www.insightssuccess.com January 2018
The way of business solutions
10 The
Most Innovative
PHARMA & LIFE SCIENCES
Solution Providers 2018
Exclusive Adding Mobility to Healthcare via EMR-EHR
Executive Talk Top 5 Best Practices that Deď€ nes a Successful Wellness Program
Tech-N-Trends Trends To Be Followed In Electronic Health Record System
Murt Abuwala Founder
ORBYTEL GROUP: Helping Organizations to Work Better and Faster
Editor’s Note
Pharma Industry and IoHT
W
ith the invention of the IOT devices, nowadays every one of us are connected with each other's all the time. The massive technological shift of this dimension is felt by every division of the economy including healthcare. Internet of Healthy Things now bridges interoperability hurdles to transform radically the way how healthcare is being delivered. Wearable devices alongside home health monitoring systems are now more of a necessity rather than life style devices. Whether data comes from electrocardiograms or temperature monitors, tracking health information is always vital for all the patients. Thanks to the progress of science, now wearable devices can facilitate real-time data reporting which include heart rate, sleep pattern, steps taken, etc. Additionally, increased processing power of smart phones also has helped these devices to be connected in a better way. The leaps and bounds that technological progress has taken in the last few years showcases that whereas once you'd have to go to a medical practitioner to get more information about. Thanks to IoHT, it is slowly reducing the cost of healthcare delivery and helping the healthcare sector to transform into a value-based system. According to various reports, with remote patient monitoring for the heart, asthma, and diabetes patients around the globe will enable total saving of more than $200bn yearly. The world is slowly adapting interconnected devices, and all these methods will eventually help to build products that involve enough with patients to support them in crafting health goals which are relevant to their life.
So with great enthusiasm Insights Success has selected some of the most prominent organizations around the globe in the issue of “The 10 Most Innovative Pharma and life sciences Solution Providers 2018,”. These organizations are transforming the life science and pharmaceuticals industry with their revolutionary innovations and foremost initiatives that mainly focus on the product acceleration and customer satisfaction. The journey starts with Orbytel Group, a data science and decision system company that exclusively serves the biopharmaceutical industry and driven the success with profound solutions. Then we have OSNEXUS Corporation, whose QuantaStor SDS is a software-defined storage platform of the company that turns servers into multi-protocol (SAN/NAS/Object) scale-out storage appliances and expertly improves the agility of associate organizations; Golden Helix, Inc, which provides one of the best automation capabilities that are crucial in high-throughput testing environments; Catalyst UX is also part of the list. It designs and builds User Experiences (UX) for Medical, Pharmaceutical and Life Science Digital Solutions; then we have Sciformix Corporation which is a leading scientific knowledge-based organization that provides process, technology and consulting services to the life sciences industry; Ideagen Plc. who provides quality, safety, audit, performance and risk management software and expertise and has operations in the UK, the European Union, the United States, Middle East and Southeast Asia. Also, we have incorporated Exclusive- Adding Mobility to Healthcare via EMR-HER; TechN-Trends- Trends to Be Followed in Electronic Health Record System; Care & Cure- The Next Frontier of Innovation in the Pharmaceutical industry. Lastly, don't forget to go through Executive Talk- Top 5 Best Practices that Defines a Successful Wellness Program; Industry Insight- Contemporary Predictive Analytics in Healthcare; Health POV- Hospital Logistics – Accelerating the Patient Flow in Danish Hospitals.
Kaustav Roy
Orbytel Group: Articles
Helping Organizations to Work Better and Faster Tech-N-Trends Trends To Be Followed In 22 Electronic Health Record System
Exclusive Adding Mobility to Healthcare Via EMR EHR
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CONTENTS
Cover Story
08
Care & Cure The Next Frontier of 40 Innovation in the pharmaceutical industry
32
Executive Talk
Health POV
Top 5 Best Practices that Denes a Successful Wellness Program
Hospital Logistics – Accelerating the Patient Flow in Danish Hospitals
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18
Catalyst UX:
Golden Helix:
Driven by Software, Empowered with Experience
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Helping Researchers and Clinicians Understand the Role of CNVs in Human Health and Disease
30
Ideagen: The Undisputed Leader in the Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) Marketplace
OSNEXUS: A Leading Hyper-Scale Software Dened Storage Provider for Life Sciences
38 Industry Insight Contemporary Predictive Analytics in Healthcare
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Sciformix:
Bridging the Gap in Life Science Service Delivery with Deep Scientic Knowledge, Providing Quantitative and Qualitative Value
Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Senior Editor Anish Miller Managing Editor Kaustav Roy Executive Editors Jenny Fernandes Kedar Kulkarni Assistant Editors Brian Smith Ajit Balkawade Visualiser David King Art & Design Director Amol Kamble Associate Designer Vinod Alhat Co-designer Mayur, John Art & Picture Editor Paul Belin Jayant Khanna Senior Sales Manager Abhijeet Mehra Business Development Manager Peter Collins Marketing Manager John Matthew Business Development Executives Steve, Joe, Alan, Abhishek Sales Executives David, Kevin, Mark, Niwrutti Technical Head Jacob Smile Technical Specialist Amar, Pratiksha Digital Marketing Manager Marry D’Souza Online Marketing Strategist Alina Sege, Shubham Mahadik, Vaibhav K SME-SMO Executives Prashant Chauhan, Uma Dhenge, Gemson, Irfan Research Analyst Chidiebere Moses Circulation Manager Robert, Tanaji Database Management Stella Andrew Technology Consultant David Stokes sales@insightssuccess.com
January, 2018 Corporate Ofces: Insights Success Media Tech LLC 555 Metro Place North, Suite 100, Dublin, OH 43017, United States Phone - (614)-602-1754 Email: info@insightssuccess.com For Subscription: Visit www.insightssuccess.com
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Copyright © 2018 Insights Success, All rights reserved. The content and images used in this magazine should not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from Insights Success. Reprint rights remain solely with Insights Success.
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Murt Abuwala Founder
Cover Story
ORBYTEL GROUP: Helping Organizations to Work Better and Faster
At the heart of our solutions is Harmony, our custom-built, patent-pending, cloud-based platform designed from the ground up to meet the unique needs of the biopharma industry.
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Cover Story
O
vercoming the differences in culture and communication between commercial and research organizations is a challenge especially when it comes to biopharmaceutical R&D productivity. In order to remove these barriers, Orbytel Group, a data science and decision system company, builds solutions that help teams structure, manage, and act on complex data. The vision of Orbytel Group is to empower scientists, physicians, business professionals, and patients to radically improve therapeutic development and delivery. A Veteran Leader With more than twenty years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, Murt Abuwala founded Orbytel Group in 2009. When he invented a mathematical and experimental approach to identify potential medicines for neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s Disease, he was thrust into the commercial side of the industry. After working in sales, marketing, analytics, IT, managed care, and corporate finance he became a consultant to the industry. When asked about this future plans, he stated “We want to make science easier for business people and business easier for scientists. This divide is at the root of the R&D productivity problem facing large companies and our aspiration is build tools that help bridge the gaps between these two very different and important groups.” After leading two successful consulting teams at major firms, Murt started Orbytel Group in order to focus on how organizations can improve decision making. He has worked with more than thirty publicly-traded global biopharmaceutical companies, including 7 of the top 10 in M&A, portfolio analytics, commercial strategy, R&D strategy, sales strategy, and medical strategy. Murt is a Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude, and honors graduate of Oberlin College with a degree in biochemistry. He was part of the student government, played varsity tennis, and received awards and grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Howards Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), and the American Chemical Society (ACS) for his research. A Unique Organization Taking On the Challenges of the Industry According to Orbytel Group one of the most significant challenges facing the industry is the ever-increasing cost of bringing an asset to market. This challenge is magnified by
the increasing pricing pressure biopharma companies are facing. Consequently, companies are seeking ways to reduce costs and find efficiencies. Orbytel Group believes that the core of this challenge is pipeline asset assumption management. Assumptions about clinical differentiation, net pricing, reimbursement, product uptake, and promotional response need to be vigorously reviewed, debated, and carefully managed to ensure R&D investments that are generally made over 10 years and are in the hundreds of millions dollars reflect future market realities. To address this large complex challenge, companies have to organize large volumes of data across many disciplines, develop analytic standards, and standardize decision making processes across thousands of individuals. It is a large high-risk cross-functional initiative that most companies are reluctant to undertake. Through its extensive and unique experiences with most of big-pharma for many years, Orbytel Group had a unique perspective. It took the best practices from many companies and created data standards and a common data structure. Following that, Orbytel created a custom technology platform designed for business planning and competitive intelligence. It allows end-users to interact, visualize, and act upon data consistently towards a common goal regardless of their department or discipline. Helping Organizations to Make Better Decisions Orbytel Group helps companies to manage, organize, and act on data so they can make better decisions. The organization mainly works in three areas - R&D/Medical Affairs, Finance, and Sales. Within R&D/Medical Affairs, Orbytel offers two solutions: Meeting Assistant and Trials. These modules are focused on structuring complex clinical and scientific data in a way that is easier to understand, analyze, summarize, and communicate. They enable companies to track and manage much larger volumes of data which in turn improves their understanding of data generation opportunities and risks. For Finance, Orbytel offers a Forecasts module to help teams create, manage, and communicate long-term product valuations. It replaces MS Excel, standardizes forecasts across assets, countries and teams, and enables teams to understand the long-term financial implications of various clinical data scenarios. In short, it helps determine how to best direct R&D dollars. Orbytel Group also helps companies run their sales forces more profitably. The solution provided by Orbytel simplifies sales operations & analytics, optimizes sales
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Orbytel creates
and implements data structures and processes that improve the way in which scientific, clinical and financial data is visualized, managed, and communicated.
