Intel ups India healthcare

Intel and the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare announced the scaling up of healthcare projects in India, reports Sify.

The projects in Tamil Nadu will be an extension of Intel's WorldAhead Programme, a global initiative to provide people in developing countries with the benefits of "better, faster access to ICT", according to Intel's chairman, Craig Barrett.

Intel has already deployed its first remote health programme in a digital village pilot in Baramati, 120km from Pune. The projects include a tele-health programme for community hospitals and a school health monitoring system.

Frost & Sullivan recently hosted a two-day Healthcare IT Executive MindXchange that addressed the dynamic changes taking place in IT adoption by Indian healthcare delivery services. It focused on the advances that would impact these services in the near future, according to Businesswire.

The impact of IT in healthcare delivery has been significant not only on the process in aiding and improving the disease management modalities, given the convergence of medicine, devices and technology.

Today, Tier I hospitals are spending about 2% of their revenue on IT (new purchase plus maintenance and upgrade). Apart from these, hospitals are also going ahead with the use of some advanced technologies like smart cards, RFID, biometrics and hand-held devices to further improve processes.

QuadraMed announced that five nationally recognised healthcare IT experts will be presenting during the company's 2007 user group conference to be held in San Diego, according to Businesswire.

Widely acclaimed health futurist and medical economist Dr Jeff Bauer, PhD, will kick-off the four-day event with his keynote address on Sunday, 9 September.

Dr Bauer is known for his highly creative, often humorous, and practical approaches to improving the healthcare delivery system. His address is entitled, "The Future of Information Technology: The Digital Revolution in Healthcare."