TBA The Biotechnology Initiative

The Voice of Bioscience in Ontario

NEWS

SPONSORS

Flash Slideshow

 


Exciting IT based initiatives highlight May TBI Breakfast

Attendees of TBI’s May 21st breakfast were treated to a glimpse of where healthcare is headed, with two companies, one a large organization (IBM) and one an emerging one (Infonaut Inc.) showing off their solutions and how information technology (IT) holds the key to a radical transformation of the healthcare industry.

Sal Causi of IBM Canada Ltd, one of the world’s and Canada’s largest providers of Healthcare Information Technology products and services, unveiled some of the exciting initiatives the organization is launching in hospitals. As the business development executive for healthcare, Causi is responsible for building business opportunities and relationships with life science companies and healthcare institutes in Canada and the Caribbean North. Under his direction IBM is working with life science businesses to develop technological solutions and services to address requirements for business consulting, computing requirements, chem-informatics, bioinformatics, clinical genomics, health IT infrastructure, and other areas. Sal spoke highly about the company’s e-health (Portal) Experience, which will one day lead to a digital hospital/digital patient environment that enables ‘Smart Process’ using technologies to provide ease and secure access to the CIS and medical procedures, support security, reduce patient travel time, as well as including asset and patient location data.

The second speaker of the morning was CEO of Infonaut Inc. Niall Wallace. Infonaut Inc. is an Ontario-based company that provides disease surveillance and infection control software solutions & services. Founded by Wallace following the SARS outbreak in 2004, Infonaut develops map-based decision making tools for disease surveillance and emergency preparedness, planning and response. In his presentation, Wallace discussed his company’s “Hospital Watch Live (HWL),” a unique solution that enables hospitals to tackle one of the most pressing issues facing the healthcare system, the need to improve patient safety through hospital-acquired infection (HAI) control. HWL works by bringing together GIS mapping, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technologies and analytical software to better monitor HAI outbreaks by identifying areas of risk in hospitals Infonaut’s solution tracks and stores the movement, contacts and interactions of patient, staff and assets. Wallace affectionately likens this solution to Google maps on steroids. It has garnered a lot of press in recent months and holds a lot of promise in helping to enable hospitals and healthcare organizations better identify risk exposure, track the spread of disease and create targeted infection control responses.