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strategy on financial goals, and reduces dependency on multiple third-party systems and vendors. Through sophisticated analytics and reporting, data is presented in a way that helps individuals make better decisions. For a sales force of fewer than 100 individuals, a VP of Sales is able to run the entire system and process with no need for dedicated sales operations or analytics staff. This unified, highly-streamlined application assists enterprises in dealing with an increasingly difficult selling environment by lowering operational complexities and expenses.
Entering the Vertical Murt started his career in pharma R&D as a chemist nearly twenty years ago and has always worked in the pharmaceutical industry. Orbytel Group will continue to focus on this industry. Murt believes the biopharma industry is currently under pressure but that it will come out stronger than ever and will have a profound impact on health in the next 30 years.
Thanks to the innovative solutions provided by Orbytel Group, clients are now able to reduce costs and increase efficiency. They believe that by being able to make better decisions more consistently, its clients also gain broader strategic and competitive advantages.
“The biopharma industry is at the cusp of an amazing intersection of genetic understanding, biological manufacturing capacity, and portable computing power. Truly amazing things are happening, and Orbytel Group is excited to be a part of the growth and optimistic that it will
Cover Story have a role, however small, in positively impacting patient health outcomes.”
improve the UI. Their next big challenge was customer acquisition.
Tackling Initial Rough Days and Future Plans Orbytel Group started working on their technology in 2014, but did things backwards from the “norm”. Rather than starting with the UX/UI, Orbytel focused on the data model. They approached it as an exploration of whether it could create a unified data model for the biopharma industry that could structure data in a meaningful way for R&D, finance, and commercial simultaneously.
Finding individuals who were willing to listen and lead change via a new and potentially disruptive technology was difficult. Orbytel ended up coupling its new software products to its established services at strategic accounts. This helped to establish a track record and gradually increase their user base.
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We provide
Software-as-a-
Service (SaaS) to help our clients
When Orbytel was happy with its design, it looked for an application development platform to start building applications in which data flowed seamlessly and could easily automate workflows. Nothing readily available worked, and they made the tough - and expensive - decision to build their own platform called Harmony. It took about a year to create the core platform and another year to work out the kinks, polish its features, and
accelerate therapeutic development and optimize commercial success.
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Additionally, Orbytel Group worked on a data security model to easily handle the unique firewalls in the biopharma industry while also permitting the secure flow of data between departments compliantly. This created a low-level blueprint for the data structure it wanted to ultimately achieve.
According to Orbytel Group, starting with the data-model and building a platform from scratch was risky but everything fell into place eventually. Once people experienced the product’s benefits and the company’s service, they grew open to the changes and many provided referrals. In fact, in 2017 alone, their user base grew by over 300-fold and is still growing each month. Orbytel’s software is coupled with data and analytical services, training, and professional services - a unique full-service offering that its top-tier clients demand. Orbytel is very proud to have a 100 percent customer retention rate for the past 7 years. They plan on growing their user base with their existing products and expanding their product offerings to additional areas of R&D.
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Company Name
Management
Brief
Catalyst UX catalystux.com
Paul Giurata CEO
Catalyst UX designs and builds User Experiences (UX) for Medical, Pharmaceutical and Life Science Digital Solutions.
Golden Helix, Inc goldenhelix.com
Andreas Scherer President & CEO
Golden Helix provides automation capabilities that are crucial in high-throughput testing environments.
Ideagen Plc ideagen.com
David Hornsby CEO
Ideagen provides quality, safety, audit, performance and risk management software and expertise and has operations in the UK, the European Union, the United States, Middle East and Southeast Asia.
MethodSense methodsense.com
Russ King President
MethodSense guides medical device, biotech and pharmaceutical companies with quality, regulatory and technology solutions. Our regulatory compliance consulting enables clients to operate more effectively during the commercialization process and beyond.
Ocean Data Systems dreamreport.net
Rick Pierro President
Dream Report™ is taming that ocean of data! It’s the first programming free, user-friendly, automated reporting and data analysis software designed specifically for industrial automation applications.
Orbytel Group orbytelgroup.com
Murt Abuwala CEO
Orbytel Group, a data science and decision system company that exclusively serves the biopharmaceutical industry.
OSNEXUS Corporation osnexus.com
Steven Umbehocker Founder & CEO
OSNEXUS’ QuantaStor SDS is a software-defined storage platform that turns servers into multi-protocol (SAN/NAS/Object) scale-out storage appliances.
PENDOPHARM pendopharm.com
Dr. David Goodman CEO
From allergy to gastroenterology to specialty prescription products, PENDOPHARM specialises in several different therapeutic classes.
Sciformix sciformix.com
Manish Vinayak Soman President & CEO
Sciformix Corporation is a leading scientific knowledge-based organization that provides process, technology and consulting services to the life sciences industry.
Simpson Healthcare simpsonhealthcare.com
Kelly Simpson CEO
Simpson Healthcares’ purpose is to support its clients to share the scientific story of the diseases they touch and the therapies they discover all in need.
Catalyst UX: Driven by Software, Empowered with Experience
F
amed Canadian physician William Osler once said, “Medicine is a science of uncertainty, and an art of probability.” Since Osler’s time, the medical and pharmaceutical industries have changed dramatically—but that unpredictability remains. And while many medical and pharmaceutical companies have come and gone—others have managed to make a mark in the long run with a sustainable forward-thinking approach focused on understanding the evolving needs of providers, patients, employees and customers. Enter Catalyst UX—a full service user experience (UX) firm that helps the medical, life sciences, and pharmaceutical industries cater to these shifting demands with adaptive, responsive application and software design that makes life easier and more productive for these users. Backed by more than 25 years of experience spanning 500+ projects, the company blends human behavior research and testing, digital strategy, UX design, and UI development to help its clients deliver thoughtful, consistent experiences across platforms and devices.
services, ensure the proper use of medical instruments and seamlessly extend their user experience to almost any mobile device. This proven approach means the team can offer unrivaled speed to market—delivering complete design and coded UI in less than 100 days. The Internet of Things (IoT) and other emerging technologies have brought rapid change to the world of medical devices. To that end, Catalyst UX has put a strong focus on developing software that incorporates and connects with a broad array of hardware and instruments. Cloud technologies have also opened a world of new opportunities in the medical industry. The company combines big data analytics, privacy-by-design practices, collaboration and a strong knowledge of regulatory requirements to help any organization with this transition.
