MaSSSoftech

Despite Economy, Organizations Face Significant Information Technology (IT)
Talent Gap: Deloitte Survey
To Address Both Short- and Long-Term IT Talent Challenges, Deloitte Offers
Recommendations to Organizations for Improved Talent Strategies and Execution

NEW YORK, Sept. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- According to new research from Deloitte, IT
functional leaders have an increasingly clear understanding of what they must
do to effectively support their organizations' business strategies. However,
existing IT talent strategies and programs appear to be falling short -
leaving IT without the talent necessary to do the job.

Based on a global survey of 306 IT decision-makers and executive business
managers, and 15 subsequent one-on-one interviews with select respondents,
current IT talent issues are having an impact on IT and business performance.
Based on the research, Deloitte identifies two major IT talent gaps: growing
talent gap for IT leaders and project managers; and the critical need for
improved IT talent strategies and program execution. Additional key findings
included:

-- The majority of survey respondents (51%) strongly believe talent
issues
have limited their organization's productivity and efficiency.


-- Half of the respondents say the talent shortage is limiting their
ability to innovate, which is the strategic core of the benefits that
technology can bring to a business.


-- Significant numbers of respondents indicate that IT talent issues are
having a material impact on other key dimensions of business success
--
growth (58%), speed to market (54%), quality (53%) and customer
relationships (53%).


-- The vast majority of IT organizations surveyed expect to expand their
workforces over the next three-to-five years. In fact, nearly half of
the respondents (47%) expect to see at least 5% annual growth in the
IT
workforce over that period -- even as the pool of experienced and
qualified IT workers in many countries gets smaller.


"Even in the midst of hiring freezes and layoffs, organizations continue to
face talent shortages in critical areas such as IT," said Jeff Schwartz,
principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP. "We believe differentiation is key when
trying to attract, develop and retain top IT talent. This means organizations
will need to revitalize their efforts and focus on areas such as company
brand, workforce flexibility, multi-generation workforce strategies, job
rotations, virtual management skills, improved on-boarding and accelerated
development."

Deloitte offers additional recommendations for organizations to consider as
they address current and future IT talent challenges:

-- Establish clear roles and responsibilities. CIOs and their management
teams need to own and lead the IT talent challenge. However, HR/talent
functional leaders and teams have significant opportunities to improve
their strategic partnership with IT by improving their capabilities
and
focusing on services that address the unique talent needs of the IT
function.


-- Improve workforce analysis and planning capabilities. Leverage
internal
and external data to provide clearer views of long-term talent trends,
both in terms of supply (e.g., demographics, baby boomer retirements
--
and longer time to retirement, education, and global labor markets)
and
demand (e.g., new business requirements and technology advances).


-- Refine global sourcing strategies. Explore innovative ways to manage a
diverse, global workforce that is increasingly comprised of
non-traditional resources, including contractors, outsourcing vendors,
retirees and offshore staff.


-- Strengthen alignment between IT and business priorities. Rotate people
from IT into the business and from the business into IT. In an
environment with significant outsourcing and global dispersion of IT
workforces, these rotation programs are even more important because
building and managing relationships with business units is one of the
retained IT team's primary responsibilities.


-- Learn how to manage a multi-sourced, global workforce. Without an
improved approach to sourcing and managing a global workforce, global
sourcing can be more of a hindrance than a help and organizations can
end up in challenging situations where sourced employees are
performing
roles that could be staffed internally and the sourced labor costs are
higher than they should be.


-- Pay more attention to on-boarding. In particular, companies should
focus
more effort on on-boarding for contractors and other non-traditional
resources. Current processes are generally designed to meet the needs
of
traditional in-house staff. That, however, is not what the IT
workforce
looks like any more.


For a full copy of this research report and for the latest information about
talent strategies, innovative talent and work solutions, please visit
Deloitte's Talent Management website. The Deloitte Review also recently
published a detailed article on retaining key talent as the economy improves.
The article entitled, "Where did our employees go? Examining the rise in
voluntary turnover during economic recoveries," can be found in Issue 5 at
www.deloittereview.com.

