Healthcare may benefit from Obama

Companies providing digital technology to manage patient records and prescribe drugs are likely to benefit from the administration of Barack Obama, who wants to spend $50 billion to computerise the US medical infrastructure, says CNN Money.

Quality Systems, Athena Health and Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions are among the companies that could benefit, directly or indirectly, from government money as a result of the as yet vaguely defined hi-tech healthcare proposal.

Many more companies, including Allscripts' hardware partner Round Rock, and Dell, could see revenue rise if investment takes off.

Vietnam and Austria signed an agreement on technological co-operation in healthcare in Hanoi this week, reports VietNamNet Bridge.

The agreement was signed by Vietnamese deputy health minister Nguyen Thi Kim Tien and Christa Kranzl, Austrian state secretary at the Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology, during the latter's official visit to Vietnam.

Under the agreement, the two sides will co-operate in long-distance medical treatment, supply medical equipment to the central cancer hospital (K Hospital) and the Hanoi Medical College, and build a 400-bed private hospital and disease diagnosis centre in Ho Chi Minh City.

Over 100 companies in the healthcare industry have selected Vericept's DLP solution to assess and maintain regulatory compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, as well as safeguard patient data and other confidential information, says Market Watch.

Vericept allows organisations to monitor all network traffic to ensure appropriate data privacy policies are being applied to transmissions containing medical records and personal information, such as social security numbers and medial claim data, and billing information.

The solution prevents transmissions that violate policy and can be used to train employees in the proper procedures around the handling of sensitive patient data.