Middle East and Africa Health IT Blog

Are you ready?

H1N1 continues to be a major global challenge, threatening to become a pandemic.  As Microsoft, we are working closely with the ministries and the hospitals to address some of the challenges. 

Planning is very important to reduce the social and economic impact of an influenza pandemic. I would highly recommend you to have a look at the guideline / checklist from WHO:

http://www.who.int/csr/resources/publications/influenza/WHO_CDS_CSR_GIP_2005_4/en/

All the best,

Cigdem Aygun

Health Industry Technology Strategist

Intel Health IT Leaders Event - VI

I had the opportunity to present at the Intel Health IT Leaders Event. The session included topics around Microsoft in Health, Operational Efficiency in Hospitals, Personal Medical Record Management and Healthvauilt.

It is possible to watch the online version of the event at the link below:

http://www.semineryeri.com/NewUser.aspx?yayinID=22

I would also like to take the opportunity to thank Cenk Tezcan from Intel for leading this effort.

All the best,

Cigdem Aygun

Microsoft HUG webcast on Sep 24th - The Future of IT, Key Trends in Health

There is an upcoming MS HUG webcast on September 24^th. Please find the details at the link below:

 http://www.mshug.org/events/events.aspx?cid=69167

Exponential data growth, increasing health costs, and changing consumer dynamic are causing health organizations to review their organizational strategies.  Advances in technology are enabling organizations to reduce operating cost and redeploy resources to deliver new services. In the future, trends such as increases in computer processing power, disk capacity, network bandwidth, and the availability of wireless technologies, along with decreases in power consumption, will enable the transformation of Health.  Learn about long term trends in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), and how other Health organizations are responding to current policy and future technology trends by making smart investment in ICT to deliver on their vision of health care.

Jonathan Murray, VP, Public Sector Office of Technology Policy, Microsoft Corporation

Neil Jordan, Managing Director, WW Health, Microsoft Corporation

Octavian Purcarea, Industry Solutions Manager, WW Health, Microsoft Corporation

Providers - Considering hosted collaboration and business productivity platform for your organization?

Developing e-health shared services / health solutions on the Windows Azure Platform

One of the requirements for e-health systems is scalability. These systems allow millions of users to benefit and get access to functions. In the health industry, we see that it also includes execution of long-running transactions to automate business processes. The goal of the Windows Azure Platform is to provide a platform that is both scalable and available. This becomes a great opportunity for governments, health ISVs or System Integrators that they are able to provide solutions on the cloud and optimize costs.

In addition, health ISVs want to provide providers, health organizations a range of choices in user experience over the Web or on connected PCs, servers, and mobile devices. Health ISVs can take advantage of the Windows Azure Platform to deliver software as a service without having to maintain data centers or build new capabilities on existing investments in on-premises applications. Therefore, it is also possible for health ISVs to move their applications on Windows Azure platform to serve more number of customers and make it more cost efficient for them. It helps to reduce the infrastructure necessary to deliver and run software and services to customers by using the infrastructure offered by the Windows Azure Platform. The reduced cost of deploying and maintaining applications and services on the Windows Azure Platform enables health ISVs provide affordable solutions in the health industry and deliver solutions to a variety of customer segments.

For more information: http://www.microsoft.com/azure/default.mspx

Excited about Windows 7? Windows Embedded ‘Quebec’ for Medical Device Manufacturers

I am here in Redmond and there is huge excitement around Windows 7! There are so many reasons on why you will enjoy working on Windows  7. Dr Bill Crounse is summarizing it for us: Windows 7—A Healthy Choice.

It is also worthwhile to consider embedding Windows 7 on medical devices. Windows Embedded ‘Quebec’ will provide medical device manufacturers with the ability to further differentiate their devices by taking rich user experiences to the next level with exciting new input capabilities through multi-touch, gesture support and user interface enhancements.

Is your application ready for Windows 7?

Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.5 helps health ISVs to collect, analyze, test and mitigate application compatibility against Windows XP machines to help prepare for migration to Windows 7. Several steps ISVs go through:

-          Create Data Collection Packages (DCP)for collecting applications and evaluating Windows 7 compatibility

-          Use Application Compatibility Manager in ACT 5.5 to analyze the applications you collected

-          Use developer/tester tools to create the compatibility fixes necessary to run the applications.

For more information:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/aa905066.aspx

Cigdem Aygun

SABIYAP Event

I was at the SABIYAP event yesterday and had the opportunity to meet with leaders who are focusing on Health IT in Turkey. It was a great platform to exchange ideas, network. We had the opportunity to discuss security solutions. Having Unal Hulur at the event and getting his insights have been also very valuable as he added his perspective from the central organization perspective. Please find the upcoming activities on www.sabiyap.org.

