Sentara Healthcare Partners with CitiusTech to Deploy Data Platform on Microsoft Azure

Sentara Healthcare, one of the nation’s oldest not-for profit health systems, has completed the deployment of a next-gen enterprise data platform (EDP). It provides a single, consolidated view of provider, payer and enterprise information from Sentara Healthcare and Optima Health Plan, a wholly owned subsidiary.

“Sentara is committed to delivering high quality healthcare and innovative services that meet the unique needs of the communities we serve,” said Michael Reagin, Sentara Healthcare senior vice president and chief information and innovation officer. “We collaborated with CitiusTech to develop an EDP that provides us more flexibility and scale to continue meeting the changing demands of our patients, care teams and partners across the care continuum.”

Sentara partnered with CitiusTech, a Microsoft partner, to architect, build and implement its EDP. It leveraged CitiusTech’s BigData solution H-Scale, to deploy an end-to-end data management platform to ingest, curate, transform and reconcile data from five different sources on a daily basis and create a 360-degree view of the patient record. Sentara built a robust enterprise-class system in less than two years gaining benefits of quick time to market along with significant implementation savings.

By implementing a cloud-first strategy, Sentara Healthcare has ensured that the EDP uses HIPAA compliant PaaS service offerings of Azure and can scale for large data volume. This is expected to save close to $1.5 million every year by moving away from an on-premises model.

“Next-gen interoperability and real-time data access have become imperative for healthcare organizations to enhance quality of care and align with value-based models.” Says Rizwan Koita, CEO of CitiusTech. “Sentara Healthcare with its cloud-first strategy has built an industry leading data platform using CitiusTech’s H-Scale on Microsoft Azure to support data-driven performance.”

Gareth Hall, director of business strategy for Worldwide Healthcare at Microsoft said, “Microsoft Azure enabled CitiusTech to deliver a cloud-based enterprise-wide healthcare data management solution. This enabled Sentara to get a holistic view of patient information across their enterprise. CitiusTech H-Scale, combined with Azure, helps customers achieve scale in healthcare data management.”

CitiusTech has further enabled Sentara to leverage aggregated information and generate actionable insights by deploying artificial intelligence and machine learning models at an enterprise scale. This is expected to save approximately $3 million a year through efficiency improvements across the organization.

UL Launches IoT Center of Excellence to Help Innovators Access India and Global Markets

UL, a leading global safety science company, has expanded its Bengaluru facility to help product innovators address compliance and market access challenges in the fast-growing and increasingly complex world of connected devices. The new facility added 12,000-square feet of laboratory space with scope for further expansion, making it one of the most technologically advanced electromagnetic compatibility (EMC), specific absorption rate (SAR), wireless and interoperability testing laboratories in India. The facility, accredited by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL), enables UL to service a diverse range of products for customers across consumer electronics, information technology, mobile and telecommunications, medical devices, industrial products, lighting and appliances industries.

The three key challenges manufacturers and product design companies encounter are efficient global market access, finding EMC and wireless expertise, and speed-to-market for product launches. The new UL facility offers automated data collection, custom-designed test chambers and fast access to technical experts across a multitude of disciplines. The presence of a semi-anechoic chamber provides local product design engineers and developers, a convenient nearby testing facility. Further, the Center of Excellence (CoE) offers global experience and UL experts advise to companies at every step of the product launch process, from designing to preparing for market access, to help ensure compliance to regulations before and during production.

“India is a top priority market for UL. The Bengaluru laboratory expansion combined with UL’s existing global network of laboratories and engineering talent­­ - offers our customers in India a seamless end-to-end service solution with unparalleled technical expertise, helping them navigate risk and enabling greater speed-to-market for their products and solutions,” said Ghislain Devouge, Global Vice President and General Manager Consumer Technology for UL.

“At UL, we strongly endorse the ‘In India, for India’ strategy, and have been regularly investing in building capability and capacity. This IoT CoE will help the market in multiple ways – first, enabling our domestic customers to develop smarter products, meet regulations and supply to the world; second, assisting our global customers to comply with India regulations and seamlessly access the Indian market; and third, giving confidence to the regulators and players in the ecosystem that they can access best-in-class global knowledge, technical expertise, and seamless service locally,” said Suresh Sugavanam, Vice President and Managing Director of South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa for UL.