Astuteness of CEO, Aiding to Thrive The visionary behind Catalyst UX and its sustainable developments is CEO Paul Giurata. The Colorado native earned a BA in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado, Boulder, before going on to complete an Impeccable End-to-End UX Design and UI Catalyst has deep experience with complex solutions across MBA at Santa Clara University. Before founding Development the medical, pmarmaceutical and Life Science fields Catalyst UX, he made his Catalyst UX takes a name at Apple, where he transformed numerous comprehensive approach to UX design—providing each education-focused research projects into commercial of its clients with a two- to six-person team of UX solutions. Later, he moved on to Hewlett Packard architects, UX designers, UI developers and social Medical Products (Agilent), where he played a key role scientists. Those teams are singularly committed to in the sale and installation of patient monitoring, creating elegant and simple software designs that help cardiology, neonatal and diagnostic imaging products in employees, providers and patients access data and
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We are a team of passionate UX Designers, UI Developers and Social Scientists committed to creating innovative user experiences that grow companies, create new markets and improve lives.
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Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, China, and Australia. Mr. Giurata is one of the world’s most experienced solution architects and has led the company with his proven knack for defining successful products and delivering simple but elegantly designed solutions. Delivering Consistency in an Unpredictable World Paul asserts, “We guide our efforts with meaningful
Paul Giurata CEO
observation of users, patients, scientists and caregivers to inspire solutions” The company has faced its share of challenges over the years, but by using proven methodologies, committing to collaboration and building teams that are truly passionate about the work they are doing, he’s turned these setbacks into opportunities. Today, the company delivers the latest technologies and optimized user experiences to promising industry upand-comers, and further aims to build on such collaborations. Catalyst UX helps pharmaceutical and medical companies improve patient outcomes, accelerate discoveries and make a meaningful impact on mankind. Going forward, Giurata’s goal is to collaborate with global leaders—as well as emerging innovators—to deliver empowering medical, life science pharmaceutical solutions.
Paul Giurata working with his Team
January 2018
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Golden Helix: Helping Researchers and Clinicians Understand the Role of CNVs in Human Health and Disease
F
ounded in 1998, Golden Helix is a global bioinformatics firm. Since foundation, the organization has accumulated a significant customer base and is currently working with more than 350 organizations—with thousands of users leveraging the organizations’ various analytics products. From its early days till the present-day, GlaxoSmithKline has been the largest outside investor of Golden Helix. Till date the organizations’ software has been referenced in more than 1000 publications. The customers of Golden Helix fall into five primary categories: testing labs, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, major research organizations and government organizations. A Well-known Leader Back in 2013 with the objective of leading the business into genetic testing market, Andreas Scherer joined Golden Helix as the President and CEO. While working for organizations like Netscape and AOL as a Global Vice President, Andreas gained much needed valuable insights in running world-wide businesses which require functional know-how in sales, marketing, product development, services and operations. His educational background is centered around Computer Science in which he holds a PhD from the University of Hagen, Germany. Andreas has so far published more than twenty peer reviewed articles, authored books on Neural Networks, Intranets and Project Management. His latest book, “Be Fast Or Be Gone” was a prizewinner in 2012 Eric Hoffer Awards competition. In his private time, Andreas enjoys weightlifting throughout the year. In the winters, he likes to spend time skiing the mountains of Montana and in the summer, you can find him on the golf course.
producing software which gives the power of analysis to researchers, supporting them through their analysis, and by providing them with genomic services when the need arises. Golden Helix takes pride in itself for creating software tools that are integrated and robust, but more importantly userfriendly and intuitive. The tools are specifically created in order to empower biologists, clinicians and other researchers to easily perform complex analyses and visualizations, eliminating the need to rely exclusively on bioinformatic experts or cobble together difficult to use, incompatible freeware. This way researchers can completely focus on their research instead of learning to be a programmer or waiting in line for bioinformaticians. The organizations’ support team is motivated by one mission—to make sure that the customers have a great experience with their software tools. From helping to import data, bug detection, and finding technical resources, Golden Helix is fully committed to providing its customers with the resources they need in order to complete their analysis in a world-class manner at a lightning fast pace. The organization doesn’t just stop at support, it also offers comprehensive and personalized training sessions to help researchers jumpstart their research. Golden Helix’s Field Application Scientists and Engineers help researchers by taking them through workflows that are relevant to their specific research. Ground Breaking Products Golden Helix has developed a powerful technology stack that supports a number of products in the genomics space, including the following: VarSeq: VarSeq is an intuitive, integrated software solution for tertiary analysis. With VarSeq you can automate your workflows and analyze variants for gene panels, exomes and whole genomes. Ÿ VS-CNV: Directly calls CNVs in target regions and Ÿ
Empowering End Users to Perform High-End Analytics Work Golden Helix’s main goal is to empower their end users to perform high end analytics work. This is achieved by
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We provide a complete end-to-end solution for clinical labs and hospitals to analyze Next-Generation Sequencing data
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Andreas Scherer President & CEO
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avoids the cost and turn-around time of additional CMA or MLPA testing. VSPipeline: Repeatable clinical workflows essential for CLIA and CAP certified analysis, creation of high throughput pipelines and access to curated annotation sources that are updated regularly. VSReports: With VSReports, you can easily convert the output of your tertiary analysis into a customized clinical report. After you’ve filtered down your imported variants, simply select variants to include in the report. VSWarehouse: A scalable, multi-project warehouse for NGS variant call sets, clinical reports and catalogs of variant assessments. SNP & Variation Suite (SVS): SNP & Variation Suite is a powerful analytic tool created specifically to empower biologists and other researchers to easily perform complex analyses and visualizations on genomic and phenotypic data. GenomeBrowse: A powerful tool that delivers stunning visualizations of your genomic data that gives you the power to see what is occurring at each base pair in your samples.
A Different Organization When it comes to client handling and providing support, Golden Helix is a completely different organization from its competitors mainly due to: Ÿ
Pervasiveness: The company has a strong competence building on-premises solutions for the life science space. To date, many labs, hospitals and government organizations prefer to control the IT environment over cloud solutions. However, as the clinical testing space goes mainstream, cloud deployment models are
January 2018
Ÿ
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attractive for certain market segments. Golden Helix’s future development plans include a strategy to deploy the Golden Helix stack in a way that customers can pick and choose their preferred deployment model: On Premises: Currently, the main deployment mode for Golden Helix. This continues to be a highly desirable approach as hospitals and testing labs are concerned about hosting patient data outside their premises. Cloud: Certain segments of the market have accepted cloud solutions as viable. The company is extending out technology stack in this direction. Mix Deployment: For certain deployment scenarios, a mixed approach is preferable. For example, in certain scenarios it could make sense to run the analysis and clinical reports pipeline on premises and store all the resulting data in a cloud hosted data warehouse. Internationalization: The US has been a strong market for clinical testing and research analytics products and services. However, selected markets in Europe, Asia and Latin America, as well as Australia and the Middle East are increasingly important. Golden Helix’s mid-term strategy is to increase its local presence in these markets either through partners or directly. Preservation: Golden Helix has a strong customer base with a high renewal rate. Its high rate of customer satisfaction and the stickiness of its solution is one of the reasons why Golden Helix has been highly capital efficient. The organization continues to focus on a highquality customer experience to encourage future renewals.
