Ramblings: SingLive 2009 – Day One

Phew, what a long day! I woke up at 6am just to beat the traffic jam (even though I am not driving today) to the exhibition centre – Suntec City Convention Hall for SingLive 2009.

The day got an exciting start (although I will not comment too much on it) and remained extremely busy throughout with not only queries from delegates who are interested in cardiology informatics (scheduling, cardiovascular information system and cardiology PACS) and product demonstration (I think I did 7 demos while my clinical analyst did even more. I got the thumbs up from her on my ‘demo skills’ though, the feeling was extremely rewarding as I am a technical marketing product manager, not clinical   I guess the late nights fiddling with an end-user manual in front of a demo workstation paid off)

In addition, I had several colleagues who flew in from China for this event (yup, that’s how famous SingLive is) to support us as there are numerous delegates from China (amidst several  countries).

Of course, the best part is still the networking. Catching up with old friends who move on to different companies while making new ones sparked off several collaboration potentials as well as marketing opportunities – I’m a firm believer of creating a win-win situation. I reckon if you help enough people, they will return the favor when you really need it. Worked extremely well for me so far

So in all it was a long and tiring day but the good news is that while other big modality vendors are not exhibiting this year due to budget issue, my company (well, the one I work for) remained not only robust but drew in more interest than ever! Feels good to be (an important) part of the winning team

Interestingly, a conversation with a friend working in a large famous medical grade provider (starts with a B, no prizes for guessing the correct answer though) commented on the large market potential of a side ‘business’ that I have been trying to get a partner with.

It ached alittle as I see numerous commercial opportunities on this aspect every other day but keep having to turn it away as the partner I’ve identified wanted to hold on the discussion till April. (But I guess they have their rights). The good news I have on this? Well I am now thinking of Plan B to capture these opportunities

Still tune for more on Singlive 2009 – Day Two and this side ‘business’ idea of mine

Dell, Intel, Motion Computing join for healthcare IT app

This is good news, in fact, I’m rather excited about it.

Dell, Intel and Motion Computing (which is Intel) have jointly launched a new service to assess, design and validate the quality and coverage of wireless networks for healthcare information workflow.

As rambled before, this is what you get when you have the IT giants entering the healthcare informatics arena – accelerating the proper utilisation of effective computing and cutting edge technology

“The new Mobile Point of Care (MPOC) Wireless Assessment service enables healthcare customers to assess whether their wireless network is reliable and can provide 100 percent coverage and 24/7 access to patient information. The service provides wired and wireless network analysis, design and validation”

Chuck Thacker – The man who inspired a generation

“Chuck Thacker is something of a hero in the world of technology yet outside of it, he remains a virtual unknown”

Well said.

Personally, I’ve never heard of Chuck Thacker until I read this article (I personally recommend all Information Technologist to take some time off and enjoy the article).

For those who wants a short preview of it, all I can say is that this gentlemen is essentially the man who gave us the personal computer, helped pioneer the Ethernet LAN, involved in a host of computer architecture advancements, the tablet PC and even did work on the X box.

Cisco, IBM, Intel, Juniper and Microsoft fight cyber terror together

Good news mates, Five major network hardware, software and services vendors – Cisco, IBM, Intel, Juniper and Microsoft have created a nonprofit organization – Industry Consortium for Advancement of Security on the Internet (ICASI) to improve IT security by promoting faster responses to threats.

The companies say ICASI will let vendors and customers work together on global IT security threats and resolve them in a government-neutral way. Last month, a group of countries banded together to create the International Multilateral Partnership Against Cyber Terrorism (IMPACT), funded by private businesses as well as governments and based in Malaysia. The center is to offer emergency response, training and other resources.

Bill Gates to sign off at Microsoft

That’s right, Bill Gates is retiring from Microsoft and spend his time guiding the world’s richest philanthropy – the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

While Bill will still be Microsoft’s chairman and largest shareholder, Friday was his last day as a full-time worker at Microsoft, marking the unofficial end of his career, running the world’s largest software company.

Ramblings: Visit to Hitachi Data Systems

In most implementation of PACS (be it Radiology, Cardiology or any other variant), the inclusion of storage subsystems is only necessary, afterall, archiving is one of the main motivation for implmenting a PACS.

Part of my job includes solution design for potential adopters of my product (cardiology informatics), this includes workflow and operational analysis, system integration etc etc and storage is a huge component.

Storage comes in many forms, NAS, SAN, CAS, Tape and how they are implemented (IP or Fibre, Virtusalisation, how they replicate) can be extremely interesting and confusing as no one specific product suits all users (thats why we need solutions architects )

Wi-Fi Lies

I chanced upon this great article at Enterprise Imaging by Jim McCarthy on the “top 10 myths on Wi-Fi deployment in a healthcare setting”. I always wanted to write an article on Wi-Fi in a hospital environment but never really got around writing it. As the article is pretty straight to the point, I’ll just show it here.

Myth #1: Wi-Fi transmissions can interfere with critical medical equipment
While Wi-Fi devices do transmit via RF signaling, they tend to operate with very low power and transmit intermittently, unlike mobile phones, for example, which have higher power levels and longer duration transmissions. Multiple studies have shown that Wi-Fi devices are safe in hospital settings and do not interfere with electronic medical equipment.

Myth #2: A consumer Wi-Fi system can be implemented in a health care setting
Organizations often fall into the trap of deploying inexpensive consumer Wi-Fi equipment in a professional environment. In most cases, the potential cost savings rarely outweighs the frustration that results from poor performance, security, management and scalability. Eventually, organizations recognize the need to invest in a Wi-Fi solution designed specifically for a health care environment.

Harnessing the Power of Virtualization for Dynamic IT

Virtualizatio is no doubt, a current biggie in the IT industry and CIOs in Healthcare settings are fast catching on to this trend.

It is without hesitation that I would name VMWare (now part of EMC) as the industry leader when it comes to Virtualization, in fact, I was contemplating of doing the relevant certification but I reckon I can learn just as much from the Internet and some good old hands on (did I mention that I have a old uni mate working in EMC as a senior consultant?).

Now we all know that Microsoft has been working towards the virtualisation industry with their Virtual PC solution and it seems that the industry leader has gain further foothold since then. Do take some time to read this article from Microsoft.

Enjoy.

Infocomm Technologies

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