Thanks,

Cigdem Aygun

Interview with Nazife Baykal of METU Informatics Institute

Telemedicine is an area that can help us to improve health in our region. Given that child mortality, maternal mortality are critical issues in some countries; telemedicine has huge potential to extend medical care to the areas that does have access to very limited healthcare services. Going beyond, there is also potential to improve care through virtual consultations by removing geographical boundaries.

It is a pleasure for me to share the interview I had with Nazife Baykal, Professor, Director of Informatics Institute at Middle East Technical University. She has been actively involved in health informatics initiatives. Our conversation had a specific focus on tele-medicine and its adoption in Turkey.

Enjoy reading!

Can you please tell me more about METU Informatics Institute and its focus on telemedicine?

Informatics Institute, established in 1996 at METU, is one of the first of its kind in Turkey. Our mission is to promote creative and innovative interdisciplinary academic research from a comprehensive perspective. Informatics Institute provides a unique collaborative research and learning environment in informatics. To provide an interdisciplinary education and research, to train the next generation of researchers in this area and to be a leader in this field, we are bringing together academicians and experts from different disciplines. Our faculty and students are a diverse group with a wide range of experience and interests and our curricula emphasize the interaction and interchange between researchers working in all areas of informatics.

Informatics Institute has established different specialization areas in five departments. Each area has pioneering initiatives in their respective academic field and each is strongly committed to interdisciplinary collaborations within the university and beyond. Department of Medical Informatics is one of the five departments within the Informatics Institute. Telemedicine constitutes an important part of our medical informatics department and in addition to our full time faculty, we have affiliated faculty from various departments of METU and from other universities, such as Hacettepe and Akdeniz universities.

 How did you become involved with telemedicine? What are the activities that you / your organization participated in this area?

Telemedicine is one of the major research areas of our Medical Informatics and Medical Data Mining Lab where we have been conducting various telemedicine projects together with our graduate students, research assistants and the industry. One of our recent work on telemedicine is the assistance study we have accomplished for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) “Telemedicine: Quality Health Service for Poor and Remote Populations” project.

What excites you the most about these projects?

Today, despite all the opportunities provided by the 21st century, we are still experiencing poor health conditions worldwide. According to the United Nations report, child mortality rates, particularly in developing countries, constitute a significant matter. Throughout the world, every minute a woman dies while pregnant or giving birth. It is estimated that 515,000 women die every year as a result of pregnancy and childbirth. More than 99 per cent of these deaths occur in the developing world. In 2007, the number of people newly infected with HIV is estimated to be 2.5 million of which 420 thousand are children. Moreover, Malaria and Tuberculosis remain two of the world's primary killers, causing up to 4 million fatalities per year due to insufficient health care and support.  In addition, chronic diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes, are by far the leading cause of mortality in the world, representing 60% of all deaths.  These are very significant problems of our decade.

Considering all these, telemedicine is seen as a useful and potentially powerful tool: its use can improve the quality of healthcare while facing the challenge of reducing costs. I personally give more importance to high-risk groups and to life-saving research and development projects. In that regard, projects about infant deaths and high-risk pregnancy are very important for our country.

Another point that excites me about telemedicine is its use in preventive medicine through mHealth. Mobile electronic health tools such as cell phones, are rapidly transforming the face and context of health care service delivery around the world. In that, by promoting health-conscious behavior, the mHealth education and awareness programs currently in place have already had positive impacts. I believe, more personal mHealth services will become a part of our daily lives in the near future.

What are the major obstacles for adoption of telemedicine in Turkey? What word of advice you offer to address these challenges?

We can identify the obstacles for telemedicine adoption in four groups: technological; organizational and the human factor; financial and legal. 

Technology related obstacles are concerned with adoption to new technologies, low bandwidth connections, portability and interoperability. Interoperability needs to be achieved at different levels through standardization and integration. In that regard, fully interoperable telemedicine stations that can interact with each other and make use of each other’s devices need to be developed. Portability, on the other hand, needs to be assured through portable medical devices and smartcards. These portable devices need to include all systems such as biosignal monitoring, image acquisition and display devices and nomadic computing.

There are many issues of concern regarding the legal and ethical aspects of telemedicine. These include the responsibilities and potential liabilities of the health professional. There is also the issue of reimbursement for care provided using a telemedicine service. In addition, the electronic record may be subject to abuses that can be carried out on a large scale and cause great damage. A wide range of data protection and information security measures will need to be taken to ensure the quality and integrity of such records. In the UK for example, European Union directive was formally adopted in 1995 which sets the obligations of those responsible for data processing as well as a number of important rights for individuals. The responsible teleconsultant or medical officer, as the data controller, must make sure these measures are enforced. In the case of the transmission of medical records to another location, the original data controller may remain liable for abuses. But as different elements of the records are spread throughout the different departments of a hospital or across different geographical locations, it may become difficult to ascertain who is responsible for protecting and controlling what. To this end, the designation of liability by contractual means, between the hospitals and remote users of a telemedicine network, would be the clearest and most straightforward way of achieving uniformity and predictability in terms of the distribution of responsibility for data protection and security.

