China starts healthcare tech reforms

The Chinese government's plan to spend billions on healthcare reform has multinational technology companies like IBM and Dell racing to secure a slice of a potential market that has been too disorganised to crack, reports the Wall Street Journal.

IBM is deploying technology in a group of hospitals in China's Guangdong province that will help the hospital standardise patient records and use them to make statistical analyses of traditional Chinese medicine treatments.

The technology "is a kind of hospital solution that focuses on how to process [and] manage patient data... and enable all kinds of analytics to leverage the very valuable information within electronic medical records," says Hou Xueqiao, healthcare solution manager for IBM Healthcare Solutions Lab.

Concerning job growth, the US Department of Labour forecasts the two fields projected to have the most jobs are technology and healthcare, which can be combined to form medical informatics, says The Washington Post.

According to the American Medical Informatics Association, medical informaticians apply the principles of computer and information science to the advancement of life sciences research, patient care, health professions education, and public health.

Informaticians are responsible for effectively organising, analysing, managing, and using the complex and increasing amount of healthcare information necessary in both healthcare delivery and research.

Connectyx Technologies, healthcare product provider, has expanded its relationship with Medical Air Services Association Assist (Masa), a medical evacuation company, by placing an order of 2 100 MedFlash electronic personal health manager devices, including lifetime member licences, states TMCnet.

MedFlash is said to give Masa members a simple way to build their health record and also claims to offer easy access to that information by first responders.

This expansion is part of a new programme that the companies are developing to increase member awareness of this travel, health and wellness programme.