IBA - China Update
13 Feb 2007
Sydney – 13 February 2007– IBA Health Limited (ASX:IBA) Australia’s largest ASX listed eHealth company, today announced agreements have been completed that establishes a joint venture that will enable the delivery of healthcare information and services throughout China using the internet and internet protocol television (IPTV).
The joint venture will be known as Shanghai People’s Health Information Technology Co Ltd and will drive the delivery of healthcare through:
a private internet based network that will link doctors and patients and enable consultations and the exchange of health information over the internet; and
a national interactive health channel on China’s only internet protocol television (IPTV) service, BesTV.
In addition, the joint venture has acquired the intellectual property and support and maintenance contracts for an administrative hospital information system currently installed in over 180 hospitals, representing 90% of tier 1A hospitals and 20% of tier 2A hospitals in Shanghai and surrounding provinces. It also has the rights to provide health information systems to eight planned Harvard Medical Centre hospitals, two of which are currently under construction.
IBA owns 51% of the joint venture and will contribute up to $7 million, based on future earnings and related working capital requirements.
Shanghai People’s Health’s first customer will go live at the end of March 2007 (following trials in December 2006 and January 2007) with an optical fibre, internet based network that will link over 20,000 families, with doctors through 11 hospitals and community centres in Shanghai’s Changning District. The Changning private network will initially provide the capability to deliver in-home and out of hospital consultations linking health professional and patients with community clinics and specialists located at the larger public hospitals. Shanghai and the Changning District Health Bureau are regarded as pacesetters in the Chinese market.
Discussions for implementation of a similar solution are well advanced in another Shanghai district.
With trials now complete, the joint venture will launch China’s first Health Channel in May 2007 incorporating MyDoctor using internet protocol television.Internet Protocol Television or IPTV, is a combination of Internet and traditional TV, where content is piped to TV sets through a broadband Internet connection. The service not only provides more channels than traditional terrestrial television, but offers more flexible programming and online interactive capabilities. The IPTV platform uses full size MPEG-4 advanced video coding technology that provides high definition vision that is superior to standard image compression, and can be used on television, laptop or hand held devices.
The service will provide health information, in-home video and audio consultations, video on demand capabilities and relevant health media content, including paid advertising. This new solution is designed to bring the health professional into the consumer’s living room and enable consultations involving both doctors and specialists, as well as access to patient records.
The Health Channel will be distributed through an exclusive contract with BesTV, which is jointly owned by Shanghai Media Group, China’s second largest media company, and China Telecom, the largest fixed line telephone company. Launched in May of 2006, BesTV achieved 100,000 customers by the end of 2006 and is expected to reach 300,000 by the end of 2007. With over 360 million TV viewers and 25 million broadband users in the Chinese mainland, there is a huge potential for the delivery of cost effective health information, healthcare services and content using IPTV.
“This is a very exciting opportunity for IBA “, said Gary Cohen executive chairman of IBA “China currently has over 100 million internet users, a quarter of whom currently have broadband and therefore the capability to access our applications via the IPTV platform.
“Analysts* are predicting by 2010 the world market for IPTV will increase by 60% from 2 million to 34 million subscribers. It is estimated that IBA’s target markets will grow at an annual rate of over 40% in the IPTV sector. The IPTV medium could revolutionise the way healthcare is delivered in these developing countries if analyst expectations are met.
“Through an agreement with SMG and BesTV we will have exclusive access to China’s only national licence for IPTV, creating significant opportunities for IBA to access new revenue streams using a technology that sets the scene for the way healthcare is going to be delivered in the future.” concluded Mr Cohen.
Steve Garrington CEO said “The joint venture has acquired the intellectual property and the business that delivers application software to over 180 Shanghai hospitals. These sites provide a leverage point for our new applications which are designed to run on the IPTV platform and will be an important anchor point for the delivery of IBA’s traditional applications and services and will open opportunities for our broader enterprise product”. |
发表于 2007-2-14 14:24:51
发表于 2007-2-14 15:00:45
atient Management; Primary Care; Disease Management; Aged Care; Community Care ;;Facility Administration ;Electronic Health Claims ;
发表于 2007-2-14 21:59:52