Health care industry data

Pervasive computing has numerous applications, but it offers particular potential to the pharmaceutical and health care industries by facilitating the transmission and collection of biological data on a real-time basis outside a clinical setting. That, in turn, means it can be used to monitor patients and manage their health to test new drugs in totally different ways and to deliver health care anywhere, anytime [13]. 

These data can then be fed into electronic medical records (EMR) such as those the NHS plans to introduce throughout the UK over the next 2 years. This represents a process that will ultimately both reduce the frequency with which patients have to visit their doctor and improve health care delivery. EMR or electronic personal health records (as they are also known) have already been established, or are being established, in many European nations, such as Denmark. The United States, with its decentralized health care industry, is behind the curve in these efforts. However, in early fall of 2005, IBM and eight other IT companies that form the Technology CEO Council (TCC), including Intel, HP, Dell, Motorola, EMC, Applied Materials, NCR, and Unisys committed to adopt electronic health records based on open standards. In addition to these private sector efforts, the US Department of... 

Caliper Technologies Corporation, Palo Alto, California, is working toward creating a miniature chemistry laboratory about the size of a toaster that can be used with plug-in chip-based laboratories. Various chips would be furnished with the unit that would be appropriate for different types of analyses. The entire unit would be connected to a computer to collect and analyze the data. There is even the possibility that these laboratories could be used in the home to perform analyses such as blood sugar and blood cholesterol and to check for the presence of bacteria such as E. coli and many others. This would revolutionize the health care industry. ... 

In health care the existence of a number of different sources of high quality and detailed quantitative market data for such analyses confers an advantage over many other industrial markets. This is not so in many other business markets, such as chemicals or other commodities, and is more akin to consumer market data. Hence it is possible to generate analysis of data at a high level of granularity at a quantitative level rather than having to rely on qualitative research based only on small samples of the market for the estimation of segments or, of product use. 

Although not directly subcontracted to SCS, Radian, Inc. provided fuel logistics support and Control Data Health Care Services (now W. J. Keane and Associates) assisted with the Industrial hygiene program as part of the mult1-s1te EPRI work with synthetic fuels (RP 2112). 

The effectiveness of various measures to contain expenditure on medicines in the UK can only be assessed in the context of the situation in other European Union countries. Table 21.1 gives data for the total expenditure on health care as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), expenditure on medicines as a percentage of total healthcare spend, the national pharmaceutical industry s research and development expenditure in euro-millions, the general price index and the medicines price index nationally compared to a European price of 100, and the national pharmaceutical consumption per capita expressed as defined daily doses (DDD). These comparisons are based on OECD Health Data 2000. 

Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI) a task force formed in 1991 by the Secretary of Health and Human Services to develop recommendations for government and industry relating to the advancement of electronic data in health care. WEDI s steering committee consists of senior executives from more than 25 insurance and health care organizations, wrap-around coverage or plan insurance to cover copays or deductible not covered by a basic insurance plan. 

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