MICROSOFT Philippines Inc. announced it recently partnered with Hewlett-Packard Co.’s local office to develop and offer the “Nurse Mobility” solution targeting this market composed of more than half a million registered nurses.
“The Nurse Mobility solution represents Microsoft’s commitment to helping nurses and organizations realize their full potential through technology,” Microsoft Philippines General Manager Karrie Ilagan was quoted in a statement as saying.
“With this partnership, we help enable nurses and hospitals to be smarter with their resources, be more productive and transform the way they deliver healthcare services for Filipinos,” Ilagan added.
Records from the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) showed the Philippines has 526,897 registered nurses nationwide in 2012, former Health Secretary Enrique T. Ona’s speech in November said.
“For the past three years, we have deployed 750,000 nurses to augment the workforce in 1,496 municipalities, 143 cities and 70 Department of Health [DOH] hospitals,” Ona added.
DOH documents say the Philippines produces an average of 13,000 new nurses annually.
Ilagan said the technology solution they plan to sell to the nursing sector includes Windows 8.1 devices, Office 365 and Microsoft Azure, among others.
The solution includes integration into electronic medical records, nurse learning management, Office 365 and HP tablets with stylus, Skype and other specific applications, she added.
Ilagan said the Nurse Mobility solution will allow nurses to be more productive, collaborate as care teams, anytime, anywhere, resulting in better health outcomes for patients. Being digital-centric, it will help reduce paperwork to enable nurses to spend more time caring for the patients, contributing toward better quality of care and health outcomes and greater hospital efficiencies. Improved nurse productivity using Microsoft and HP solutions will reduce nurse fatigue, create a better working environment, provide up-to-date skills and help provide better patient satisfaction.
“Health is one of the key focus areas of Microsoft. We aim to create a real impact for better health with our mobility and cloud solutions to health-care providers, payers and governments,” Callum Bir, Microsoft Asia-Pacific director for health, said in a separate statement.
In 2014 Microsoft was very active in discussions with various Philippine health-care organizations and hospitals to ascertain the needs of the industry, according to Ilagan.
She added that the increasing number Filipino nurses virtually connected through their devices will improve our work force, benefit out overall health industry, improve our lives and contribute to the economy.
Rizal Raoul Reyes
Image credits: Roy Domingo