About the Survey
Deloitte, in collaboration with CIO, conducted a global survey of 306 IT
decision-makers and executive business managers at companies with revenues of
$500 million or more. Additional insights were obtained through personal
interviews with selected respondents.

The U.S. version of the survey was completed among qualified members of the
CIO audience. The Canadian, European, and Asia-Pacific versions of the survey
were completed among an international panel of IT and business professionals.
In addition, Deloitte conducted the survey among select companies in South
Africa. The survey was conducted between March 17, 2009 and April 1, 2009.

About Deloitte
As used in this document, "Deloitte" means Deloitte Consulting LLP and
Deloitte Services LP, subsidiaries of Deloitte LLP. Please see
www.deloitte.com/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of
Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries.

Ensemble-based CMS Quality Manager Will Deliver Real-time Quality Data
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(Business Wire)--
InterSystems Corporation today announced that Technology Medical Partners
(T-M-Partners) has selected the InterSystems Ensemble rapid integration and
development platform for its CMS Quality Manager healthcare application. The
first of many healthcare technology solutions under development by T-M-Partners,
CMS Quality Manageris designedto vastly improve the data abstraction and
administrative processes of reporting core measures to the Centers for Medicaid
and Medicare Services (CMS).

InterSystems develops innovative integration, database, and business
intelligence products. T-M-Partners, an InterSystems application partner, has
made a name for itself developing composite healthcare solutions that improve
quality, cash flow and efficiencies for healthcare providers through the
improvement of data access, administrative workflow and quality.

Ensemble is used to develop and integrate mission-critical applications,
leverage previous software investments through composite applications, and
establish an enterprise service bus or SOA infrastructure. Ensemble-based
projects are deployed in hundreds of organizations in healthcare, government,
financial services, and other industries where reliability and high-performance
are paramount concerns.

"Healthcare has many human-based processes in need of data access, automation
and process improvement," said Jeff Burke, Managing Partner at T-M-Partners.
"The InterSystems Ensemble platform enables us to rapidly configure these
processes and access data in a way that simplifies the user experience and do so
on a platform designed for continuous improvement, speed and scalability. The
bottom line benefit to healthcare providers includes higher quality, lower
costs, higher efficiency and improved patient and employee satisfaction."

Delivering Benefits of Real Time Quality Data

The ability of the Ensemble-based CMS Quality Manager to provide data in
real-time mode leads to improvement and control of quality processes and patient
outcomes, according to Burke. "Efficient reporting of CMS quality data is just
the beginning," he noted. "Quality measures that are actionable in real time
will allow for rapid corrective actions and better quality of care processes.
And," Burke continued, "dashboards provide forms, charts, reports, tables and
graphs that present executives and managers with key quality data in the format
they prefer." In addition, the CMS Quality Manager portal provides role-based
access to key items such as processes, activities, tasks lists and roles. The
application also provides automated workflow that enables CMS Quality Report
processes, notifications, alerts, escalations and delegation. "Rules and alerts
will enable care-givers to properly meet quality guidelines and improve in real
time, rather than in weeks, or even months, after the fact," Burke pointed out.
"That real-time improvement of outcomes leads to financial rewards and patient
satisfaction as well as improved pay for performance."

"T-M-Partners` healthcare expertise in quality methods like Six Sigma coupled
with their experience in technology implementations and solution development
means that they are helping their clients apply business process and technology
directly to high impact, highly visible pain points. This yields more immediate
financial returns," said Matthew Nee, InterSystems Vice President of North
American Sales. "We are excited to have been selected as T-M-Partners` platform
of choice for the development of composite healthcare applications like their
new CMS Quality Manager."

