Category: Health

Can the Internet of Things save Edna?

In what’s been coined the year of wearable technology, the provision of empowering and intuitive monitoring is something that will increasingly play a part in both our lives and the lives of our loved ones.

Social improvement must be focus for ICT says Japanese regulator

The most important function of ICT for Japan in the future is its role in addressing social needs, according to Charley K. Watanabe, deputy director-general of the Information and Communications Bureau at Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC). Watanabe, who was speaking at Ericsson’s Business Innovation Forum in Tokyo, pointed towards the requirements of Japan’s ageing population as well as the need to manage key resources with greater efficiency as two areas where ICT could be used to drive social improvements.

On the up: Changing lives in Brazil

Brazil’s economy is growing fast, with 40 million people making the transition to the new middle class in the last ten years. But while there is visible wealth in certain areas of big cities like Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro there is still huge poverty, both urban and rural. Against this backdrop, communications services are being deployed to change the lives of millions of people.

Rural Brazil: Healthcare to go

Twenty years ago the Brazilian Government decreed that health services should be available to all of the country’s inhabitants. In Southern Brazil, the wealthier, more developed and heavily populated part of the country, this pledge was comparatively easy to address. In the dense rainforest of the Amazon its fulfilment is altogether more difficult.

Disappointing results from world’s largest telehealth trial

In a blow to operators’ ambitions for the telehealth market, results from the world’s largest randomised trial have cast doubt on the cost benefits of managing long-term conditions at home. The UK’s Whole System Demonstrator (WSD) program monitored the progress of 3,230 people with diabetes, pulmonary disease or heart failure over the course of 12 months from 2008-9. In the first of five peer-reviewed evaluations just published, academics from the Nuffield Trust and eight universities conclude that the reduction in hospital admission costs is “not significant”.

Telefonica drives innovation through partnerships

Speaking at an event in London on Thursday, Matthew Key, head of Telefónica Digital since its inception nine months ago, said his unit expects to drive annual revenues of approximately €5bn by 2015 with an annual revenue growth rate of 20 per cent.

Mobile health and fitness devices gain momentum at CES

Among the massive displays of TVs, gaming consoles, mobile devices and other gadgets at last week’s International Consumer Electronics Show, mobile health and fitness solutions were among the most dynamic new areas of focus at the conference.

E-prescription vendors need to up their game

A new report from analysts Ovum indicates that, despite the capacity of e-prescription technology to fundamentally change the healthcare systems of Europe and America, vendors of the software need to “up their game and improve the design of their systems”.

E-Health Case Study: Telstra

Australia’s incumbent fixed and mobile operator, Telstra, is targeting the health sector with services to be deployed in the next year or two. Its strategy has been formulated by a cross-company team that aims to deepen the operator’s involvement in the health sector and incorporate all of its core telecommunications products, in particular expanding on the existing customer relationships owned by Telstra Enterprise & Government and Telstra Business.

E-Health Case Study: Sprint

US operator Sprint Nextel offers a range of wireless services designed specifically for the healthcare field as part of a growing portfolio of enterprise services across a number of sectors. Targeting health enterprises such as hospitals, it offers customised services and, through established partnerships with software vendors, offers healthcare-specific applications for use both within organisations and in the field.

E-Health Case Study: Vodafone

Towards the end of 2009, Vodafone consolidated its health-specific resources—developed historically across its national subsidiaries as part of delivering general enterprise services to the healthcare sector—into a single business unit, Vodafone Health Solutions. Sitting within Vodafone Global Enterprise, the operator’s multinational-corporations division, its task is to develop a global portfolio of healthcare-specific services.

E-Health Case Study: Roshan Telemedicine

According to Roshan, one of Afghanistan’s top three operators, 25 per cent of children in the country die before their fifth birthday, due to illnesses such as pneumonia, poor nutrition and diarrhoea. Appropriate healthcare is extremely limited with only one doctor for every 100,000 people, so there is a strong need for telemedicine in Afghanistan in order to allow for more efficient medical services in the rural communities.

Doctor WHO

Nascent m-health initiatives are under threat from a lack of structural support and funding. This is where the World Health Organisation comes in—and operators have a crucial part to play.

Healthy Prospects

Healthcare is arguably the most complex vertical sector in the world. It has also been one of the slowest to invest in It. Mobile operators are well positioned to help the health sector to modernise, cut costs and improve efficiencies and, in doing so, establish themselves at the centre of an industry that is only going to carry on growing.

Telstra to pump £500m+ into cloud services

Telstra has announced a £500m+ (AU$800m) investment in cloud computing over the next five years to support what it says is a growing demand from Australian organisations for cloud services. The telco is rumoured to have invested AU$200m in cloud to date and this latest announcement will kick-off the construction of a new data centre, the modernisation of existing facilities, increased automation of utility computing services and the expansion of the telco’s range of enterprise applications, among other things. Construction of a new data centre in Melbourne is already underway.

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