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The United Nations is launching a Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies and Development in Kuala Lumpur. Craig Barrett, Chairman of Intel Corporation Board chairs this Alliance. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan approved the alliance as a largest provider of information and communication technologies for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. These goals are: 1. Get rid of extreme hunger and poverty 2. Achieving universal primary education 3. Promoting gender equality and empowerment of women 4. Reducing child mortality 5. Improving maternal health 6. Fighting HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other disease 7. Ensuring environmental sustainability 8. Developing a global partnership for development This Barrett will lead the way in advancing the objectives of the World Summit on the Information Society and promoting a universal and inclusive information society. Intel is planning to spend approx $1 billion to promote World Ahead program. The another technology, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific opened the UN’s first Information and Communications Technology for Development and Training. Via : Information Week

MedStar Health, the largest healthcare system in the Washington, has selected Roadpost to provide Iridium Satellite emergency backup communications for its personnel and facilities. Roadpost is supplying the Iridium hardware and monthly services, which includes 9 multi-channel fixed terminal and 96 mobile handsets. These fixed terminals would be installed at MedStar’s hospitals to provide four independent channels for incoming and outgoing satellite calls. This is interface between the buildings’ private branch exchange switching systems. MedStar also utilizes Iridium systems on its fleet of four medical transport helicopters to provide automated tracking and voice communications. Via: Yahoo!

Microsoft Corp. announced the winners of the Microsoft Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences Innovation Awards 2006 at Philadelphia. This award is given to Pharmaceutical and life sciences industry in contributing in following fields: a) Areas of sales and marketing b) Manufacturing and supply chain, c) Clinical development The award is announced at the annual meeting of the Drug Information Association (DIA) in Philadelphia. It is given to the companies who demonstrated the best solution by the use Microsoft-based solutions. The participants of this award belong to following field: 1. Biotechnology 2. Diagnostics 3. Medical equipment and devices 4. Pharmaceuticals 5. Animal health 6. Nutritional products 7. Consumer health products The winners of these awardees are listed below: a) Sales and Marketing: GlaxoSmithKline is one of the largest pharmaceutical and healthcare companies in Mississauga, Ontario. GSK’s solution utilizes a Tablet PC, powered by Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, and Proscape Technologies Inc.’s software. Using a Proscape’s software, a sales representative can easily and effectively convey the key products. b) Manufacturing and Supply Chain: There are two compaies which has got this award, names are given below: 1. ALTANA Pharma AG is the pharmaceutical division of ALTANA AG, which has its headquarters in Konstanz, Germany. This company is creating a high quality for patient’s modern jobs for highly qualified employees and a good return for shareholders. ALTANA Pharma AG implemented Wassermann AG’s wayRTS solution, a 64-bit application using Windows Server 2003, Visual Studio 2005, Visual SourceSafe and the 2003 Microsoft Office system in 2005. It implemented for the operational planning and scheduling of its largest supply chain across three production sites and eight sales units. The resulting quality improvement leads to a significantly reduced error rate. 2. Pfizer Inc., New York. Pfizer Inc is the largest pharmaceutical company, employing more than 115,000 people. This company is dedicated for the health of people and animals. Pfizer’s solution, Catalyst, utilizes several Microsoft technologies, including .NET, BizTalk Server, SQL Server and SharePoint Portal Server. Catalysts also allows the industry workers to design, schedule and analyze pharmaceutical manufacturing processes using a graphical user interface in a fraction of the time required by existing electronic and manual systems. c) Clinical Development: PRA International, Reston is one of the largest global clinical research organizations who have more than 2400 employees working in North America, Europe, South America, Africa, Australia and Asia. By the help of DataLabs, Inc., PRA International rolled out FlexDMS powered by DataLabs Clinical, using Microsoft Active Directory, Internet Information Services 6.0, and Microsoft Cluster Server technologies. FlexDMS is a single data management system which combines the functionality of paper data entry with the flexibility of electronic data capture into one, easy-to-use electronic clinical data management platform. PRA operates FlexDMS on a common global platform that integrates the company’s data management facilities in Lenexa, Kan.; Victoria, British Columbia; Swansea, Wales; and a new facility in Pune, India Via: VERIVOX

