244857 Across rural America, integrated healthcare is the cloud and the cloud is integrated healthcare

Tuesday, November 1, 2011: 8:50 AM

John Ellingson, MBA , ProForma Healthcare Solutions, Partner, Decatur, GA
Philip Weintraub, MSc, Public Health, DLSHTM , ProForma Healthcare Solutions, Partner, Palm Beach Gardens, FL
  
     
For most rural healthcare providers, who cannot afford access to supercomputers, the future of integrated healthcare (“IH”) delivery will reside with internet-centric computer systems, what has come to be known as Cloud Computing. The IH delivery service for these providers includes:

1.) telemedicine systems requiring imaging or advanced visualization for augmented reality;

2.) remote operation of robotics for minimally invasive procedures; and

3.) heterogeneous voice and data communications networks for first responders and more.

Cloud computing can also facilitate the cost-effective licensing of software applications that leverage electronic medical records, community tracking and exchange systems, patient tracking; disease registries and numerous meaningful measures. As a consequence, healthcare providers will likely identify new revenue generating opportunities.

The availability of healthcare applications that are Cloud Computing-ready for use in IH delivery has been impeded by a healthcare industry locked into high priced and complex proprietary systems. For example, medical hardware vendors have shown significant reluctance to address data and processing standards. For software developers who create telemedicine applications, using standards for massive parallelization will enable those applications to run on considerably less expensive High Performance Computing (“HPC”) clusters. And, with this processing advantage, the resulting near-real-time rendering and ultra high resolution levels of images over the Cloud will enable physicians to make the same quality of diagnosis regardless of their physical location.

For rural IH to succeed, we are proposing an application- centric Eco-System that creates HPC standards which optimizes hardware for software vendors within the Cloud. This Eco-System will be a catalyst for the innovation of new HPC applications and services as well as the conversion of thousands of existing legacy applications at healthcare research institutions throughout the nation.

Learning Areas:
Administration, management, leadership
Clinical medicine applied in public health
Communication and informatics
Provision of health care to the public

Learning Objectives:
1. Describe three advantages for the delivery of integrated healthcare to patients and other community stakeholders. 2. Explain three applications of Cloud Computing to delivering integrated healthcare to rural America. 3. Discuss two of the major constraints in the development of healthcare applications that are Cloud Computing-ready for use in integrated healthcare delivery. 4. Describe two advantages of an application-centric Eco-System to optimize Cloud Computing.

Keywords: Access and Services, Rural Populations

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Mr. Ellingson brings over 25 years of corporate strategy and industry experience as a Partner at Proforma Healthcare Solutions. His expertise includes corporate strategy, merger & acquisitions, developing world infrastructure and structuring strategic investments to foster innovation for corporations, research institutions, governments and the World Bank. He is currently involved or has been involved in the following projects: ¡Identifying new Medical Technologies for license and product commercialization ¡Implementing Financial and Operations Analytics and Performance Metrics at Hospitals and Physicians Groups ¡Building Financial Modeling and Businesses Cases for new healthcare delivery models and infrastructure ¡Re-structuring Corporate Investment Strategies to provide sustainable opportunities under Healthcare Reform ¡Financial Modeling and Valuation for acquisition and divestiture opportunities ¡Integration of Telecommunications Infrastructure in to Healthcare Networks to provide heterogeneous device support of telemedicine and first response teams ¡Connecting Grant Writing Institutions, Investment Banks and Venture Capital to businesses delivering disruptive technologies ¡Integration of new Acquisition and Merger Care Provider operations and business models ¡Board level presentations at Care Providers and Foundations for strategic decision making His clients include: ¡Johnson & Johnson ¡Siemens ¡AT&T ¡IBM ¡Roswell Park Cancer Institute ¡Harvard Medical Faculty Physicians ¡UB Academic Medicine Services ¡US National Research Labs ¡The World Bank ¡Microsoft ¡Qualcomm Previously, Mr. Ellingson served as the U.S. National Manager for the Global Technology, Media & Telecommunications Business Innovation Group at Deloitte. While at Deloitte, he advised numerous Fortune 500 and international companies on strategic investment, intellectual asset management, product development and expansion into emerging markets. His client-base included companies such as Bank of America, Lockheed-Martin, Motorola, Lenovo, Hauwei, QuaSK Group, Motorola, and government entities such as the DoD, DoE, Reserve Bank of India, NATO and the US National Research Labs.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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