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Tech-N-Trends
Trends To Be Followed In
Electronic Health Record System M
edical Science is something which is growing at a very fast pace. For noting down the diagnosis, the doctor no more requires a pen and paper. Even the words “Electronic Health Records” are not new to the today’s world, but the upcoming trends of Electronic Health Records (EHR) or Electronic Medical Records (EMR) are interesting. Even the medical trends like gamification, wearable, telemedicine, mobile medicine and 3D printing are now old concepts, but their modifications are some of the amazing thing to witness. Science will never reach its peak as the sky's the limit and nothing can stop it. 3D printing has changed the medical technology to an extreme level by creating custom prosthetic, surgical implants and bioprinted tissue. Experts say that the world is soon going to see 3D printed drugs too. While one discusses about the most emerging trends in EMR-EHR, the person cannot miss talking about the following:
Everything is in the cloud With the cloud technology, keeping medical records are much cheaper and easier to access. As per technologists, nothing is more portable than cloud as it only requires a computer or a smartphone with internet connection in it. Research has informed that the on-premise EHR can cost about $40,000 to set up, but the cloud-based EHR infrastructure and maintenance costs include its monthly charges just missing the high startup costs, are still lesser than the in-house EHR. The common benefits of cloud-based EHR include the security factors, privacy, cost effectiveness, accessibility,
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reduced It requirements, better continuity of care, easier updates and improvements to software and the most amazing plus point is that it is customizable according to choices. Providing patient portals Another most growing trend is the patient portals. It is something which helps the medical practitioners in increasing the quality of the patient care and in reducing medical errors. While a group of people was educating the patients about the procedure of using the portal, they informed that the people are interested in using a medical portal to engage themselves directly to the physicians. This helps them to track their medical history, receive education materials, medical advices and patient support. The portals provide some interesting features such as prayers for patients, direct access to their medical records, personalized health reminders and total health programs such as personalized diet charts, exercise lists, and medicinal guidance. Telemedicine is the new medical tool The dictionary defines telemedicine as the remote diagnosis and treatment of patients by using telecommunications technology. Experts clearly mentioned the benefits of this new medical tool like that with this the medical practitioners can easily give care to remote and homebound patients in a much-reduced cost of care while eliminating the risk factors of picking up new illnesses in a clinical care setting and providing more flexibility to providers. Reports suggested that the newly medicinal tool is currently helping recovering stroke patients in many rural areas of the United States of America. The adoption of wearable is
January 2018
helping doctors to provide better patients care through telemedicine. And Transparency Market Research has estimated that the valuation of global video telemedicine market would rise to $1,624.4 million by the end of 2020. Building trust on the influx of data is the most important factor There is nothing more important in optimizing in operation through EHR than building the trust on the data that is being captured as there is always a major connection between trust, data, and value-based healthcare. Experts suggest that nothing can be an ideal opportunity than building a bridge between the healthcare providers and technology companies. The most important part is filling the gap with trust between the insurance partners as without that the stakeholders would not be willing to make data accessible for one's practice that will ultimately lead to various issues. Security remains the main concern The world is developing at a rapid speed, and so is the medical technology. With technological advancements, EHR is improving itself, but the security concerns are
January 2018
increasing too. As per some old reports, a data breach costs an organization of an average total of $3.8 billion. It was reported that the 49 percent breaches in the U.S are the result of criminal attack rather than human error or a system glitch. Experts commented that cyber-attacks might come from outside an organization, but the executives of the hospital itself are concerned about the security vulnerabilities created by the employees. As reported by Fierce Healthcare, “Nearly 60 percent of breaches in the month of February were the result of insider threats. According to the most recent Protenus Breach Barometer Report, 44 percent of incidents in March were triggered by insiders.” EHR is no more unknown to the people, but the modifications within that are. It’s improving living conditions and better healthcare facilities. Investors might find it interesting that this sector is a growing sector and new changes are always accepted. By the same time, it is also important to note that though all these trends are growing, it still requires too much attention and massive developmental investments.
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Ideagen: The Undisputed Leader in the Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) Marketplace
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aunched in 1993, Ideagen is a UK based public company that provides quality, safety, audit, performance and risk management software and expertise. Having operations in the UK, the European Union, the United States, Middle East and Southeast Asia, the company also boasts a global network of partners servicing Asia Pacific, Europe and South America.
Ideagen has a customer base of more than 3,000 organizations using its suite of products, including many blue-chip names such as BAE Systems, Ryanair, Heineken and the European Central Bank. Ideagen also counts over 150 hospitals in the UK, US and beyond as part of its client base. Ideagen has grown both organically and through a number of strategic acquisitions, and this year recorded its th 8 consecutive year of growth in revenue, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted earnings per share. A Dedicated and Ambitious Leader Ideagen CEO, David Hornsby, is a Scottish-born, Yorkshire-raised businessman. He attended Leeds Grammar School and then Sedbergh Boarding School in Cumbria before attending university. He started his professional career as a Salesman, before forging a path through the sales ranks of several computer software companies. In 2009 he was introduced by his broker, FinnCap, to software firm Datum International, a precursor of the current Ideagen. Having invested £250,000 into Datum, there followed several acquisitions and the modern-day Ideagen was born. The Undisputed Leader of the Industry Ideagen’s software, particularly its cloud based product Coruson, is leading the industry in terms of modern GRC systems. It is an enterprise cloud software that provides complete control, visibility, and real-time reporting of
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every detail and aspect of safety and operational risk in an organization. The product is a favorite amongst clients as it is scalable, extremely user-friendly and functionally rich. Indeed, it was Coruson’s user friendliness that was a major factor in the product being chosen by the International Airlines Group (IAG) – owners of British Airways, Iberia, Vueling and Aer Lingus – Ryanair and Jaguar Land Rover to name a few. The product also received the GRC 20/20’s Environmental Health & Safety Technical Innovation award for its user experience, analytics and mobile capability. Another unique area of Ideagen is the level of expertise within the firm’s 400-strong workforce. This is a huge selling point for organizations looking to do business with Ideagen. Looking at quality, safety, audit and risk management, Ideagen has industry experts with decades of experience in each of these areas. Indeed, some of Ideagen’s staff involved in the internal, operational and financial audit areas have been praised by clients during the procurement stage as being some of the most knowledgeable experts they have worked with. Equipping Clients with World Class Tools, Services, and Expertise Highly regulated organizations require the tools, services, and expertise that Ideagen provides to help them identify, assess and manage corporate risk while complying with international industry standards. Many of these organizations are only in the early stages of adopting an enterprise-wide approach. Ideagen’s software tools enable organizations to identify, assess and prioritize risk and manage information in line with rigorous regulations. In each of the chosen verticals, Ideagen’s customers are increasingly required to take a holistic view of risk management, internal audit and compliance, with many organizations at the beginning of the adoption phase of high value enterprise-wide solutions. In short, its software
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solutions enable them to comply with regulations that allow them to operate. Ideagen sees its cloud solutions as a particular area of growth which will increase the percentage of total revenues derived from recurring contracts. Why the Pharma and Life Science Vertical was a Natural Move Alignment with highly regulated vertical industries was a natural move for Ideagen. The pharma and life science vertical is still a highly regulated one, and the software, services, and expertise of Ideagen is a natural fit for organizations that operate there. It is a volatile and ever changing regulatory environment, but Ideagen’s products help these organizations demonstrate high levels of quality and compliance with a number of international standards and regulations such as ISO, the FDA (including 21 CFR Part 11), US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and MHRA. More than 200 Life Science organizations worldwide including Reckitt Benckiser, Reading Scientific Services (RSSL) and Roslin Cells, rely on Ideagen to help them improve the management of their compliance processes and information, increase overall business efficiency and maintain data integrity to transform the management of compliance activities from a costly overhead into a business benefit.
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David Hornsby CEO
Future RoadMap In order to drive growth, Ideagen has successfully added new customers to the Group across all of its key GRC verticals, with aviation, life sciences and financial services providing particular notable success in the year. The organization will also continue to maintain a focus on product enhancement and innovation, which has seen acceptance across the user base, resulting in significant revenues from strong retention of recurring contracts and new projects from its extensive customer base. Furthermore, Ideagen remains committed to its ongoing buy and build strategy and would expect to complete further acquisitions in the future assuming targets meet its criteria and represent value for shareholders. To facilitate the growth of recent years, Ideagen will continue to invest in its employees, products and infrastructure. Significant resources will also be invested in benchmarking processes and systems to ensure best practice is standard and that Ideagen remains fit for growth. Ideagen remains committed to the relevant accreditations, and currently holds Microsoft Gold Partner status, ISO 9001, ISO 27001, and ISO 14001.
