drugstore.com and PlanteRx , which provide sales of prescription and over-the-counter products to consumers. WebMD and drkoop.com provide information and product promotion to consumers and doctors alike. Non-contractual business-to-business healthcare web sites that provide sales of medical supplies to institutions are Neoforma and Medibuy . Chemdex and SciQuest are non-contractual in respect to the sales of lab supplies to pharmaceutical Research and Development companies. Ecommerce in Hospitals: eCommerce has been identified as a leading practice in the healthcare supply chain.The 'big things' hospitals include: Electronic requisitioning Electronic replenishment Electronic fund transfers Contract database management Implementing leading practices within the supply chain enables hospitals save on costs, allowing funds to be redirected int...

The biggest reasons why hospitals in India and abroad are giving chat facilities to their visitors are: 1. Reduce operational expense 2. Enhance customer service healthcaremagic.com, healthizen.com in India have also joined the lead. Abroad also, various sites like offshoremd.com, chatmag.com, geocities.com, offshoremd.com etc are doing the same stuff. Even Health insurance plans – driven by the rapid growth of individual health coverage increasingly turn to customer service technologies that sophisticated retail businesses, ranging from consumer products to financial services, have employed successfully for years, most notably Click-to-Chat, or “Chat.” Why is Chat, a good Idea? Chat technology enables health plan members to communicate online with customer service reps through real-time text messaging, rather than over the phone. Because Chat technology allows service reps to handle more than one customer simultaneously, and provides customers with a detailed record of online text “c...