In this Issue:
Clínica Las Condes Chooses Cerner to Automate Hospital Operations
HTH Worldwide to Provide Mobile Healthcare Tool to HRG North America's Affiliate Program
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Clínica Las Condes Chooses Cerner to Automate Hospital Operations
Clínica Las Condes, a private, 220-bed hospital in Santiago de Chile, will be the first in Latin America to implement a suite of Cerner Millennium® healthcare information technology (HIT) solutions. The technology will help Clínica Las Condes streamline operations in multiple areas of the hospital, while improving care for the more than 372,000 patients the hospital provides treatment for each year.
Clínica Las Condes will be replacing its existing HIT products with Cerner Millennium solutions that will be used to automate nursing and physician documentation; operations in the emergency, pharmacy, surgery and registration departments; and medication-administration processes. These solutions operate on the Cerner Millennium architecture, a unified HIT computing platform that helps health professionals elevate safety, quality and efficiency.
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HTH Worldwide to Provide Mobile Healthcare Tool to HRG North America's Affiliate ProgramHTH Worldwide, a global health and safety services company, announced that HRG North America's Affiliate Program will be a distribution partner for mPassport(sm), HTH's new worldwide mobile healthcare tool. mPassport subscribers have access to HTH's proprietary global database of carefully selected emergency and urgent care services, contracted English-speaking doctors, health and safety alerts, and medical translations that can be accessed via mobile phone or the Internet.
mPassport was developed in response to travelers' emerging demand to have access to top-flight medical care around the world. It delivers subscribers access to high-quality doctors and medical information in the palm of their hand. mPassport is accessible via any web-enabled international mobile phone. Users can set up their personal profile via the web so that their destination- specific information is easily accessible and up-to-date. In addition to doctor and hospital contacts, mPassport subscribers also get translations of medication brand names, translations for major medical phrases useful for communicating with hospital and physician staff, and text message alerts about issues such as political instability, evacuations, natural disasters, medical epidemics and other related emergencies.
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Grameen Health to Establish Independent Collaborations with Pfizer, GE Healthcare, and Mayo Clinic to Create Sustainable Healthcare Delivery Models for the Developing World
Grameen Health, an affiliate of Grameen Bank, the pioneering micro-financing organization in Bangladesh that shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for its work to alleviate poverty, announced today that it will establish independent partnerships with Pfizer Inc., GE Healthcare, and Mayo Clinic to create sustainable models for healthcare delivery in the developing world.
Grameen Health has chosen to work independently with these partners because of their respective expertise: Pfizer Inc is the world’s largest research-based pharmaceutical company, GE Healthcare is the world’s largest manufacturer of medical devices such as ultrasound and CT/MRI, and Mayo Clinic is the world’s first and largest integrated, not-for-profit group practice.
These multiple, independent collaborations will focus on social business models in which the businesses are self-supporting and any profits are re-invested into the system in order to reach more of the poor. This approach is cost-effective and maximizes the benefits that patients receive. The models will be transferable to other healthcare delivery systems.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), among the biggest obstacles to improved health outcomes are inadequate health delivery and financing mechanisms that place the heaviest burden on the poor and sick, who are the least able to pay.
The independent collaborations will initially explore and evaluate ways to improve the existing Grameen Health delivery and financing systems in Bangladesh, with the aim of creating models that can be adapted for the needs of the 4 billion people around the world whose annual income is less than $3,000.
During the next year, the collaborations will focus on the following areas:
- Implementing primary health promotion and disease prevention programs. These are the most cost-effective steps in affordable health care, and include maternal and child health promotion and nutrition programs.
- Analyzing ways to expand and improve the current low-cost micro-health delivery and insurance programs at Grameen Health’s 38 existing Kalyan clinics.
- Developing continuous training programs for nurses, technicians and physicians.
- Reviewing operating efficiencies and scope of services (e.g., telemedicine, mobile health care) at Grameen Health’s Kalyan clinics.
- Introducing genomic, epidemiological, and outcomes research capability for the prevention and treatment of diseases relevant to the population in Bangladesh, with an emphasis on the best use of existing tested and approved procedures and drugs.
Grameen Health and its partners hope to develop appropriate and sustainable models for healthcare delivery and rural primary care clinics, with the goal of replicating these models in other countries. Pfizer is dedicating key employees to provide technical and advisory support to evaluate Grameen’s existing healthcare delivery systems in Bangladesh. GE Healthcare will test delivery of ultrasound capability in rural clinics for early detection of abnormalities, and Mayo Clinic will work to improve the training, efficiency, and retention of staff at existing Grameen Health Kalyan clinics.
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