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Sunday, November 1, 2009

IBM Happenings: August September October 2009

The months of August, September, and October were busy ones at IBM with a flurry of announcements in hardware, software, services, acquisitions, and strategic alliances. See the list of the current press releases here and an index for prior months here. In addition to the major focus on a "smarter planet", IBM is heavily engaged in healthcare both as an information technology and business solutions company but also as an employer..

In a bold move to cut healthcare costs, IBM plans to drop co-pays by employees when they visit their primary care physicians under the company's self-insured coverage. The idea is to save costs over time by encouraging people to go to primary-care doctors sooner in order to get earlier diagnoses that could save on expensive visits to specialists and emergency rooms later. The company is able to make this change because it pays for the health-care benefits, not insurance companies. With 115,000 U.S. employees, IBM spends about $1.3 billion a year on healthcare so it is highly motivated to launch new healthcare initiatives.

Approximately 50% of Americans (133 million) have some form of chronic medical condition. Most of these people are not actually disabled, but they absorb a large amount of the country's healthcare resources. The most common chronic conditions are high blood pressure, arthritis, respiratory diseases like emphysema, and high cholesterol. The projections are that the number of people with chronic conditions will continue to increase. Most of the people in this category are between the ages of 18 and 64 -- in other words they are people who are working.

By encouraging employees to consult with their primary-care physicians IBM hopes to drive down costs over time. The company does not require primary-physician referrals for employees to see specialists. The combination of these factors -- no co-pay for primary care and no approvals for specialists plus payments of up to $300 a year to employees for taking exercise classes or enrolling their children in online weight-monitoring programs to curb obesity -- makes IBM a trend setter. The benefits will surely flow to both employees and shareholders.

Other IBM Happenings for the current period

Complete index of IBM Happenings

Healthcare, IBM November 1, 2009 05:53 PM

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Clever

Geocaching The motorcycle ride to the Town of Saugerties was very nice. The four of us met downtown and went to The Dutch Ale House for lunch. Saugerties has a lot of history going back to 1677. The town is a quaint community located between the majestic Catskill Mountains and the scenic 315 mile long Hudson River. We strolled through the 19th century Village and picked off a geocache on the way down to the fully operational lighthouse. I checked the Tide Chart to make sure we could make it along the trail which is only about 4' above sea level. The first part of the multi-cache was at the lighthouse -- placed in a very clever way. The micro film canister contained a piece of paper with the latitude and longitude of the actual cache which was a quarter of a mile away. It too was cleverly placed. This cache find was #99 since we started geocaching in 2003.

Speaking of "clever", the World Community Grid just announced the completion of the first phase of the "Discovering Dengue Drugs - Together" project. It took only two years to complete because the members provided nearly 12,000 years of computer processing time to the project. Anyone can participate in the World Community Grid by installing a small piece of software similar to a screen saver. When your PC is idle the excess computing capability that it has gets pulled into a pool to help out on various projects of global importance. One of my PC's contributed a modest 94 days of processing time to the "Discovering Dengue Drugs - Together" project.

Completing this phase of the project is a significant contribution to the research of not only Dengue Fever but also Hepatitis C, West Nile, Yellow Fever and other diseases caused by the Flaviviridea family of viruses. Get the latest details about the project here and if you want to add your idle computing capacity to important projects just visit the World Community Grid.

Healthcare, Hiking, Internet Technology September 1, 2009 09:34 PM

Monday, August 17, 2009

IBM Happenings: July 2009

The month of July was another busy one at IBM with a flurry of announcements in hardware, software, services, acquisitions, and strategic alliances. See the list of press releases here and an index for prior months here. In addition to the major focus on a "smarter planet", IBM is investing in society. The company's social performance is right up there with it's financial performance.

Right after the fourth of July, IBM issued its annual Corporate Responsibility Report, detailing the company's social performance results and strategies in the areas of governance, supply chain, environment, community engagements, employment policies and practices, and public policy. The 40-page report features IBM's Corporate Service Corps, a program IBM characterizes as a corporate version of the Peace Corps with the goal of developing a next generation wave of IBM leaders while at the same time addressing critical societal challenges in emerging markets. The company is integrating business and social strategies to make significant and lasting impacts in communities. For example, in the Sichuan province in China, the area stricken by a powerful earthquake last year, teams of IBMers engaged in the relief and recovery effort using their technology skills. The development of the skills also presents economic opportunities for IBM so the corporate citizenship goes hand in hand with business.

The report also outlines how IBM is minimizing its environmental impact by developing innovative technologies to conserve more energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reusing and recycling IT equipment to reduce product waste, and utilizing environmentally preferable materials in its products and processes.

The company report describes how it provides employees with skills training, health and wellness programs, and opportunities to gain global experience. IBM also supports healthcare reform and has been advocating "Patient-Centered Medical Home" (PCMH), a model based on the concept of comprehensive primary care. I am enthusiastic about this initiative because it offers the chance to replace today's poorly coordinated, acute-focused, episodic care with coordinated, proactive, preventive, acute, chronic, long-term and end-of-life care. This approach is fundamental to the transformation of the U.S. healthcare system. Many believe this can be best accomplished by strengthening primary care. The "medical home" is an enhanced primary-care model that provides comprehensive and timely care and emphasizes the central role of teamwork and engagement by those receiving care.

The full corporate responsibility report is at http://ww.ibm.com/responsibility/

Other IBM Happenings for the month

Healthcare, IBM, Public Policy August 17, 2009 06:39 PM