Moreover, adoption of telemedicine requires an extensive investigation of a number of issues such as security, patient privacy, confidentiality, consent (of the telepatient), responsibility, liability, technical acceptability standards, financial standards, payment policies, telemedicine product liability and safety, improved data security standards and encryption techniques, etc.  Financially, cost of initial investment may be an obstacle.

It is also important to mention that for telemedicine to be operational nationwide and to overcome these obstacles for a smooth adoption, a multi-perspective approach needs to be taken where the government, the industry, the academia, civil society institutions and the social security institution form a consortium to work together. Only such a consortium can establish the performance and legal issues related with telemedicine, and can address the issues I have mentioned.

Looking ahead 1, 5, and 10 years from now, where and what do you see in telemedicine?

Without any doubt, I can say that telemedicine will evolve and will benefit from the advances in technology. If the infrastructure that could respond to all the risks associated and that could deal with all the issues I mentioned previously is successfully built, telemedicine will then offer great benefits that we cannot foresee. Telemedicine has the potential to change and restructure health care services. For instance, in a couple of years it will be common to see peer to peer consulting between hospitals or continents. Also integrated systems for distance diagnostics and real time, interactive consulting between medical professionals will be a common experience.

In the near future, telemedicine and clinical decision support will benefit from emerging technologies, including wireless and broad band systems, 4G technologies together with the increase in the speed of transmission and the bandwidth. Smart pills, wearable and portable health devices will be very commonly used. In addition, more ‘personal’ mHealth services will be an inseparable part of future preventive medicine.

Any final thoughts?

It is evident that health expenditures have been rising every year in all countries around the world and important reasons behind this are the increasing rate of population in need of continuous health care like elderly citizens and citizens with chronic diseases. In my opinion, this situation brings an enormous load on health care systems as well as widening the gap of health personnel need. In addition, these conditions introduce direct, indirect, unpredictable loads and costs to national economies. There is no doubt that Turkey, as a developing country, also suffers from this condition.  However, telemedicine applications like rural area telemedicine, distant care telemedicine (tele-homecare, elderly care, chronic disease care, etc.) and specific telemedicine applications such as tele-radiology, telepathology, etc. can reduce serious amounts of costs.

Having mentioned financial benefits, without any doubt, Turkey can benefit from telemedicine in many other ways. For instance, telemedicine applications can accommodate the core components, i.e. Equity-Productivity-Effectiveness, of health transformation program of Turkey. In addition to helping to cut down health expenditures, telemedicine can give citizens more effective and efficient health care with increased satisfaction of all stakeholders including patients, health care personnel and others.

I have to mention once again that for telemedicine to be operational in Turkey, the government, the industry, the academia, civil society institutions and the social security institution need to work together so that a common technological platform can be developed, nationwide policies can be made and the performance and legal issues related with telemedicine can be established.

Telemedicine is a necessity for tomorrow.

Join the Microsoft Health Users Group

Upcoming webcast - Microsoft in Health

I wanted to inform you about an upcoming webcast: Microsoft in Health. We have Tim Smokoff, General Manager, Microsoft WW Health presenting on May 14^th. Please find the details and the registration link below:

With chronic conditions on the rise, the need to provide more care and services has severely stretched healthcare systems around the world.  Tim Smokoff, General Manager at Microsoft, will discuss how information technology can improve the quality and safety of care, for improved satisfaction for both patients and providers.  

Through recent customer examples, he will highlight innovative approaches and flexible technology tools from Microsoft and its partners that help lower costs, improve operational efficiency, and contribute to a more collaborative, knowledge-driven and consumer-centric healthcare delivery system.

 Registration Link

For more information on upcoming Microsoft HUG webcasts visit www.mshug.org

HIMSS Middle East 2009

It is time to travel to Manama, Bahrain. Looking for great discussions, brainstorming sessions with leaders around the world at HIMSS Middle East to improve healthcare through software innovation. Khadija Mustafa (Health and Social Services Director), Khaled Hazem (Business Development Manager) and I will be there to meet with the key stakeholders in the region. If you are interested in meeting with our team, please send me an e-mail.

