MS launches health IT initiative

Microsoft has initiated a new programme to push its software into the health-care industry, the company announced at the recent World Health Care Congress, held in Washington, DC last month.

Microsoft says 22 other software vendors and health-care companies are backing Knowledge Driven Health Plans, an initiative, it says, aims to improve service and decrease costs.

The goal, Microsoft says, is to allow different health-care organisations to exchange information across disparate IT systems. The move is not unlike efforts in other industries that seek to allow IT systems to share information more easily.

The plans are focused on Microsoft products and technologies such as .Net 2.0, BizTalk Server, the Windows Server System, SQL Server and Microsoft Office 2007.

The company emphasised that standards such as XML should be used by applications to exchange information over the internet securely. The 22 partners include Hewlett-Packard, Tata and Infosys.