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Executive Talk
Top 5 Best Practices that De nes a Successful Wellness Program
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ver recent years, more companies are incorporating wellness initiatives into their office environment. It’s mission critical in todays competitive markets, to attracting and retain the best talents. One crucial measurement is the engagement levels of everyone in the entire organisation. Presenteeism is at an all time high. People are not motivated by money alone, and wellness programs are part of the strategy to improve job satisfaction and productivity. However, only a few companies actually have comprehensive programs that produce better health outcomes among employees. As a result, improved engagement and performance at work, naturally follows since employees are healthier and happier. Unfortunately not all health and wellness programs are successful. The first one or two initiatives may gain traction, but two years on, and the participation rates decline. One main problem is that the participants themselves aren’t part of the creation. Their needs and concerns aren’t addressed so there’s less motivation for them to commit. So what do employees want? Here are 5 best practices that help create successful corporate wellbeing programs that gain true engagement. 1. Programs Are Doable, Accessible and Sustainable Imagine a wellness talk or fitness class is
About the Author Dr. Gary Tho is the owner of Chiropractic Works, a Family Sports and Wellness clinic in Orchard Road, Singapore. He specialises in pain relief and preventative care and believes quality life is essential for happiness, success and peak performance. Dr Gary is also the author of The Pain-Free Desk Warrior, Free yourself from aches and pains which is the definitive guide for those stuck at their desk for more than 2 hours a day.
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starting in 15 minutes. Many employees easily dismiss it and think “I’d love to go, but I really need to get this work done.” Do programs run when employees are most busy? Are run after office hours? And if so, will people stay back for it? Is the wellness program a broad-based and holistic approach? Or is it just yoga classes, cooking demonstrations and nothing else? Is it easy for participants to learn? What looks easy when a trained chef prepares a healthy dinner in 20 minutes could take the average person a lot more time, energy and stress. Are steps provided for one to implement the new habit, accomplish their goal and sustain the success? A comprehensive wellness initiative needs to offer a variety of scheduled programs that are broken down into achievable, sustainable habits that create a valuable outcome. Equally important is that employees can choose what they are interested in, and easily fit into their schedule. 2. The Work Environment Is HealthConscious It’s no use having health and wellness programs if the physical and psychosocial environment within the office does’t support to healthy habits. Great office design that support wellbeing has been the trend, since Facebook and Google showed us how to do it. Creating creative spaces for smaller pod meetings, having standing desks and ensuring the cafeteria and vending machines around the office offer healthier food choices that can be easily seen are some of the simple ways to encourage good health. Ensuring regulated noise, inspiring music, good air quality and temperature and adequate lighting are also simple yet impactful features of a great office space.
chat because of its negative perception. However this is absolutely necessary as it create real interaction and real friendships between co-workers that satisfy the basic human need for social connections. People need other people to love, trust and support them, in both business tasks as well as at a personal level. 3. Wellness Is Integrated Into The Company’s Structure Further to point 2 above, choosing a healthier lifestyle and doing well at work shouldn’t feel like a tug-of-war. I’ve heard of companies who pay for gym memberships for their staff, which is great. However, when an employee is working out in the gym, they get a phone call saying they need to get back in the office because of … (some reason). Therefore it’s important that a company establishes wellness programs that are valued and honored in every aspect of the organization. Otherwise, what’s the point? Another example includes the holy grail of “work-life balance”. If your company wants employees to be healthy and have better work-life integration, yet at the same time silently imposes that people must continue working beyond standard office hours, it really does not make any sense. One (partial) solution to this is introducing flexi-hours as well as remote working to allow people to get errands and family engagements done, as well as work from home, or a cafe instead of being physically in the office. It’s a partial solution because giving someone the ability to run errands and come to work later than usual is great, though it does not necessarily promote health, happiness or wellbeing.
4. Wellness Is Linked To Continued Support Programs When a company is genuinely concerned about their employees’ wellbeing, they will naturally ensure that any wellness initiative, game or workshop has some form of continuation. Employee assistance Allowing ‘down’ times, and work programs (EAP) are common for breaks that are encouraged, is essential. mental health concerns, however there Most people don’t take breaks or chit- needs to be other support systems in January 2018
place for other health concerns. In 2014, Apple’s Cupertino, Calif.-based headquarters boasted a medical onestop-shop “wellness center” offering in-house chiropractic care, dieticians and more. Collective Works, Singapore, the largest premium coworking space in Asia, now also houses an in-house chiropractor, specializing in pain relief, peak performance for both individual and corporate health. Gamification of corporate health programs usually run for a certain period of time. Workshops and classes may run for 8 weeks or throughout the entire year. Although participation rates are high initially, continued support programs are what sustains engagement, and creates the change both individuals and the CEO’s want to see. Engagement is what creates long term sustainable results. 5. Broad-based Approach Wellness Programs aren’t all about offering free gym membership or just having smoking cessation programs. Health is health - a complete state of physical, mental, and social wellbeing. Fitness is “the ability to perform work (sports, occupations and daily activities) satisfactorily”. Pilates is a great way to exercise and strengthen the core muscles, however it is not equivalent to health. A lot of people know they should quit smoking but doesn’t because they don’t realize how much damage it can do to their body. They may not have a strategy, nor enough motivation to make those changes. One method of offering voluntary health screenings while giving sound education and simple tasks from a variety of professionals is the key. Helping people realise that the company does care, that their colleagues do care, that they too should care about their own health is of the greatest importance. Digging deep, and creating a safe place to improve their lifestyle choices on multiple levels should be the basis of every corporate wellbeing initiative.
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OSNEXUS: A Leading Hyper-Scale Software Defined Storage Provider for Life Sciences
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he internet has become a massive repository of information, an important advertising medium, and the ideal cloud storage management service for almost every industry. From small startups to multinational companies, organizations are storing massive amounts of enterprise data and information relevant to their operations on websites. They all require an efficient and scalable storage platform to maintain and organize this information. Life Sciences organizations today are struggling to keep up with massive data growth due to advancing technologies, and sectors like Genomics are producing up to 40 exabytes of data per year.
the QuantaStor SDS platform, which enables organizations to grow their storage grid(s) on demand, at the best price, and without the procurement delays and high capital expenditures of traditional proprietary SAN/NAS solutions.
The current market is crowded with storage providers, most of which offer a traditional model known as the ’multitude of silos’ construction. However, organizations find it difficult to organize their data using that traditional model; a unique and adaptable solution is becoming increasingly essential.
Insightful Innovation Steven Umbehocker, Founder and CEO of OSNEXUS brings over twenty years of experience in the enterprise storage software industry to the challenges of hyper-scale storage management. He currently holds over 20 patents in Storage Systems Technology, SDS, and Cloud Computing, and has previously led engineering teams at some of the world’s largest IT companies, including Citrix Systems, Symantec, and Veritas Software.
A new data storage model called Software Defined Storage came into play to solve some of the problems associated with legacy storage systems such as high prices for software and hardware combinations and vendor lock-ins. With Software Defined Storage, companies can buy commodity hardware and install separate software to manage their data; a more economical approach than traditional storage systems. OSNEXUS Corporation (OSNEXUS) stands out as a Software Defined Storage company with its storage grid technology that is built into its QuantaStor SDS platform, which simplifies storage management by allowing all data to be managed from a ’single-pane-of-glass’ web interface which requires no additional software to install; a leap in progress for open storage platforms. QuantaStor SDS enables organizations to use standard server hardware as their storage appliances but OSNEXUS has gone further to provide reference configurations and certifications with every major server manufacturer on the market which provides leverage and choice in hardware purchase decisions for Life Sciences organizations. The use of multiple generations of servers and the use of servers from different manufacturers is fully supported by
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QuantaStor SDS scales to over 60PB per grid which is essential to addressing the data growth and data security challenges surrounding Life Sciences and at an average savings of 50% or more versus traditional solutions, QuantaStor enables organizations to collect more data and retain it longer so that deep analytics can be done in active and future research.