About InterSystems

InterSystems Corporation is the worldwide leader in software for connected
healthcare. With headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and offices in 21
countries, InterSystems provides innovative products that enable fast
development, deployment, and integration of enterprise-class applications.
InterSystems CACHÉ is a high performance object database that makes applications
faster and more scalable. InterSystems Ensemble is a rapid integration and
development platform that enriches applications with new functionality, and
makes them connectable. InterSystems HealthShare is a platform that enables the
fastest creation of an Electronic Health Record for regional or national health
information exchange. InterSystems DeepSee is software that makes it possible to
embed real-time business intelligence in transactional applications, enabling
better operational decisions. InterSystems is the world`s #1 vendor of database
and integration technologies for healthcare applications. InterSystems products
are used by thousands of hospitals and labs, including all 21 hospitals on the
Honor Roll of America's Best Hospitals as rated by U.S. News and World Report.
For more information, visit InterSystems.com.

About Technology Medical Partners

Technology Medical Partners (T-M-Partners) was founded in 2004 and is focused on
Healthcare Performance Improvement with Composite Solutions. T-M-Partners
delivers value-added information technology solutions and services to the
Healthcare Industry. We focus on the business performance improvement of
"healthcare providers" (Hospitals and Large Physician Practices). As a
consulting channel partner of other technology solutions, TMP brings a
comprehensive array of solutions, products and services together with experience
and leadership in Healthcare Solutions delivery. Specifically, we look at the
processes across the hospital that impact financial performance, quality
measures, business operations, revenue cycle management and other critical
success factors of the management team. See www.t-m-partners.net for more
information.

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available:
http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=6054239〈=en

The Obama administration named two information technology developers and one IT company on Thursday to receive the nation's highest honor for inventors.

The administration will award the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to the winners -- five total -- during a White House ceremony on Oct. 7. Traditionally, the White House does not announce the contributions of the winners until close to the ceremony. But, according to IBM, which will receive a medal, the company will be honored for development of its Blue Gene line of supercomputers, which typically are ranked among the fastest and most powerful computers in the world. Two inventors, John Warnock and Charles Geschke, also will be honored for founding the software firm Adobe Systems. Both IT companies have made their mark with tools that the federal government increasingly depends on for collaboration across agencies.

Federal information technology executives view the awards as part of Obama's innovation agenda, an effort to use technology to improve government performance. "I see a lot coming on the innovation agenda. The first sign of that is the appointment of a chief technology officer and a governmentwide chief information officer," said Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president and counsel at the Professional Services Council, a contractor industry group. Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra and federal Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra are filling roles that have never existed at the White House level.

"Of course, Vivek is speaking everywhere to everybody," he added, referring to the CIO's numerous appearances at conferences and on the White House Web site to promote collaborative Web applications aimed at transforming the way the government operates. The tools include Data.gov, a depot of federal statistics that allows third-parties to download and manipulate information to meet customers' needs, and Apps.gov, an online storefront where agencies can purchase subscriptions to Web services or cloud computing applications.

But many of the initiatives have yet to trickle down to the agency level, Chvotkin noted. For example, guidance on President Obama's plan to shift agency IT environments to the Web, or the cloud, will come in the fiscal 2011 budget.

Unlike Kundra, Chopra has yet to publicize his work. "He doesn't say as much about what he's doing out there publicly, but I know he's been actively involved in the internal discussions," Chvotkin said. "If you ask me three things that he's done, I couldn't tell you."

The 2009 technology medal winners have been instrumental in the effort to change how government does business, according to the honorees. IBM's speedy computers model scenarios that help protect the nation's nuclear arsenals and predict climate trends. The company says the Blue Gene systems also are eco-friendly because they perform at processing speeds that otherwise would require a dedicated power plant large enough to supply electricity to thousands of homes.