In today’s interconnected world, manufacturers who add wireless capability to existing products for industrial, consumer and medical applications must meet the complex and varied wireless regulatory requirements, which can differ by the market. Additionally, when regulations change, manufacturers may have to conduct new testing even if their products were already in the market, such as the Indian Telegraph (Amendment) Rules, 2017, Mandatory Testing and Certification of Telecom Equipments (MTCTE). Put in place by the Telecommunication Engineering Center (TEC), a nodal agency under the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), the regulation requires all telecom equipment to undergo mandatory testing and certification before sale or import for use in India. An Indian accredited laboratory designated by the TEC must carry out the testing and based upon its test reports a certificate is issued by the TEC. UL laboratory in Bengaluru is ready to be designated by TEC, and the expanded facility will further help the industry comply with the MTCTE regime.

POCO X2 Recognised as the Highest-Rated Smartphone on Flipkart

POCO, now an independent smartphone brand, announced that its latest smartphone, POCO X2, has become the highest rated smartphone on Flipkart (for smartphones with over 10k user ratings). Launched last month, POCO X2 has emerged as a clear winner with spectacular ratings and reviews from users for its performance, camera and display. POCO X2 seems to have ticked all the boxes, achieving 4.6 rating points (out of 5) with more than 20,000 user ratings as of 13th March, 2020.

POCO X2 is equipped with a display powered by the RealityFlow 120Hz engine -- a category-first. It has a 20:9 tall-body design wrapped around a 3D curved glass body, which enables a large cinematic screen experience of 16.94 cm (6.67 inch). It is also the first smartphone in India to feature the Sony IMX686 camera sensor that can elevate the photography experience of users.

Commenting on this milestone, Manmohan Chandolu, General Manager, POCO India said, “We are ecstatic with this achievement and want to thank all our customers who have been a part of this new-yet-fruitful journey. Since POCO X2’s launch last month, we have received an amazing response from across all categories of users and I am confident that it is just the beginning. We intend to continue the momentum and keep up with the gusto.”

POCO X2 is available via Flipkart.com.

Product images: POCO X2

Availability

POCO X2 will be available in its next sale on 17th March 2020, 12 noon in 6GB + 64GB, 6GB + 128GB and 8GB + 256GB storage variants for INR 15,999, INR 16,999 and INR 19,999 respectively via Flipkart, with an additional instant discount of INR 1,000 on ICICI credit card and EMI transactions.   

About POCO

POCO is an independent brand born out of Xiaomi in India. Its first product, POCO F1 was launched in August 2018, and since January 2020, POCO has become an independent entity. POCO F1 was India's No.1 smartphone in the ‘above INR 15,000 price segment’ in the online smartphone market as per third party statistics. Currently, POCO has an independent product and marketing team, and shares resources from Xiaomi in terms of supply chain, logistics, manufacturing and after sales.

POCO is a consumer technology brand, based on the philosophy of 'Everything you need and nothing you don't' with a key focus on its POCO fans’ requirements. It's built on relentless pursuit of technology which its fans truly need, thus democratizing decision making and continuous product updates to ensure relevance.

TKM Takes Precautionary Measures to Counter the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak

In light of the current outbreak of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) and the fight against the epidemic, Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) has taken preventive measures to safe guard health and safety of all stakeholders including: Customers, Employees, and Dealer Partners. TKM has been closely monitoring the evolving situation and responding appropriately in accordance with guidance issued by the Government.

Commenting on the measures taken by the company, Mr. Naveen Soni, Senior Vice President, Sales and Service, Toyota Kirloskar Motor said, “Our first priority is the health and safety of all our stakeholders. As a committed corporate, we are taking all preventive measures to sustain normal business operations. We have created SOPs internally to maintain normalcy at workplace as well as for our partners ensuring hassle-free customer interface. We are actively responding to the changing market conditions and taking countermeasures wherever required to deal with contingencies that may arise in the future.”

Customer convenience

Keeping safety of the customers in mind, the company is developing a 360 degree vehicle display on its website, helping them take a virtual tour of each vehicle and get a better understanding to make an informed purchase decision.

Some of the key activities include:

o  Website (Test Drive & Price List)
o  e-brochure (Product information)
o  Make My Car (Accessory)
o  T-Connect (Service appointment booking)
o  Test Drive & Vehicle Delivery at customers residence
o  Service pick up and drop

Production Preparedness

The company is continuously monitoring the business operations in the country and taking preventive measures to grasp any challenges that may come forth.

