Developed as part of IBM Research's First-Of-A-Kind program, ePC3 also provides a healthcare mobile enablement platform to support round-the-clock remote care and monitoring services, timely diagnosis and proactive intervention. In the future, vital physiological data such as body temperature, blood pressure, heart rate and cardiogram and blood sugar level could be constantly monitored by mobile devices at their homes and fed into the system instantly. When any change or irregularity happens for a sustained period of time, the system will automatically generate an alert to the patient and his or her healthcare specialists to enable immediate actions.
The hospital plans to provide the new services to patients of selected hospital and community clinics beginning in early 2011. Following the completion of this pilot project, People's Hospital plans to expand the system to further facilitate a more evidence-based, patient-centric approach across the hospital's regional network of care. Citizens will be able to obtain medical services in their local community rather than going to urban hospitals for minor illnesses. Patients with more complicated conditions will be referred to central hospitals and specialists.
"As the Chinese government is trying to address the issue of isolated and disparate systems located across hospitals and medical centers, we are excited to participate in the ePC3 project which we believe can contribute to China's efforts in healthcare reform," said Dr Thomas Li, director of IBM Research “ China & Chief Technology Officer, IBM Greater China Group.
To address the rising demand for information technology-enabled healthcare solutions in China, IBM opened a Healthcare Industry Solutions Lab in Beijing, where IBM experts work with hospitals and medical service providers to develop healthcare and medical systems.
IBM's track record of helping to improve healthcare through scientific achievements and collaboration with healthcare companies dates back to the 1950s. In the last decade alone, IBM has collaborated with Scripps Research Institute to understand how influenza viruses mutate, worked with European universities to develop better HIV antiretroviral therapy methods and launched the World Community Grid, which has done projects on cancer, aids, dengue fever among other groundbreaking healthcare innovations.
SOURCE IBM