Warnock and Geschke founded Adobe, a major federal supplier, in 1982. They met in the late 1970s while researching graphic systems and printing at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. To bring their ideas to market, Warnock and Geschke launched a company committed to transforming text and images on a computer screen into exact and attractive print reproductions. The firm released Adobe Portable Document Format, which enabled users to exchange images of digital documents across computing platforms. The format is now the default standard for many government agencies. Federal workers use other Adobe desktop and server products to collaborate with colleagues and the public.

The other two technology honorees are Forrest Bird, who developed mechanical breathing devices, and Esther Sans Takeuchi, who researches micropower sources at the University at Buffalo.

Obama also named nine researchers on Thursday as recipients of the National Medal of Science, which honors scientists and engineers.

A new report released by the American Library Association (ALA), "Libraries Connect Communities 3: Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study 2008-2009,"shows that public libraries, even as they aim to increase access to computers and the Internet, are struggling to keep up with surging demand during the economic downturn.

Broadband funds from the recent stimulus package may provide a boost, but the authors of the report also encourage libraries to do a better job explaining to the public the services they offer.

“The public library community needs new models for deploying and managing public access technology—especially around broadband. Increasing broadband at the front door may not always provide significant increases at the workstation,” said Charles McClure, co-principal investigator for the study and director of Florida State University’s Information Institute. “Strategies may include expanding the role of consortia and increasing community and government partnerships to leverage economies of scale and meet community needs in concert.”

In addition to ALA, the study was conducted by the Center for Library & Information Innovation at the University of Maryland (UMCP) and the Information Institute at Florida State University (FSU). It was funded by the ALA and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Crucial role
With more than 71 percent of all libraries (and 79 percent of rural libraries) serving as the only source of free Internet access, libraries remain crucial to those seeking jobs and needing to connect to e-government—indeed, at least five states require that those filing for unemployment insurance must do so online.

The study says that 14.3 percent of public libraries decreased their operating budgets in FY2009. Only 38 percent of libraries report budget increases at or above the rate of inflation. More than half (53 percent) of the state library agencies that provide state funding to public libraries report declining state funding in FY2009, according to questionnaires to the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA).

Capacity challenges
The report finds that more than 81 percent of libraries say they have insufficient availability of workstations some or all of the time. More than 94 percent of libraries have imposed time limits on their workstations.

Some 77.4 percent says that cost factors limits their capacity to add public access workstations/laptops, while 75.9 percent cite space limitations and 34 percent report the inadequacy of their building infrastructure.

Some 38.2 percent of public libraries don’t have a replacement or addition schedule for their public access computers.While 42.3 percent of libraries—and 72.2 percent of urban ones—support their IT with system-level IT staff, only 28.7 percent of rural libraries have access to such support.

Connection speed
Nearly 60 percent of libraries say Internet connection speeds are insufficient to meet needs at some point in the day—a slight increase from 57.5 percent in the previous survey, released last year.

Some 44.5 percent report Internet connection speeds greater than 1.5Mbps, a significant rise from 2007–2008 (25.7 percent), but the increasing amount of high-bandwidth applications continues to strain libraries. Moreover, about one-third of rural libraries have connection speeds less than 1.5 Mbps, compared with 7.1 percent of urban libraries, and 16 percent of suburban public libraries.

While 23 percent of libraries state cost kept them from improving bandwidth, even more (26 percent) say increased access simply isn’t available.

More than 76 percent now offer free Wi-Fi access, up from 66 percent last year.

Hardware questions
For the first time in the history of the multi-year survey, libraries said they had fewer new (less than one-year-old) public access computers, and 61 percent of libraries reported no plans to add computers in the coming year.

A decline in technology spending anticipated for FY2010 could mean that the decrease in computers in fall 2008 (when the survey was completed) may continue into next year, the report says.

Looking ahead
Data from the next study will be collected this fall, as the recession continues to limit budgets, and libraries likely get a piece of the $7.3 billion in broadband stimulus funds, notably the $200 million—at minimum—set aside for public access centers, including public libraries.

