IBM smartens up healthcare

IBM unveiled a Healthcare Industry Solution Lab in Beijing, where IBM claims it will work with hospitals and rural medical cooperatives to make healthcare “smarter”, as the Chinese government drives widespread healthcare reform, reports Frontier India.

Experts at IBM's new Healthcare Industry Solution Lab, which is one of eight IBM solution labs in China, will work with healthcare providers to adopt digital medical records, which improve patient care while reducing cost and medical errors.

The economic reform programme by the Chinese government calls for 850 billion yuan (R1 trillion) for initiatives that will make healthcare services safer and more affordable for China's 1.3 billion citizens by 2011.

GE and Intel have revealed plans to form an alliance to market and develop home-based health technologies which will help patients living with chronic conditions and seniors live independently, says MB.com.

GE Healthcare will sell and market the Intel Health Guide, a care management tool designed for healthcare professionals who manage patients with chronic conditions.

The two companies are helping to address these pressing issues of chronic conditions and an aging population. The market for telehealth and home health monitoring is predicted to grow from $3 billion in 2009 to an estimated $7.7 billion by 2012.

Powerful software developed by Edibburgh University scientists which mimics the evolution of superbugs could help scientists develop more effective antibiotic treatments, says BBC News.

Scientists believe a similar approach to that used in the study, published in the BMC Systems Biology journal, could also increase understanding into the spread and treatment of cancer.

Dr Laurence Leowe, of Edinburgh University's School of Biological Sciences, said: "The emergence of superbugs resistant to antibiotics is a growing threat to healthcare, and integrating our existing knowledge about bacteria is challenging. Using computing power to model the complex pathways by which bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics could help find a fresh way to predict how superbugs evolve - and so help to fight them."