County Health Rankings Show What Influences Residents’ Health

April 4, 2012 | by

The 2012 County Health Rankings were released this week [1]. Now in their third year, the Rankings are increasingly being used by community leaders to help them identify health challenges, take action and improve the health of their residents.

2012 County Rankings

The Rankings are published on-line every year by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). Using a standard way to measure how healthy people are and how long they live, the Rankings assess the overall health of nearly every county in all 50 states.

Amid Debate, First Proton Therapy Center Opens in New Jersey

March 28, 2012 | by

All too often, the most brutal part of a bout with cancer is radiation therapy. X rays are electromagnetic waves that travel with a constant amount of energy, so although they effectively kill cancer cells, they pass through the skin and healthy tissues on their way to and from the tumor. In doing so, they damage the normal cells in their path. Protons, on the other hand, are particles that have a mass and a charge (they are positive). They can thus be targeted with exquisite specificity only to the tumor site, emitting the bulk of their radiation there and there only and sparing patients the terrible side effects that can accompany therapy with X rays.

ProCure gantry room

GE Healthcare And Microsoft Partner To Launch Health Information Technology Company

January 2, 2012 | by

GE Healthcare and Microsoft recently announced plans to create a joint venture aimed at helping healthcare organizations and professionals use real-time, system-wide intelligence to improve healthcare quality and the patient experience.

The new health information technology company will develop and market an open, interoperable technology platform and innovative clinical applications focused on enabling better population health management to improve outcomes and the overall economics of health and wellness. The joint venture will combine Microsoft’s expertise in building platforms and ecosystems with GE Healthcare’s experience in clinical and administrative workflow solutions.

GE Healthcare and Microsoft

The as of yet unnamed new company will deliver a distinctive, open platform that will give healthcare providers and independent software vendors the ability to develop a new generation of clinical applications. The venture will develop healthcare applications on the platform using in-house developers and the platform will connect with a wide range of healthcare IT products. GE Healthcare IT will immediately be able to connect existing products to the platform, helping current customers to derive new insights.

The two companies will contribute the following intellectual property:

  • Microsoft Amalga, an enterprise health intelligence platform that brings historically disparate data together and makes it easy to identify and act on insights into clinical, financial or operational performance.
  • Microsoft Vergence, a technology that brings single sign-on, context management and multi-factor authentication together on a clinical workstation.
  • Microsoft expreSSO, a solution to simplify and streamline the organizational rollout of single sign-on.
  • GE Healthcare eHealth, a framework for delivering clinical applications on top of a connected healthcare community. Its foundation is a portal technology that provides clinicians a web-based, simple way to view patient data from a health information exchange.
  • GE Healthcare Qualibria, a clinical knowledge application environment that helps ensure that organizations can more effectively manage to the latest measures of quality and thrive in today’s performance-based world.

The long-term vision of the venture is to create new value by offering a healthcare performance management suite that includes many of these products.

Jeffrey R. Immelt, Chairman and CEO of GE, said:

The complementary nature of GE Healthcare’s and Microsoft’s individual expertise will drive new insights, solutions and efficiencies to further advance the two companies’ shared vision of a connected, patient-centric healthcare system. The global healthcare challenges of access, cost and quality of care delivery are creating a new focus on the performance and accountability of healthcare delivery systems –- in every country, at every level of care. This venture will demonstrate what is possible when leading companies with complementary capabilities work together to meet a common goal.

Source: Microsoft

Medical Mobile Video App Ringadoc

December 21, 2011 | by

Ringadoc, a startup based in West Hollywood, California, has developed a new method for healthcare delivery. Their goal is to make healthcare instantly available to those in need. This is done by connecting patients to doctors for medical consultations over any phone, from any location, with complete audio and video conferencing.

Ringadoc

Microsoft Hosts Public-Private Partnership Innovation Forums to Help Build Healthier Communities

December 6, 2011 | by

Tomorrow, Microsoft, together with Building Healthier Chicago and the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, will kick-off the first of a new series of forums entitled “Innovation in Public and Private Collaboration.” The event will focus on cutting-edge and emerging business and public health collaborations among organizations in health, education, economic development and technology sectors. The keynote address will be presented by U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin.

Microsoft - Innovations in Public and Private Collaboration

In the coming months, Microsoft will hold additional forums around the country to discuss additional drivers for facilitating public-private partnerships to improve health, economic, workforce and education outcomes. Future forums will focus on health modernization models, partnerships in healthcare and education, business and public health collaboration, technology innovation and health and economic development.

Since Microsoft is actively involved in many areas of healthcare, the company has a unique position from which to observe and participate in emerging public-private partnerships. Indeed, Microsoft works with both commercial and federal, state and local payers and providers, as well as life sciences, research and academic organizations and other community resources.

As part of an ongoing conversations with health decision makers across the country, William O’Leary, Executive Director, Policy, Health and Human Services at Microsoft talked with Dr. James M. Galloway, Assistant U.S. Surgeon General for the United States Public Health Services (who will facilitate the discussion on business and public health at the Chicago forum) and Claire Gregoire, chair of the Health and Wellness Coalition for the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce.

From the interview:

The forum will also discuss cutting edge collaborations among health, education, economic development and technology. Regarding technology, we know that Congress, business and the health community are investing billions of dollars in health IT as a means to reduce health costs, facilitate access, as well as measure and improve outcomes.

These efforts leverage the Internet as a means to connect consumers, business and health care. For example, the Surgeon General’s My Family Health Portrait helps users organize and share family health history. Government and business recognize that Internet access is a critical tool for improving health, education and economic development. As another example, Connect to Compete is a national public, private and nonprofit partnership announced by the Federal Communications Commission, which includes businesses such as Microsoft and Best Buy. The goal is to increase broadband adoption and digital literacy training in disadvantaged communities throughout the country.

You can read the rest of the interview at Microsoft in Health.