The authors suggest a number of actions to help improve the public library’s public access computing and information technology infrastructure. They advise libraries to:

* Document the range and extent to which public access computing services, resources, and programs are used.
* Increase local community awareness of the importance of the public library and Internet-based services.
* Engage in a carefully developed assessment of broadband capacity needs and develop a plan to obtain and use additional capacity.
* Establish a plan to document the impacts and outcomes from [stimulus-funded] broadband capacity increases.
* Rethink delivery and organization of public access computing services, resources and programs.

“This rethinking process includes expanding the role of consortia and increasing collaborations and partnerships that can better leverage economies of scale, while maintaining or increasing the quality of network-based services,” the report states. “Examples include cooperative broadband purchasing or a statewide e-government Web portal of resources, services, training and related programs. Such a Web portal could be jointly developed among public libraries, state and local government that would be available to all public libraries in the state, rather than developed piecemeal by individual libraries."

lhavo, Portugal – 18/09/2009 – SADIF Investment Analytics, announces a new summary due diligence report covering Wiz Information Technology Co., Ltd. (38620). The report uses SADIF's powerful StockMarks™ stock rating system and contains important analysis for any current or potential Wiz Information Technology Co., Ltd. investor.

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The 8-page report breaks down the Total StockMark into its three components – business, management and price, performing an in-depth analysis of Wiz Information Technology Co., Ltd. for long-term investors.

The report has been distributed to Reuters, and forwarded to Yahoo Finance and FT.com. It is available under 'Analyst Reports' from these websites, from multiple professional platforms including Reuters Knowledge, TheMarkets.com, Thomson Research and Capital IQ or directly from SADIF-Investment Analytics at:
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President Obama's address to Congress on health-care reform overlooked one of the most important issues: the poor state of health information technology.
Last week, a 62 year old woman, whom we will call Mrs. B, came into our office complaining of shortness of breath. She also mentioned a history of severe hypertension, coronary artery disease and dialysis-dependent kidney failure. We discovered that she had been admitted several times in the past year to five different area hospitals. Beyond these bare facts, we had no other information. We had no reliable details of her recent testing, treatment or medications. Also, she could not recall the names or dosages of her sixteen pills, and she knew that she was severely allergic to a certain heart medicine, but she couldn't remember its name, either. We were understandably reluctant to prescribe new medications or therapies without obtaining her recent records.

Mrs. B's situation is all too common. Information is fragmented and not readily accessible. Even the most prepared patient carrying copies of previous medical records is handicapped by the difficulty in deciphering handwriting and medical notations. It is common for duplicate tests to be ordered, increasing health-care costs by perhaps 15 percent or more.

Most currently available electronic medical record software is unwieldy and difficult to quickly access, and there is still no vehicle for the timely exchange of critical medical data between providers and facilities. The stimulus bill included $50 billion dollars to promote uniform electronic record standards, but it will be difficult and costly to construct new systems ensuring interoperability of all current hospital software.
A cheaper and more effective solution is to adopt a standard electronic record-keeping system and ask that all health information software interface with it. In fact, a proven system already exists. The software is called the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA), which the Veterans Affairs Department developed. VistA requires minimal support, is absolutely free to anyone who requests it, is much more user-friendly than its counterparts, and many doctors are already familiar with it.

Numerous scientific studies have concluded that using the system leads to fewer medication and allergy errors, increased utilization of cost-effective preventive-care measures, and decreased duplicate testing. In fact, VistA has been so successful that it is now used by numerous organizations, states and 13 countries worldwide.

If VistA had been available in our office, Mrs. B could have mentioned her previous treatment providers and given her express permission to access the records. We would have contacted her previous institutions electronically and obtained a complete medical background within seconds, rather than spending several hours questioning her and calling her previous providers.

The Obama administration's push to create an electronic patient record for every American has gained steam in Washington, with billions of dollars expected to be spent over the next five years.

But in Maryland, the process is ahead of schedule.

