SUPPLY CHAIN
After losing ground in the smartphone race , Canadian phone maker Blackberry Limited has decided to venture into a new field by launching a healthcare service platform that will integrate thousands of medical devices to enable early detection of illnesses in India .
A report by the Economic Times declared that the Waterloo , Ontariobased company will be launching services with NantHealth – a company whose current platform is installed in more than 250 hospitals worldwide . NantHealth connects more than 16,000 medical devices and collects vital information for over 3 billion patients annually .
“ Work has started on it but we haven ’ t finalized an official launch date ,” Sunil Lalvani , managing director of BlackBerry India , told the Economic Times . “ We are running trials with multiple hospitals in India . It includes integration with different hospital information systems as well as various medical equipment .”
With Blackerry ’ s QNX embedded technology and NantHealth ’ s Clinical Operating System ( cOS ), the new platform will combine secure cloudbased services to provide data integration , decision support and analytics . Medical equipment such as scanners , dopplers , and ECG machines are among thousands of medical devices that can be integrated using cOS and QNX .
Healthcare providers in India are expected to spend $ 1.08 billion on technology products and services this year , a four percent increase from last year , according to Equentis Capital .
The two companies are working to manufacture a smartphone that caters to the needs of the healthcare sector . The smartphone is expected to be launched by the end of this year or early 2015 . The device will help doctors access immediate information regarding patients ’ health while having the option to share such information with other medical professionals and
26 August 2014