A conference in Sofia is making a deal for the electronic health system in Bulgaria. The conference is organized by following organizations: 1. Health ministry 2. The State Agency of Information Technology and Communications 3. The Bulgarian Electronic Health System The topic of the conference is to establish a thriving e-health system for hospital information systems and connectivity. Via: Novinite

The two newspapers, the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times published the articles on issues related to Health care technology. The summary of the articles is given below: Elder care: The Wall Street Journal made a research, how big companies like Intel, Philips Electronics and Accenture have started developing the products on health care. The companies are trying to connect patients with outside world. They are making the product, which is remotely monitor and helps the patients to live more in their homes. According to article, these products reduce the cost of health care. Electronic health records: The Los Angeles Times examined about the efforts made by Central government for encouraging the use of Electronic Health Record. The EHRs help the patients to safe their personal medical information. John Halamka, chief information officer for Harvard Medical School, I would be worried if there were a centralized database in the basement of the White House that could be hacked, but we’re not building that. Via: Kaisernetwork

According to MIT experts who are working at the intersection of computation and biology, with the help of Biotechnology, researchers can enjoy high technology with more efficient way. But they have to work like both scientist as well as engineer. The one biologist can invent one trick and combine with other trick, which is invented by someone else. The team of ‘biohackers’ can make microorganisms by inserting new collections of genes into bacteria. They can reproduce black and white photographs and form a ring oscillator. Endy has set up the Standard Registry of Biological Parts in 2003. In this idea biologist want to write interoperable plug-ins in DNA code. It is described in an online database and stored in a freezer at MIT. All researchers have to work like computer engineer, when they design their genetic gizmos to ensure that one circuit would not short circuit with another. Via: eWeek

The shares of Orion Corporation, a Finnish healthcare company would be traded on the Helsinki Stock Exchange. The present Orion Corporation is separated into two parts: * Orion Corporation * Oriola-KD Corporation According to Jukka Viinanen, President and CEO of Orion Corporation, The two new companies resulting from the demerger of the present Orion will be strong players in their own fields of business. As separate listed companies their evaluation will be easier for investors, thanks to clear operational structures and improved comparability to peers. Both companies have also strong balance sheets and a long history of operations. Orion Corporation is included in the Health Care sector. Via : Business Wire

Researchers reported about the new type of sensor, which will give light touch to robots. It allows the machines to ‘feel’ surfaces by using electricity and tiny particles. The device will give tactile sensitivity to robot, which is equivalent to human fingers. According to Vivek Maheshwari and Ravi Saraf of the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, the electroluminescent film glowed in response to an applied force. A specialized camera will capture this light and translate into picture, which is as similar to the touching and feeling an object. Now Surgeons can use their sense of touch to find tumors or gallstones. The film is made of alternating layers of gold and semi conducting cadmium-sulfur nano-particles separated by non conducting or dielectric films. These humanoid robots can sense shapes, hardness and manipulate object, which is not possible by vision alone. Via: eWeek

Chunghwa Telecom Co, the largest fixed line operator in Taiwan is thinking about the tapping into the healthcare industry by means of its multimedia-on-demand platform. The company is scheduling to join with iD SoftCapital Group, a venture capitalist under Acer Inc to raise the industry in healthcare. Since the full details of collaboration is not mentioned but still the project will work with 500 MOD interactive kiosks. The number of kiosks will boost 18,000 for long terms with medical and healthcare content to come from domestic medical associations. Chunghwa Telecom started its MOD service in 2004. It had acquired 120,000 users for the service and now they are planning to expand approximately 250,000. They are launching an ‘asthma mobile service’ targeted on asthma patients, who are 8 per cent of the population. The new service enables patients to check air quality and temperature changes on mobile phones and provides medical data analysis on asthma conditions cooperated with Chang Gung Memorial Hospital. The Micro-Star International Co, the leading motherboard and graphics card maker, developing medical electronics products. Via: TaipeiTimes