Innovation

DINMAR and Sun create R&D centre for healthcare IT

OTTAWA – In conjunction with DINMAR and other companies, Sun Microsystems has opened its first IT research and development centre that is dedicated to healthcare. The facility is located within DINMAR’s corporate office in Ottawa and is known as the iForce Solution Centre for Healthcare IT.

The aim is to help customers, including hospitals, clinics and medical researchers build and test prototype applications before fully investing in new healthcare technology.

“For over a decade, DINMAR has helped numerous healthcare organizations around the globe to align their IT solutions with organizational goals,” said DINMAR’s CEO Mark Groper (pictured at left). “Our collaboration with Sun reflects DINMAR’s strong commitment to accelerating the development of interoperable, global e-health solutions.”

The iForce Solution Centre for Healthcare IT replicates real-world healthcare environments, so customers can securely solve integration challenges in a controlled environment. It also provides customers with support through the entire solution development and implementation process, from initial concepts, to pilot program development and actual implementation.

Healthcare customers will have access to a range of Sun and DINMAR technologies, including SPARC processor-based servers, Solaris 10 Operating System (OS), Sun Ray ultra-thin client technology, Sun StorEdge arrays and the Oacis EHR solution.

One of the goals of the Centre is increased interoperability across multi-vendor solutions. The use of open standards-based technology promotes the flow of information, ensuring that applications can interact instantaneously, thereby shortening the time it takes hospital staff to interpret patient data.

“For more than a dozen years, Sun has been working closely with customers and partners to help transform the healthcare industry by using IT to better connect patients, doctors, hospitals, labs and clinics,” said Charles Mair, executive director, global healthcare, for Sun Microsystems Inc. “Technology holds tremendous potential to improve medical quality, increase clinical productivity, and significantly reduce the cost of delivering healthcare across the globe and this new Authorized iForce Solution Centre for Healthcare IT will play a significant part in bettering people’s lives.”

In addition to real-world simulations, customers can visit the Centre to see working demonstrations of:
• DINMAR’s Oacis EHR (electronic health record) running on Sun technology and interoperating with an array of other systems;
• Java technology found in smart-card enabled information systems; and
• A wide range of IT products and services from a variety of healthcare vendors.

“Technology has always been central to medical care, and as healthcare institutions strive to enhance care quality, we look to leaders in the vendor community that are willing to step forward and share their expertise,” said Tom Schonberg, president and CEO, Queensway Carleton Hospital. “As we move towards greater interoperability in our various healthcare applications, it is important from a business and patient care perspective that we work with companies that understand the importance of sharing their knowledge.”

For its part, Sun is also actively involved in the United Kingdom’s National Health Service, the ‘backbone’ for the next generation of healthcare service provision, providing a secure electronic health record for every English patient. Sun is responsible for the design, building and operation of the infrastructure systems, jointly delivered with BT and CSW Health, which will assist in connecting more than 30,000 health care practitioners and 270 Hospital Trusts.

There are 50 partner-run Authorized iForce Solution Centres worldwide; more than 75 solutions-specific iForce Solution Centres; and nine iForce Competency Program Centres focused on application partners such as Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP and Siebel. More than 85 application partners worldwide have their solutions installed in iForce Centres. More information on Sun’s iForce Centres is available at http://www.sun.com/executives/iforce/centers/.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.
A singular vision – “The Network Is The Computer” – guides Sun in the development of technologies that power the world’s most important markets. Sun’s philosophy of sharing innovation and building communities is at the forefront of the next wave of computing: the Participation Age. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at sun.com.

About DINMAR
DINMAR is a leading North American healthcare information technology solutions provider. The company’s Oacis EHR product was instrumental in launching the “open systems” revolution, which spawned many innovative technologies and clinical-interoperability standards in commercial use today. For more information, please visit www.dinmar.com.