Tata to commercialise healthcare portal

  Johannesburg, 27 November 2008 ] - Tata to commercialise healthcare portal

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), an Indian IT services company, plans to commercialise its WebHealthCentre, an online portal for medical consultations, healthcare information and telemedicine, says PCWorld.

The WebHealthCentre site was set up by TCS in 2000 as part of fulfilling its corporate social responsibility. The site was started to offer patients in rural areas access to specialist doctors.

Using the analogy of Google's YouTube, Debashis Ghosh, VP and head of TCS life sciences and healthcare practice, said having set up WebHealthCentre and making it popular, TCS is exploring a number of revenue streams, including offering new services such as electronic medical records facilities through the site.

Merge offers Web solutions

Merge Healthcare, a medical imaging solutions provider, has unveiled two Web applications, Cedara WebAccess and Cedara WebScheduler, available through its OEM division, says Market Watch.

These solutions give health IT software providers plug-in portals that help expedite and automate tasks such as patient and resource scheduling, and image and information distribution.

Cedara WebAccess is a thin-client viewer, which provides technology for Web distribution of radiology images and reports to the referring physician community and beyond. Cedara WebScheduler helps health IT application developers that add centralised capabilities for managing and scheduling imaging resources.

Internet service keeps families informed

Connect4Healthcare is offering an Internet service that enables long-term care providers to give families regular proactive wellness updates through a secure Web page, e-mail or text message, says Market Watch.

The solution addresses the problems for families of the more than 3.8 million people in the US living in nursing homes, assisted living facilities or receiving home care as they struggle to stay up-to-date with the well-being and needs of their loved ones.

The company is introducing its service to long-term care providers, but plans to begin marketing directly to consumers early next year.