In 2009, Steven was leading the development of new enterprise storage management technologies for XenServer and saw the need for a new kind of storage system that would scale as a grid across sites and datacenters in order to eliminate the complexity and scalability issues inherent to traditional storage systems. The result of that vision was the founding of Open Storage Nexus (OSNEXUS) in 2010 and the creation of QuantaStor SDS with a team of storage veterans from Veritas and Citrix. A Unified Data Store QuantaStor SDS is OSNEXUS’ flagship product and offers file, block, and object storage in a single system. Besides QuantaStor, OSNEXUS provides primary product-specific services, including Virtual Storage Appliances (VSAs) available in the Microsoft Azure cloud. VSAs are virtualized instances of QuantaStor SDS which may be added to storage grids made up of both physical and other virtual appliances. OSNEXUS also offers the QuantaStor SDS Cloud License Service, which gives customers the convenience of selfprovisioning license keys. IT professionals from the Life
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Unify, Simplify, and Automate your data with QuantaStor SDS
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Steven Umbehocker Founder & CEO
Sciences sector find this solution especially useful because it enables their IT organizations to quickly scale, deploy, and redeploy appliances to a multitude of research projects with ease. Distinctive Features QuantaStor SDS is an all-in-one solution that meets the needs of a variety of different industries and use case scenarios including server virtualization, big data, cloud computing, and high-performance applications through scale-out physical and virtual storage appliances. Data is protected using end-to-end encryption, which combines data-at-rest encryption which is AES-NI accelerated combined with protocol-level/on-the-wire encryption with SMB, IPsec, and HTTPS across any storage grid. QuantaStor provides Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences organizations the data transfer speed necessary for accessing, collaborating on, and managing massive amounts of structured and unstructured scientific data, backup and migration strategies, object storage, genome-based file access, encryption, and compliance. OSNEXUS features like hardware and software disk drive encryption with Intel AES-NI technology and advanced user security with role-based access controls are unmatched in the market. QuantaStor SDS is protected against system failure through replication, and incorporates expedited disaster recovery mechanisms like data snapshots. The Future of Storage Many companies use public clouds to store their data, which seem like a low-cost option for data storage. In industries like Life Sciences, however, when petabytes (one million gigabytes) of data are produced, public clouds are
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not economical. As an example, Amazon Web Services charges $0.03/GB per month, which is $0.36/GB per year which equates to $360/TB per year. At the scale of one petabyte that amounts to $360,000/year or $1.8 millon over 5 years. In contrast, a dedicated QuantaStor solution including hardware, software, and cloud-hosting would save as much as 75% or more versus AWS S3 or other cloud object storage services. That’s before transfer costs are factored in, and when one accounts for the need for researchers to run advanced analytics applications against the data - the savings can easily come to over 90% versus AWS. Looking Ahead OSNEXUS has grown organically at a terrific pace since its inception in 2010. In its early days, the company focused on developing its innovative QuantaStor SDS, engineering and creating an unbeatable open storage platform. Today, OSNEXUS continues to expand the capabilities of QuantaStor SDS at an even faster pace with new innovations in security, data replication, and application integration.In the coming years, QuantaStor will also include data integration features into the SDS grid architecture, which will improve users’ decision-making ability by reducing the complexity of information available. QuantaStor SDS users will be able to utilize visual tools like graphs, charts, and dashboards to better understand their storage, and simplify capacity planning accordingly. QuantaStor SDS is available worldwide from a network of partner resellers and distributors and OSNEXUS has been helping industry giants like IBM, Cisco, CenturyLink, Intel, and Microsoft bring SDS innovations to their customers. The company aims to sustain and build upon these strong partnerships to expand their world-class, practical open storage technology.
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Health POV
HOSPITAL LOGISTICS: ACCELERATING THE PATIENT FLOW IN DANISH HOSPITALS
or more than a decade hospital productivity has been a priority in Denmark. A focus on quality and quality improvements has reduced the rate of re-admittance to Danish hospitals and a demand from central authorities on hospitals to increase their productivity by 2% every year, has during recent years resulted in a lot of new initiatives and innovations. With a re-organization of the Danish hospital structure, this has led to a total productivity increase of 30% since 2003.
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For more than a decade, Danish hospitals and companies have worked together on improving logistics in hospitals. The overall aim has been the creation of just-in-time solutions in order to optimize coordination and efficiency and reduce the patients’ length of stay.
The concept of Hospital Logistics and Solutions to improve logistics and create just-in-time scenarios in hospitals is another factor behind the productivity increase which is further explained in this article.
In Denmark, the focus on hospital logistics has played an important role in achieving a 30 pct. increase in hospital productivity since 2003. Optimizing hospital logistics within different areas of hospital services and needs, including supply logistics, clinical logistics, sterile goods and sample logistics can accelerate the patient flow and lead to increasing hospital productivity.
Healthcare systems around the world are challenged by an increased share of elderly citizens and chronically ill patients as well as more expensive forms of treatment. These factors are causing a significant demand pull in terms of treatment needs as well as expectations, which accentuate the need for our healthcare systems to work smarter on all levels. Therefore, hospitals need to consider means to increase efficiency and productivity in order to be able to treat more patients without increasing costs.
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‘Just-in-time’ logistics Innovative hospital logistics solutions are already implemented in Danish hospitals in
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Hans Erik Henriksen Chief Executive Officer
Healthcare Denmark order to reduce delays and waiting in order to speed up the patient flow. At the New Aarhus University Hospital, a fine-meshed IT system will enable real-time localization of people and equipment right down to room level. At Aalborg University Hospital, the introduction of a similar and new solution has resulted in a close to 20 pct. efficiency increase. Danish solutions for just-in-time logistics include systems for locating and tracking staff and equipment, solutions for automating basic and repetitive tasks, as well as solutions for guiding patients around the hospital, all of which help avoid delays and peak times in the hospital process. Sample logistics Accelerating the patient flow is also about reducing the time from taking a lab test and until the result is ready at the point of care.
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At Hospital of Southern Jutland in Aabenraa, the number of patients has increased by 13 pct., but with the new sample logistics solution, the hospital has managed to cope and even reduce the average length of stay. Intelligent solutions for handling samples help hospitals reduce their sample turnaround-time and subsequently speed up patient diagnostics. Fully automated laboratories improve sample flow by handling and sorting all blood samples without any manual handling, thereby minimizing the risk of errors and freeing up time for value-adding tasks such as patient related work. Sterile goods and sample logistics The Capital Region in Denmark will centralize all handling of sterile goods at two departments at Rigs hospitalet and Herlev Hospital. With fully automated handling of sterile equipment, the two centers will improve hygiene and reduce the risk of infections. At the same time the budget
for purchasing and storing sterile equipment will be reduced because of the just-in-time solution. The future Integrated logistics is the next step. Automatic delivery of medicine from the hospital pharmacy directly to the wards and just-in-time housekeeping, based on the hospital discharge system, is already a reality in Danish hospitals. Storage space, which is built directly into the hospital walls, will prioritize short walking distances, large coherent clinical areas and patient related functions. Denmark is in the process of building 16 new highly specialized hospitals that are all constructed as hospitals of the future, taking into account the changing role of hospitals in our future healthcare system. While optimal hospital logistics is important for all existing hospitals, it is vital for the new, large and specialized hospitals.
