Data Revolution in Healthcare and Lifesciences Industry

I wanted to have some more inputs about any kind of handicap be it mobility, blindness, handicapped or deafness to e-health. Some people may be surprised to find out that the blind and visually impaired are about as likely to be on the internet as a sighted person. It can seem like a daunting task to learn to use a computer system, but the fact is, there are plenty of easy ways for the visually impaired to get online. A common method for computer access for the blind and visually impaired is a screen reader. There are many screen reader programs available; the most common is the JAWS screen reader. A screen reader takes the output from Microsoft Windows and converts it to speech. The screen reader will tell you that you are currently in the Internet Explorer browser, and it will read to you the contents of the web pages. With time, and practice, a blind or visually impaired user can become very proficient at using a computer system. Screen Readers offer a great degree of flexibility;...

What is a smart card and how is it used? A smart card is a card similar in size to today's plastic payment card that has a chip embedded in it. By adding a chip to the card, it becomes a smart card with the power to serve many different uses. As an access-control device, smart cards make personal and business data available only to the appropriate users. Another application provides users with the ability to make a purchase or exchange value. Smart cards provide data portability, security and convenience. Smart cards help businesses evolve and expand their products and services in a changing global marketplace. Banks, telecommunications, computer software and hardware companies, and airlines all have the opportunity to tailor their card products and services to better differentiate their offerings and brands. The combination of applications available on smart cards also may help them to develop closer relationships with their customers. What is the potential for the smart card busi...

Recently received a mail from one of my Friends Senthil asking more about smart cards and their implementation in Indian Health care Scenario. Here I am describing the use of smart cards with the technology that is usually deployed for the same. Components of Smart card System SMART CARDS CARD READERS CLIENT SOFTWARE SERVERS WITH HARDWARE SECURITY ADMINISTRATOR PORTAL WEBSITE PATIENT PORTAL WEBSITE CAREGIVER PORTAL WEBSITE PDA & LAPTOP SOFTWARE . VISUAL BASIC & .NET TOOLS HL7 MESSAGING SERVER What all these components do? SMART CARDS - Securely hold patient information. CARD READERS - Work with any PC and are branded with your logo. CLIENT SOFTWARE -Upgrades the web browser on the PC so it works with smart cards and card readers SERVERS WITH HARDWARE SECURITY - Host and protect private information. ADMINISTRATOR PORTAL WEBSITE - A web application that lets administrators issue and manage cards. PATIENT PORTAL WEBSITE - A web application where patients view and update their in...

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...

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...

Process mapping allows you to identify productivity opportunities, best practices, and root causes of problems, create workflow consistency, and determine who owns an action item within the process and who's accountable for it." 1. Identify the critical business opportunity. "If you're going to put 10+ key people in a room all day long, which is what it will take for most mapping exercises, there better be a darn good business reason for doing so--improving your ROI, for example," says Trusten. This step should be taken by the organization's financial leaders. 2. Identify key processes with the greatest influence on that opportunity. This will be either all or some of the key areas of revenue cycle management, such as patient access or charge capture. 3. Create a project team. Trusten recommends that you start by identifying the executive sponsor for the project, often the CFO, who will establish expectations and priorities, coach the team, break do...

Health care is shaking up the search engine market. Long-time laggard Ask.Com is suddenly a contender, at least in consumer satisfaction, and it’s making a new effort in health care with what it calls Health Smart Answers. Revolution Health and HealthLine are acting as the main information providers to Health Smart Answers. At the same time Google and Microsoft are both making their own moves to target the sick and hypochondriac. The Big Two are taking different approaches. Microsoft is trying to capitalize on its existing strength in hospital computing and medical records. Google wants people to enter and track their own medical information. The last verb, track, makes this one step removed from what Healthline, Revolution Health and WebMD are up to. Rather than seeking your search and communications business, they want to be your health data storage house. Key to making any of this work is trust. Will consumers trust Google, Microsoft or anyone else with their private medical informa...

Smart card network is secure, convenient and reliable smart card technologies specifically designed to store and transport a patient's most clinically relevant medical records. The Idea is to incorporate smart card technology into the healthcare system as an instrumental component that protects and enables convenient access to patient data and delivers both clinical and administrative benefits. ALWAYS CHOOSE a high-capacity microprocessor smart card that is PIN protected to comply with HIPAA security requirements and also provides a feature-rich, flexible platform that addresses key healthcare issues. There are compelling benefits to the patient, healthcare provider and payors that partially include: � Support for privacy and security requirements mandated by HIPAA � Convenient way to carry secure data between systems � Streamlines administrative processes � Reduction in fraud � Rapid identification of patient � Information readily accessible in an emergency � Enables compliance w...