All the best,

Cigdem Aygun

Interview with Yasin Keles of SABIYAP

Last month, I had an opportunity to meet with Yasin Keles, who is the chairman of SABIYAP. He and his team are passionate about making a difference in the way IT takes role in health industry. They have several activities coming up; you might be interested in participating in. I am excited to share the following interview with Yasin Keles.

Can you please tell us about yourself? What makes you passionate about Health IT?

I graduated from Engineering Department of Istanbul University and hold Health Care Administration degree.  It has been 13 year I am in health industry with a focus on health IT. It has been a great pleasure to work in an industry that is changing and evolving constantly. In addition, I am delivering lectures to both graduate and certificate students about several Healthcare topics at universities including ITU, Marmara, Beykent and Fatih. I am delighted to work in an area that allows me to serve people through Health IT that helps to improve people’s lives and also enhance quality of care. I am married with a 1, 5 old son.

How you came to start SABIYAP ? What are the major priorities for the organization?
I would describe it as a dream that did come true. A group of Health Care IT Administrators met 4 years ago and thought what we can do about Health Care. Then we established SABIYAP. Currently,  SABIYAP has about 250 members. They meet each other through various activities such as " SABIYAP breakfasts". Last year we wanted to extend the scope of the organizations’ objectives and put together the vision. This followed by building new projects. Furthermore, we include key players from Turkey through “IT Friendly Doctors" and "IT Friendly Nurses" programs. Thus, we are able to reach out to a larger stakeholder group and get a better picture of the current status in Health IT. This will eventually help us to drive better results.  SABIYAP is a platform to help Health IT Managers to get together. We are aiming to bring Health IT Managers from all over the world in CEBIT 2009.

We also bring an international perspective to allow exchange of ideas among countries. In addition to our website, we started publishing a journal which is the first and alone magazine in its focus area in Turkey. It has a 3 month time period and we are sending it to 3000 Health Care IT Managers.

What are the major challenges SABIYAP is addressing?

SABIYAP comprise all things about Health Care IT with a major focus on:

·         Helping the members to better develop themselves

·         Supporting effective usage of information technology in health

·         Bringing ideas to help with the implementation of new applications effectively

·         Providing Health IT Administrators with important education opportunities

·         Developing new job areas such as IT, Biomedical, Medical Secretary, Business Analyst, Exchange Systems etc. And, helping to define the role of these professions.

In terms of upcoming activities, can you tell us about these activities?
Our activities help our members to network, exchange ideas and also have discussions on major Health IT topics. We have several activities in 2009. These are;

·         -SABIYAP's Breakfasts and Technology Conversations

·         -SABIYAP's Expert Roundtable Discussions

·         -SABIYAP's Sport Activities

·         -SABIYAP's Nature and Cultural Travels

It is possible to reach out to our website on the details of the activities: www.sabiyap.org

New Version 2 Release of the Microsoft Connected Health Framework

I am back from Turkey after a 3-week business trip . It was a great trip. Meanwhile, writing the CHF V2 summary kept me quite busy during the evenings and weekends. I enjoyed taking part in the development of the CHV V2 documents.

Good news! We released the version 2 of the Connected Health Framework Architecture and Design Blueprint last week. Please find the V2 documents on the below link:

http://www.microsoft.com/industry/healthcare/technology/HealthFramework.mspx

Links for Connected Health Framework / Platform

Below are the links to take you to CHF/P content. Please note that we are working on the next version of CHF. If you would like to share your feedback on the current version of CHF, it will potentially give us an opportunity to incorporate your feedback into the next version.

Connected Health Framework

•       Connected Health Framework Architecture and Design Blueprint white paper

•       Connected Health Framework - Architecture and Design Blueprint - Part 1

•       Connected Health Framework - Architecture and Design Blueprint - Part 2

•       Connected Health Framework - Architecture and Design Blueprint - Part 3

•       Connected Health Framework - Architecture and Design Blueprint - Part 4

•       Connected Health Framework - Architecture and Design Blueprint - Part 5

•       Connected Health Framework Presentation

Connected Health Framework Solution Accelerators:

•       Health Connection Engine (HCE) http://www.CodePlex.com/HCE

•       IHE Cross-Enterprise Document Sharing-b (XDS.b) http://www.CodePlex.com/IHE

•       Microsoft Health Platform Optimization (HPO) http://www.microsoft.com/industry/healthcare/technology/hpo/silverfish.aspx

•       Microsoft Common Health User Interface (MSCUI) http://www.MSCUI.net

•       Healthcare Collaboration Fundamentals

•       Managing Meetings for Healthcare Organizations

•       Using Scorecards to Improve Performance Management in Healthcare

Connected Government Framework Technical Framework

•       Connected Government Framework Technical Framework

Looking forward to hearing your feedback .

Thanks,

Cigdem Aygun