Asian Healthcare Riding the IT Revolution
Innovative technologies are improving the quality of healthcare by ensuring speed and reliability of information – critical to saving lives.
Gerard Anthony, Leader of Healthcare Solutions at Nortel Asia, believes IT spending is driven by several factors, the most immediate being the need for organizations to upgrade their healthcare services to meet international standards.
“There are two goals here – a more efficient system and better quality patient care. It’s efficiency gaining and life saving combined,” said Mr. Anthony.
It also makes good business sense. Medical tourism in Thailand now attracts over one million patients per year, with earnings for 2008 forecast at around US$1.2 billion. A conservative estimate for the Asia region – primarily Thailand, India, Malaysia and Singapore – suggests combined revenues of over US$5 billion by 2010. With all of these countries vying for the prized position as a regional ‘healthcare hub’, the incentive to implement the latest technologies has never been keener. Most leading international healthcare providers are taking steps to install the latest technologies to help them stake their claim to the lion’s share of this lucrative and expanding market.
The leading players in Thailand’s private healthcare sector, like their counterparts across the region, are rushing to implement unified communication systems, ensuring patient information is available upon request, regardless of location. Already, many local medical practitioners rely on a range of wireless communication devices such as mobile PDAs to make bedside care decisions more quickly. These devices also allow them to connect with doctors or specialists in other locations for an immediate consultation, or quickly access information from a facility’s digital files without losing valuable time with the patient.
Doctors can also now share medical imaging files with distant colleagues for an immediate second opinion or receive real‐time alerts, wherever they are, the moment a patient’s condition worsens and needs their attention.
With an intimate knowledge of the challenges of healthcare, Nortel is at the forefront of the regional drive to modernize, installing systems that allow medical practitioners to do more, faster and with fewer errors. The company provides consultation, technologies, clinical applications and professional services to build an efficient healthcare network, allowing healthcare providers to plan, deploy and manage the right business solutions.
Nortel’s networks allow hospitals to mobilize clinicians and staff, unify multimedia communications and make the most of standardized digital health records – allowing healthcare practitioners to take better care of their patients.
While much of this new technology may seem somewhat futuristic for many of us, Mr. Anthony is quick to cite existing networks that have revolutionized the practices of the organizations in which they have been installed.
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“Kyushu University Hospital in Japan upgraded its current IT system to a new medical service infrastructure to enable information to be more efficiently stored, managed, retrieved and shared amongst physicians and medical staff,” said Mr. Anthony. “Our next‐generation network provides anywhere, anytime, quick access to all a patient’s information. This is an excellent example of how our technology can improve quality healthcare services and patients’ quality of life by simplifying the complexity for medical providers to access and share information,” he added.
With such fingertip access to information, security is an understandable concern. So, what measures has Nortel implemented to ensure patient confidentiality?
”We have a solution that gives approved users access via the ‘office‐on‐a‐stick’ – a specially‐formatted USB key that automates business network access when inserted and protects information and applications by completely removing them when the USB key is removed,” said Mr. Anthony. “This solution – called Nortel Secure Portable Office ‐ combines hardware, software and services to provide simple, secure network access.”
As we view the hospital of the 21st Century, it is comforting to know state‐of‐the‐art communication capabilities will not only speed us along our path to recovery, but also that our personal health records will remain, as they should do, a matter of patient/doctor confidentiality.
If you would like to find out more about Nortel healthcare solutions, please visit www.nortel.com/healthcare
Innovative technologies are improving the quality of healthcare by ensuring speed and reliability of information – critical to saving lives.
Gerard Anthony, Leader of Healthcare Solutions at Nortel Asia, believes IT spending is driven by several factors, the most immediate being the need for organizations to upgrade their healthcare services to meet international standards.
“There are two goals here – a more efficient system and better quality patient care. It’s efficiency gaining and life saving combined,” said Mr. Anthony.
It also makes good business sense. Medical tourism in Thailand now attracts over one million patients per year, with earnings for 2008 forecast at around US$1.2 billion. A conservative estimate for the Asia region – primarily Thailand, India, Malaysia and Singapore – suggests combined revenues of over US$5 billion by 2010. With all of these countries vying for the prized position as a regional ‘healthcare hub’, the incentive to implement the latest technologies has never been keener. Most leading international healthcare providers are taking steps to install the latest technologies to help them stake their claim to the lion’s share of this lucrative and expanding market.
The leading players in Thailand’s private healthcare sector, like their counterparts across the region, are rushing to implement unified communication systems, ensuring patient information is available upon request, regardless of location. Already, many local medical practitioners rely on a range of wireless communication devices such as mobile PDAs to make bedside care decisions more quickly. These devices also allow them to connect with doctors or specialists in other locations for an immediate consultation, or quickly access information from a facility’s digital files without losing valuable time with the patient.
Doctors can also now share medical imaging files with distant colleagues for an immediate second opinion or receive real‐time alerts, wherever they are, the moment a patient’s condition worsens and needs their attention.
With an intimate knowledge of the challenges of healthcare, Nortel is at the forefront of the regional drive to modernize, installing systems that allow medical practitioners to do more, faster and with fewer errors. The company provides consultation, technologies, clinical applications and professional services to build an efficient healthcare network, allowing healthcare providers to plan, deploy and manage the right business solutions.
Nortel’s networks allow hospitals to mobilize clinicians and staff, unify multimedia communications and make the most of standardized digital health records – allowing healthcare practitioners to take better care of their patients.
While much of this new technology may seem somewhat futuristic for many of us, Mr. Anthony is quick to cite existing networks that have revolutionized the practices of the organizations in which they have been installed.
1
2
“Kyushu University Hospital in Japan upgraded its current IT system to a new medical service infrastructure to enable information to be more efficiently stored, managed, retrieved and shared amongst physicians and medical staff,” said Mr. Anthony. “Our next‐generation network provides anywhere, anytime, quick access to all a patient’s information. This is an excellent example of how our technology can improve quality healthcare services and patients’ quality of life by simplifying the complexity for medical providers to access and share information,” he added.
With such fingertip access to information, security is an understandable concern. So, what measures has Nortel implemented to ensure patient confidentiality?
”We have a solution that gives approved users access via the ‘office‐on‐a‐stick’ – a specially‐formatted USB key that automates business network access when inserted and protects information and applications by completely removing them when the USB key is removed,” said Mr. Anthony. “This solution – called Nortel Secure Portable Office ‐ combines hardware, software and services to provide simple, secure network access.”
As we view the hospital of the 21st Century, it is comforting to know state‐of‐the‐art communication capabilities will not only speed us along our path to recovery, but also that our personal health records will remain, as they should do, a matter of patient/doctor confidentiality.
If you would like to find out more about Nortel healthcare solutions, please visit www.nortel.com/healthcare
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