Telemedicine, e-mail and messaging

bcrounse — Wed, 16 May 2007 02:52:00 GMT

I wanted to draw your attention to a just released interview I did with Digital Healthcare and Productivity. In it, I talk about one of the most worrisome trends I see in US healthcare; how far we are falling behind the rest of the world in the use of information technology in the industry, including the provision of health and medical services via the web.

It's ironic that this interview was released while I'm attending the first-ever Asia-Pacific HIMSS conference in Singapore. Last evening, I met with several clinicians who were telling me how tele-medicine and e-mail are being embraced by clinicians and patients all across this country, especially for primary care. As you may know, Singapore has a very progressive public-private healthcare system that serves the population extremely well at a cost to the GNP that is only one third of what we spend in the US.

As I travel the world, not only am I seeing more progressive use of information technology in healthcare compared to the US, I'm just plain seeing lots of technology everywhere that we don't have. Even the taxi cabs here are marvels of IT on wheels. Want to charge your cab ride using a credit card? No problem. Want a GPS-enabled turn by turn tour of the town? Got it. Want the cab's computer to calculate your fare and then explain it to you in your native language? Done! Oh, I did I tell you about the cell phones people use here that are years more advanced than anything you'll see in the US, or that my hotel room has a 42-inch fully digital, high definition LCD TV with more than 100 channels? I think you get the idea.

Better wake up America before it's too late! An electronic health record for most American's within ten years (now just seven years since that proclamation was made)? They already have that in Singapore. And tomorrow? Well, let's just say officials here and elsewhere around the world see a very big market for delivering healthcare to Americans who are either willing to travel for it, or better yet, want to receive a least a portion of their care on-line.

Bill Crounse, MD Worldwide Health Director Microsoft Corporation

Exchange Hosted Services: Right solution, right time, right price for healthcare

bcrounse — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 22:41:00 GMT

If you are charged with managing e-mail, messaging, and other forms of electronic communication and collaboration in a healthcare organization large or small, you will be very interested in learning more about Exchange Hosted Services from Microsoft. For starters, check out the new audio-cast on this topic in my House Calls for Healthcare Professionals series. This just might be the solution you've been waiting for.

Click below to access the programs

Exchange Hosted Services: Secure email communication and collaboration in healthcare
This program is also available in MP3 for download.

Program Introduction and Guests:

E-mail communication has become the norm for consumers and business people. And when it comes to healthcare, consumers have a growing expectation that they should be able to communicate electronically with their doctor or hospital, just as they do with their bank, retail store, or other service industry provider. Striving to increase efficiency and curb rising costs, healthcare providers are turning to e-mail to replace paper-based communications. But healthcare poses some special challenges when it comes to maintaining confidentiality and privacy. To address issues raised by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and other regulatory requirements, healthcare organizations must evaluate and implement organization-wide security best practices and technologies—adding potential complexity and expense to the equation. Finally, there’s a solution for more secure e-mail communication for healthcare: Microsoft Exchange Hosted Services.

Panel guests:

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Forrest Hobbs, director of sales and market development for Exchange Hosted Services (formerly known as Frontbridge Technologies), has worked on Exchange Hosted Services since 2001. He develops and implements programs for sales, marketing, and business development. Previously, Forrest headed business development for TTI/Vanguard, a technology think tank for Fortune 500 companies and government agencies.

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Danny Bohm, senior product manager for Exchange Hosted Filtering and Exchange Hosted Encryption, has worked with Exchange Hosted Services and its customers since 2003. Prior to that, Daniel led research and development and operations teams at iBeam Broadcasting, a streaming media production and hosting company.

Additional resources

Microsoft Exchange Hosted Services

I hope you enjoy the program!

Bill Crounse, MD Healthcare Industry Director Microsoft

Entries tagged with messaging - Channel 10

Telemedicine, e-mail and messaging

Exchange Hosted Services: Right solution, right time, right price for healthcare