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Asian Healthcare Riding the IT Revolution

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 incentiv...
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Five steps docs can take to avoid 'social media missteps'

1. Know the rules. HIPAA's privacy prohibitions not only protect the disclosure of a patient's name and "individually identifiable health information," but also requires the safeguarding of any information where there is a "reasonable basis to believe it can be used to identify the individual." 2. Develop a social media policy. A social media policy, written in plain language, with clear dos and don'ts, should be established to provide guidance on what is and is not permitted. 3. Training. If physicians are going to use social media, they need to learn the tools, techniques and strategies of social media. An unintentional disclosure of information due to a misunderstanding about how a social network or mobile application works may have the same consequences for a doctor or institution as intentional disclosure. A doctor's staff should also be given training so that they are equally equipped to understand the rules of social media engagement. 4....
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Emergency Notification + Mobility = Better Response and Care

While the need to rally teams quickly in your hospital is certainly not new, there are an increasing number of ways to reach the right people when time is of the essence. Although pagers were once the standard for simultaneous communications, now staff can specify a wide range of devices on which they can be contacted. For example, if you have a critical code, such as when a heart attack patient arrives, you probably have to let many people know that they will play a role in the very near future. The Cath Lab, cardiologists, nurses, lab technicians, and more can receive the appropriate message and respond with their availability. This is the key – being able to track responses easily and let alternate staff know if someone can’t make it. All of this can happen using common communications devices and systems such as smartphones, pagers, email, desk phones, and others. Logging all correspondence throughout the process also comes in handy when the Joint Commission asks for audit trails....
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