A poll conducted by consulting company PricewaterhouseCoopers shows that one-third of Americans use social media, including Facebook and Twitter, to obtain information about health and wellness [1]. Respondents reported using social media resources to self-diagnose, get information about prescription drugs, and check up on doctors’ and hospitals’ reputations.

GE Healthcare and Microsoft recently announced plans to create a joint venture aimed at helping healthcare organizations and professionals use real-time, system-wide intelligence to improve healthcare quality and the patient experience.

The new health information technology company will develop and market an open, interoperable technology platform and innovative clinical applications focused on enabling better population health management to improve outcomes and the overall economics of health and wellness. The joint venture will combine Microsoft’s expertise in building platforms and ecosystems with GE Healthcare’s experience in clinical and administrative workflow solutions.

The as of yet unnamed new company will deliver a distinctive, open platform that will give healthcare providers and independent software vendors the ability to develop a new generation of clinical applications. The venture will develop healthcare applications on the platform using in-house developers and the platform will connect with a wide range of healthcare IT products. GE Healthcare IT will immediately be able to connect existing products to the platform, helping current customers to derive new insights.

The two companies will contribute the following intellectual property:

• Microsoft Amalga, an enterprise health intelligence platform that brings historically disparate data together and makes it easy to identify and act on insights into clinical, financial or operational performance.
• Microsoft Vergence, a technology that brings single sign-on, context management and multi-factor authentication together on a clinical workstation.
• Microsoft expreSSO, a solution to simplify and streamline the organizational rollout of single sign-on.
• GE Healthcare eHealth, a framework for delivering clinical applications on top of a connected healthcare community. Its foundation is a portal technology that provides clinicians a web-based, simple way to view patient data from a health information exchange.
• GE Healthcare Qualibria, a clinical knowledge application environment that helps ensure that organizations can more effectively manage to the latest measures of quality and thrive in today’s performance-based world.

The long-term vision of the venture is to create new value by offering a healthcare performance management suite that includes many of these products.

Jeffrey R. Immelt, Chairman and CEO of GE, said:

The complementary nature of GE Healthcare’s and Microsoft’s individual expertise will drive new insights, solutions and efficiencies to further advance the two companies’ shared vision of a connected, patient-centric healthcare system. The global healthcare challenges of access, cost and quality of care delivery are creating a new focus on the performance and accountability of healthcare delivery systems –- in every country, at every level of care. This venture will demonstrate what is possible when leading companies with complementary capabilities work together to meet a common goal.

Source: Microsoft

Ringadoc, a startup based in West Hollywood, California, has developed a new method for healthcare delivery. Their goal is to make healthcare instantly available to those in need. This is done by connecting patients to doctors for medical consultations over any phone, from any location, with complete audio and video conferencing.

Powered by TeleThrive software, an instant connectivity platform built for the healthcare industry, Ringadoc enables patients to easily and quickly call doctors when facing a non-urgent medical illness. The iOS app and Android app are currently free.

You can call a doctor whenever you have a medical question — in the middle of the night, on weekends, or on holidays. In the time it takes you to research wellness remedies online, you could already have advice from an experienced doctor and a proven treatment plan. Ringadoc doctors can also prescribe antibiotics, antihistamines, and more at the time of your call.

Ringadoc uses advanced Internet and phone security technologies to protect your information. You control who has access to your electronic health record.

Most importantly, Ringadoc physicians are licensed, board-certified and prescreened by a professional credentialing team. All of them hold 10+ years of experience.

Pay-as-you-go consultations cost $39.99 per doctor call. Pre-paid plans are less expensive (per doctor call). Users record an audio summary of their medical history and a video describing their medical concern, which the doctor consults before speaking with the patient.

Source: Ringadoc