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Exclusive
Adding Mobility to
HEALTHCARE Via EMR - EHR I
n the quest of reducing the bulk process involved in handling the affairs of patients by the medical practitioners, and to facility the process of getting close to hands the information which may be needed at the time of proper examination of patients, the federal laws governing wings called for the use of EMRs to design new ways to deliver and improve health care. Some experts say the government mandates are needed to facilitate, while others view them as obstacles. When you are to implement a secure and an efficient system to manage medical records and generate invoices at your office. It will pay off better if you consider going paperless when managing electronic medical records to reduce the distance between you and the files you may need at the moment. Going paperless have the very potential of streamlining the numerous internal operations and possibly improve the patient experience. The Benefits of EMR According to the Experts: Improved Safety: The implementation of terms in EMRs has the potentiality of reducing medical errors caused by outright handwriting. Assuming a patient was given a prescription by the doctor and the patient is found to be allergic to Medication, through EMR systems, the health firm and patient can get an alert or medication may harmfully interfere with another drug the patient is already taking. Affordable Health Care: With the possible implementation Health Information Technology terms, the costs of health can be reduced by preventing the duplication of expensive medical tests. The health care team can easily gain access to a patient’s medical record in real time to
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determine if costly procedures like magnetic resonance imaging or computed tomography scans have already been done. Advanced Communication: Medical records that can be accessed by smartphones, tablets, and computers makes it easy for patients and health care providers to filter medical histories, email questions, look up laboratory results, and schedule office visits in terms of preventive and follow-up care. “Electronic health record helps to increase the speed and reliability in the communication and dialogue between the health care team, family members, and patients. For instance, some children who live thousands of miles away who can benefit from the care of their folks using electronic health records,” says Salvatore Volpe, a primary care physician in Staten Island, New York. Salvatore Volpe the chairman of the health information technology committee at the Medical Society of New York. Participative Patients: According to the National Partnership survey it was recorded that patients who take more time accessing their health information online were more motivated to act towards improving their health (About 71 percent of frequent users, compared with 39 percent of the infrequent users). At Volpe’s practice, you will find iPads which are used by the patients to access the internet for their medical records and visit websites to learn more about their medical conditions. Improved community health: Health information technology has been proved to improve the possibilities of aiding overall health of more than one person but also, a
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whole community by identifying health disparities, tracking trends, monitoring the use of preventive care and helping patients to manage issues that tend to be chronic. For example, EMRs providers can use these systems to identify and notify patients who are due to take actions towards preventive solutions, including colonoscopies, mammograms, prostate cancer screenings or diabetic foot exams. The Critical Concern in EMR It's tough to imagine an industry of new generation that doesn't rely on computers and customized software to keep an eye on employees and thereby ensure that employees can work more productively and effectively. Computerization is very much required in the ďŹ eld of medicine as this will help to manage the enormous volume of data that medical practitioners, hospitals, and clinics create and store for individual patients. EHR software saves time and money, and helps in instant communication with hospitals, insurers, and referring physicians. It is very relevant that a medical practice manager or owner of any such establishment to desire the involvement in the procedure of evaluating the possible beneďŹ ts and also the drawbacks of implementing the concept of EHR solutions before total commitment and possibly installing the system in his / her premises.
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Insight into The Future of EMR There is rapid change which is taking place in the health information technology industry, as cited by Dr. Glenn Tucker, a prominent internist with Attleboro Medical Associates situated in Attleboro, Massachusetts, and the chairman of the information technology committee at the Massachusetts Medical Society, in his opinion said that some mandates have “stifled innovation.” “It will please me to see more [vendor] innovation in the area of usability, and this means how easy it will be for a physician to use the EMR or EHR system to provide better, safer care that will be more efficient,” he said. “Interoperability tends to be another concern. The ability to send information, easily across the street to someone who is using a different electronic system is next to impossible.” Despite the challenges which the growth of EMR systems, terms and procedures is facing, there is also a good number of physicians through their resistance is indirectly giving importance to the use of these systems and this will possibly take over the comfort mind of the new generation of medical professionals. “Change in this field is inevitable as we graduate to more of the Xbox-Play Station, Smartphone and tablet generation.” Nothing that electronic medical record is a digital version of the formal method of medical documentation which is “Paper Based” and everybody is becoming so interested in reducing the amount of paper that will be involved in their work, it’s obvious that a good number of the health Industries will be taking part in the implementation of EMR and EHR solutions.
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Industry Insight
CONTEMPORARY PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS IN HEALTHCARE
Jonathan M. Prince CEO DataSmart Solu ons
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echnology in healthcare has never been more important than is today, and its role is growing by the hour. The industry has moved from lab screen analysis, record keeping, and claims processing into the realm of ‘Big Data’, machine learning, predictive analytics, and far beyond. Rapidly-evolving technology is contributing in significant ways to measure and reduce healthcare costs and improve care quality. Let me illustrate with an example from one company, DataSmart Solutions. DataSmart aggregates and analyzes medical and pharmacy claims data (and other important supplemental types of data outlined below) to create a statistically-reliable risk score for individuals that belong to employer health plans. These risk scores, produced in conjunction with the Johns Hopkins University ACG® system, are forward-looking, or predictive, in nature. The goal of the analysis is to spot emerging high-cost claimants well before their condition deteriorates and becomes advanced or life-threatening. Once risk scores are assigned to each plan participants, nurse clinicians and population risk managers prioritize the participants and deploy intervention resources in descending order, addressing the highest risk plan participants. In this manner, health care professionals prevent higher risk cases from escalating into major crises and higher expenses for the plan. Lastly, a careful study of the data enables important refinements to be made to benefit plans to encourage higher utilization of the highest-value medications, the best facilities, and the best providers. Interestingly, Pareto’s Law (also known as the ‘80/20 Rule’) appears in dramatic fashion in population risk management and healthcare. In short, a small percentage of the covered lives accounts for a disproportionate share of plan expenses. Most wellness programs focus efforts upon the masses (i.e. the 80%). However, in actuality, most of a plan’s expenses originate with a small number of plan participants (i.e. the 20%). In fact, as few as 3-5% of plan participants routinely account for one-half of a health plan’s expenses, somewhat regardless of the plan, the geography, or the demographics of the population. Imagine the impact on health that could be realized if the 3-5% could prevent their condition from deteriorating. Early detection of this small percentage also presents a great opportunity to lower the overall cost of care. Diabetes, cardiac conditions, and even some cancers can be readily identified in early states by the pro-active use of predictive analytics. A similar statistic of similar importance relates to the non-repetitive nature of high cost claimants. Approximately 60% of those appearing on list of highest-cost claimants in a given plan year appear on this list for the first time. In short, the majority of the highest-cost claimants from year-to-year are new to the list. This creates a challenge, because medical and pharmacy claims data does not exist for many lives on the plan, and even if it did, it would not provide sufficient data to predict future risk. Further, approximately 20% of plan participants will not enter the medical system in any given year, and within that group, there are many ticking time bombs. To address this problem, plan managers often include financial incentives to participants to encourage them to engage in activities that generate usable, statistically-significant data. Valuable sources of data include blood screens, biometric information, vision tests and special health risk questionnaires. As this data is collected and analyzed, it can serve as a surrogate for medical claims. Today, leading edge analytics companies have found that many non-claims elements are less-expensive, more accessible, and more statistically-valuable than claims records. In short, the more relevant data available, the better. As a final thought, the actions taken [upon analytically-derived findings] are at least as important as the findings themselves. Those who lay these risk markers aside are no better off than a person who fails to follow his own advice. The scientist James E. Talmage once told an unconfirmed, but illustrative, story involving “…an epidemic of cholera in a great city in which a scientific man proved to his own satisfaction, by chemical and microscopic tests, that the water supply was infected, and that through it contagion was being spread. He proclaimed the fact throughout the city, and warned all against the use of un-boiled water. Many of the people, although incapable of comprehending his methods of investigation, far less of repeating such for themselves, had faith in his warning words, followed his instructions, and escaped the death to which their careless and unbelieving fellows succumbed. Nevertheless, in a moment of forgetfulness he drank of the unsterilized water, and soon thereafter died, a victim to the plague.” The moral to the story is that information is only as valuable as the measures taken to act upon it. Nowhere is this more true and applicable than in healthcare.
