Teamwork. Collaboration. Open standards. When policymakers, public health experts, researchers and business leaders measure past successes and anticipate future challenges in disease prevention, these are their common themes. Today, as innovation expands the information network, speeds electronic data exchange and facilitates sophisticated analysis, a one-world mindset frames the discussion.
“The eradication of smallpox shows that with strong mutual resolve, teamwork and an international spirit of solidarity, ambitious global public health goals can be attained.”
Dr. Margaret Cha
DIRECTOR-GENERAL, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
“Statue Commemorates Smallpox Eradication,” Note for the media, World Health Organization
May 17, 2010“The threat of a pandemic is a definitively global phenomenon. Our response must be similarly global, and must rely—as with so many other major issues we face today—on open, collaborative innovation.”
Sam Palmisano
IBM CHAIRMAN AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
“IBM, Public Health Groups Form Global Pandemic Initiative,” IBM press release
May 15, 2006“We need one Internet of healthcare … and so that has to be based on a common set of standards—and a common set of models for data. ... One of the things we’ve been able to learn from working with [the Middle East Consortium on Infectious Disease Surveillance] was how to adapt these same representations of medical information used to keep patients’ records to do reporting ... of infectious ... diseases for public health.”
James Kaufman
RESEARCH MANAGER, HEALTHCARE INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE, COMPUTER SCIENCE, IBM RESEARCH
“IBM Helps Public Health Community in the Middle East,” YouTube video, 1:33, posted by “IBMLabs”
June 1, 2008
“[STEM] is not a product. We’re trying to use the open source community to develop a robust model of what the earth looks like from an epidemiological perspective … that hopefully will ultimately make it very easy for both clinical and public health systems to operate and share data.”
Joseph Jasinski
IBM DISTINGUISHED ENGINEER AND GLOBAL INDUSTRY EXECUTIVE, SMARTER HEALTHCARE AND LIFE SCIENCES, IBM RESEARCH
“Stemming the Tide,” Healthcare Informatics
June 2007“This [Public Health Information Affinity Domain] collaboration writes the newest chapter in a story of healthcare information technology innovation – innovation that progressively tackles head-on the lack of integration and communication between key players in the healthcare industry worldwide.”
Dan Pelino
GENERAL MANAGER, IBM HEALTHCARE AND LIFE SCIENCES INDUSTRY
“MADE IN IBM LABS: New Data Sharing Technology Speeds International Collaboration to Identify and Respond to Infectious Diseases,” IBM press release
June 2, 2008