That's because Maryland's three largest hospital systems and a large retirement community operator are building a statewide information exchange network that could be up and running before any federal network. The exchange - Chesapeake Regional Information System for Our Patients, or CRISP - was approved for $10 million in start-up state funding. Its purpose: to let hospitals, insurance providers and health care professionals freely and securely share information about the patients that come through their doors.

"For doctors who don't have a prior record, it could be real helpful to get the discharge summary from the hospital down the street, which can bring them up to speed very quickly on a patient," said David Horrocks, president of CRISP.

A piece of the pie
The focus on health information technology is creating a boon for technology companies nationwide who are seeking a piece of the multibillion-dollar pie. In Maryland, several companies have expressed interest in helping to build the state's network, according to officials familiar with the process.

Proponents of moving to an electronic record format say it makes sense for the patient, whose records and treatment history could theoretically be accessed at any hospital or doctor's office. Electronic medical records can be more efficient for medical staff and patient tracking and billing, helping to reduce the clerical work needed to maintain large filing systems.

For one, hospitals and insurance companies hope that easily accessible records will eliminate the need for duplicative and costly diagnostic tests.

"Health care represents some of the most advanced digital technology humankind has ever created," said Todd Johnson, president of Fells Point-based Salar Inc. "But the information flow is often very choppy and obsolete…. Hospitals are more and more ready to tackle some of these hurdles."

With nearly 20 employees and a 10-year track record, Salar makes software that enables physicians, nurses and other medical staff to input their notes directly into a database that essentially creates "electronic paper" that's easily managed by its users. The software fulfills the electronic physician documentation requirement that, at the national level, is scheduled to take effect in 2013.

"On the one hand, that's four years from now," said Johnson, whose company's revenues are up 30 percent in the past year and has been hiring recently. "On the other hand, it's right around the corner."

But building such a system, particularly one that's accessible nationally, involves at least two big hurdles: cost and security. Historically, doctors and hospitals have been reluctant to spend money on electronic systems with no immediate benefit in sight. And the need for tight online security of electronic patient records is of paramount concern for the public.

As part of the $787 billion economic stimulus plan, about $19 billion is being set aside to help the nation's hospitals and physicians' offices make the transformation by 2014. Last month, Vice President Joe Biden announced a $1.2 billion early injection into the effort. Half of the funding will go toward establishing centers that will help hospitals manage the technical aspects of upgrading their systems, while the rest will facilitate information-sharing between hospitals across the U.S.

Before billions of dollars can be spent nationwide, the federal government and industry groups are still hammering out a consensus of what such a national network will look like, how it will function and how secure it will be. Building a national electronic patient record exchange network is a major challenge, fraught with varied technology hurdles and steep financial costs, with a need for uniform standards across a patchwork of states, industries, and public and private medical providers.

According to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in March, only 1.5 percent of nearly 3,000 non-federal hospitals in a survey have a comprehensive electronic health record system. Estimates range widely as to the expected annual savings if patient records move completely online, but it could be as high as $77 billion.

In Maryland, the climate appears ripe for building a network that would address the needs of patients, doctors and hospitals in the state. A House bill passed this year sets up a framework for giving hospitals and physicians financial incentives to implement electronic patient records systems by 2015. The Maryland Hospital Association, which represents 67 hospitals and advocated for the bill, would require state-regulated insurers to pass on incentives to hospitals and physicians so they can upgrade from paper to electronic records.

"Ultimately, electronic health records are going to enhance patient care, and bottom line, that's what hospitals want," said Jessica Jackson, a spokeswoman at the association.

Maryland's three largest hospital systems - Johns Hopkins Medicine, MedStar Health and the University of Maryland Medical System - along with Erickson Retirement Communities, are leading the effort to build CRISP. CRISP was approved for $10 million in state funding to start building the exchange over the next two to five years.

Horrocks, the CRISP president, said the exchange will likely be built before any federal network is built. Nevertheless, the goal is to make the state network compatible with the federal one.