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Care & Cure
The Next Frontier of
INNOVATION in the
Pharmaceutical Industry
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he pharmaceutical industry is passing through hopeful and turbulent times at the same time today. On one hand, the industry is facing rising opposition from customers who wish to pay as a single payer. On the other hand, great innovations are helping pharmaceutical industry meet new customers to grow revenues. An example of the later development is the digital mobile technology which helps the industry collect large amount of data to form an unparalleled understanding of healthcare. Additionally, today the pharmaceutical industry is in a position to make a statement to the larger public to seal its place as the ideal provider of healthcare in the long run. The Pharmaceutical industry can ďŹ nd a harmonious balance between the turbulence and opportunities to claim the throne of a great healthcare provider with real innovation today. Currently, the healthcare industry focuses on R&D which can immediately be turned into products to earn revenues. An example of this economic development is the large number of medical solutions available which treat common illnesses such as cold, fever, headache, etc. and are usually available as over the counter medicine for patients. This economic activity is governed by patients who pay as individuals. This economic model is in line with natural principles that advocate that selfinterest is the motivator of economic activity and competition is the regulator. However, there is a new economic expectation of patients which could better shape the future. If patients paid as a single payer, the government could invest in more R&D tax dollars into the future in the form of grants or subsidies. Without the infusion of such investments, real innovation would be difďŹ cult as real innovation requires companies to operate in the area of absolute uncertainty, which can be a nightmare from the point of view of shareholders. Untapped Innovative Opportunities In the pharmaceutical sector, the natural economic forces have not yet found solution to deadly diseases like HIV, multiple forms of cancers, and several others. The primary reason for true lifesaving innovation being expensive is that true innovation operates in the territory of absolute uncertainty and hence one cannot set a timeline in principle in order to achieve desired results. Furthermore, this is also the primary reason why deadly diseases which promise lucrative revenues may never see real investment by individuals who are governed by self-interest. Individual self-interest leaves breathing space for Individual desire for happiness and is likely to be susceptible to individual weaknesses. On the other hand, if companies received funding for innovation through a legitimate public entity like the government, it could invest in innovation for the long term
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growth of a society. Such collaboration would help the pharmaceutical industry to find solutions that separate life and death in a meaningful manner in the society. On the other hand, the individual companies which find a solution to grave illnesses can also monetize these innovations. Some such trending innovations are mentioned below. Precise Medicine Today the Pharmaceutical industry faces stiff legal penalties for overdosing a patient with a particular medicine. The good news is soon doctors would gain access to genomes which helps map out the individual medical history. This makes it possible to deliver a perfect and precise dose of medicine to a patient. Genome projects are gathering momentum, largely due to an initiative of the Obama administration, which gave the grant of $215 million to Precision Medicine Initiative. Grants like these and
Precise Medicine projects like these would make it possible to develop personalized medical solutions which are near perfect for all patients. Data Gathering It is important for doctors and medical researchers to have access to real intelligent data in order to make objective observations and produce insightful innovation. Such data gathering and generation has become much easier thanks to mobile apps. Today, several mobile phones include technologies that can track movement, sense various health indicators and measure the health of patients and provide the data to doctors and researchers to better understand their patients. Such data apps are making it possible to create gene sequencing and live health monitoring, which could have only been dreamt about in the past.
January 2018
Articial Intelligence Artificial Intelligence (AI) AI has become the guiding light for many industries. The Pharmaceutical industry is not an exception to this rule. Supercomputers and machine learning are making it possible for researchers to detect patterns in genes, diseases and respond to them with appropriate solutions at a blazing quick speed. Many such AI projects are currently helping the Pharmaceutical industry on the path of innovation. One prime example of this technology in action is the IBM Watson which has demonstrated learning capabilities and absorbs millions of pages of medical literature to make the industry reach the pinnacle of competitive success. There are many more innovations which are reshaping the future of the Pharmaceutical industry. Some of these include 3D Printing, Nanotechnology, Virtual meetings between doctors and patients, etc. Innovation is opening up new doors of opportunities for every industry and companies which follow the path of innovation will find a golden arch to build a great future for them. However, it is important for the industry to secure its long term interest by positioning itself as the ideal provider of healthcare services in the short run.
Data Gathering
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Sciformix: Driving Innovation Through Deep Scientific Knowledge and Technology Expertise
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ife science organizations are confronting a heap of pressure from investors, stakeholders, regulatory experts, patients, and the healthcare industry as they are expected to produce high-quality medical products around the globe. As a result, organizations turn to outsourcing vendors to help them address these constraints. However, their requirements have grown significantly in the last decade as they seek greater scientific knowledge and innovation capabilities than what customary Business Process Organizations (BPOs) or Contract Research Organizations (CROs) are able to offer. Sciformix, a leading scientific knowledge-based organization, is filling the gaps left by these providers to provide a higher level of engagement, quality and value due to its thought leadership, deep domain knowledge, and technology innovation. Founded over a decade ago, Sciformix has been able to successfully provide process, technology, and consulting services to biopharmaceutical, generic pharmaceutical, consumer products, medical devices, and other healthcare companies. Today, Sciformix’s ability to integrate scientific and technology expertise with quality driven processes provides value to its clients throughout the entire drug development cycle. Their clients are gaining an upper hand and are poised to witness greater success and business focus by proactively managing their products with state-of-the-art technology and best-inclass services. Amid its varied range of specialized services, some areas that distinguish Sciformix are Safety & Risk Management, Clinical Development, Regulatory Affairs & Regulatory Operations, Real World Evidence & Market Access, and Technology Services. The company helps clients accelerate their business, drive higher levels
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of performance and facilitate innovation by employing best-in-class strategies, technologies and expertise. A Vision that Paved the Way for Growth The founders of the company—Ajit Nagral, Founder & Chairman, and Chitra Lele, Co-founder & Chief Scientific Officer—had the vision of establishing a company that would provide specialized science-based services to pharmaceutical organizations. Although, the founders initially focused on offerings in Safety & Risk Management and Biometrics, they gradually expanded to include Medical Writing and Regulatory Affairs to support their clients’ growing needs. Soon enough, they introduced Clinical Development, Real World Evidence & Market Access and Technology Services, greatly expanding their offerings and expertise. Headquartered in the US, Sciformix has operations in Europe, India and the Philippines. By employing over 1,000 experts around the world with diverse skill-sets, Sciformix is able to offers its clients flexible and costeffective deployment models (on-shore, off-shore and hybrid) to meet their unique needs. Sciformix is recognized by the industry for its depth of scientific expertise. Singularly Dedicated to the Life Science Industry Through all these years, though, the mission of the Company—to partner with life science companies to provide high quality scientific expertise that delivers better quality outcomes and improved efficiencies across the entire product lifecycle with the ultimate objective of improving quality of healthcare for patients worldwide—hasn’t changed a bit. Since its foundation Sciformix has been singularly dedicated to the life science industry. Therefore, its
January 2018
M O S T I N N O VAT I V E
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The
H RM & L FE SC ENCES
SOLUTION PROVIDERS 2018
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Our experts, physicians, scientists, and statisticians dive deep into data to provide thorough analysis and insight to help clients make faster and more informed decisions so that they can deliver safer and more effective medical products around the world.
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people, processes, and technologies have been tailored and optimized to meet the industry’s unique needs. Quality, compliance, and scientific excellence are the company’s cornerstones and its experienced subject matter experts (SMEs) and thought leaders are a clear differentiator, enabling Sciformix to provide unique insight and value to its clients. The company delivers consistent quality and compliance across its services by employing scientific rigor in combination with streamlined processes, optimal technology, and efficient people practices. One of the major challenges organizations face today is how to effectively integrate the complexities of two seemingly disparate functions - technology and science across all phases of the product development life cycle. Typically, outsourcing organizations excel in one or the other, but not both. Sciformix has recognized the synergies of an integrated strategy and unified communication process to help its clients deploy technology for better insight, analytics, and compliance. Diversification, Growth and Global Reach Sciformix’s long-term strategy focuses on evolving and enhancing its service and technology offerings, broadening its global reach and growing and diversifying its client and revenue base. This can be seen in the recent launch of several cloud based safety technology service offerings and expansion of its presence in Europe with a new call center operation in Romania. Sciformix is also
January 2018
Manish Soman President & CEO
looking to penetrate underserved markets in Asia Pacific such as South Korea and Taiwan. In addition, the biosimilars market is expected to grow to $20B by 2020 and companies will need Sciformix’s support to enter both established and emerging markets. Sciformix is looking at this market astutely as an area of growth and further expansion. Meet the CEO Manish Vinayak Soman, President and CEO of Sciformix has over 26 years of proven experience in overseeing IT operations that encompass program/project management, consulting services, systems development & implementation and business operations; and has managed P&L’s and Balance Sheets for over 15 years. He has held leadership positions across multiple geographies. His past experience includes tenures as CEO & Managing Director of Deloitte India, Global Business Leader for IT at Genpact (formerly a GE company), COO for Patni Computers and Director for BestShore Operations in EMEA for HP Enterprise Services. www.sciformix.com
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