Effective measures at Dealerships

Additionally, Dealer Partners are also being encouraged to take adequate precautions and sanitize all the customer touch points at the dealerships. This will help in effectively countering the virus threat, build customer confidence visiting the dealerships and simultaneously, take care of the employees. Further, virtual tools are being utilized as a key platform to share information, and provide services to the customers, at their convenience.

Employee Safety

In order to maintain good hygiene and build an uncontaminated environment at the workplace, TKM has suspended fingerprint biometric attendance system as a preventive measure. Employees are also being encouraged to maintain social distancing, avoid touching eyes, nose and mouth, practice respiratory hygiene, wash hands more often and stay at home if they see any COVID-19 symptoms. The company has also released strict advisory to minimize domestic and restrict international travel to severely affected regions.

India Leading the World in Moving Apps Back On-Prem From Public Cloud

Indian enterprises are leading the charge when it comes to repatriating public cloud workloads, according to a new global study by enterprise cloud computing leader, Nutanix (NASDAQ: NTNX).

The second annual Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Index report compiled by Vanson Bourne, and commissioned by Nutanix, found that 91% percent of India’s enterprises reported having moved, or plan to move, public apps back on-prem. This compared to 73% globally, and 76% in the APJ region.

The report highlights that Indian enterprises are going through a period of adjustment as their understanding and experience with public cloud matures. Many enterprises now realise that public cloud is not the single solution to their cloud strategy.

As cloud decisions have become more nuanced than simply moving to public cloud to save money on upfront capital costs—those initial returns, though substantial, may not persevere long-term, depending on the nature of the cloud workload, the study finds.

This reflects India’s enthusiasm for hybrid cloud adoption, which offers enterprises cloud mobility and agility as well as the ability to integrate multiple clouds, both public and private. For the second year running, Enterprise Cloud Index respondents have selected hybrid cloud as the ideal IT operating model going forward.

In fact, the report shows 42% of enterprises plan to shift the majority of their IT deployments to hybrid cloud, albeit less than APJ (53.1%) and global (51.74%) averages.

“Cloud mobility is a critical factor, as India’s enterprises embrace digitization and decide where to place their workloads. In this fast-changing digital environment, flexibility and security are essential, and Indian enterprises need the ability to match workloads to the best environment at the time.” said Balakrishnan Anantharaman, VP and MD-Sales, India and SAARC, Nutanix.

“Indian enterprises are seeing hybrid cloud as the ideal IT environment that provides this choice. As more Indian enterprises move away from legacy IT systems and adopt cloud architecture the re-allocation of staff and resources, so they can keep pace with emerging technologies, will become a priority.”

For the second consecutive year, Vanson Bourne has conducted research on behalf of Nutanix to learn about the state of global enterprise cloud computing deployments and plans. In mid-2019, the researcher surveyed 2,650 global IT decision-makers about where they're running their business applications today, where they plan to run them in the future, their challenges with cloud computing, and how their cloud initiatives stack up against other IT projects and priorities.

It highlights key data points gleaned from IT professionals in Indian businesses and how they compare to enterprise cloud experiences and plans in other parts of the Asia Pacific-Japan (APJ) region and the rest of the world.

Other key India findings from the report include:

India relies less on traditional data centres than both APJ and the global average.  Only 42% of Indian respondents reported current usage of traditional data centre deployments. This is more than 10 percentage points lower than the global average (52.79%) and more than 11 percentage points lower than the APJ region (53.67%). Within the region, only Japan ranked lower, which reported the overall lowest traditional datacentre penetration (24%) in the world.
India remains enthusiastic about hybrid cloud but is currently lagging its peers. Although India plans to shift the majority of their IT deployments to hybrid cloud (42%) within the next 3-5 years, the percentage of respondents making this claim is lower than both the APJ (53.11%) and the global average (51.74%). Interestingly, however, Indian IT professionals were almost unanimous in agreement (97%) that hybrid cloud represents the ideal IT operating model.
A higher percentage of Indian enterprises envision all of their workloads in one place. Despite their enthusiasm for hybrid cloud, only 13% of Indian respondents said they envision their workloads distributed across multiple clouds. While 46% of Indian enterprises envision all of their workloads in the public cloud, 38% prefer all workloads running in a private cloud.
Lack of internal IT skills and retaining qualified IT staff are both real concerns for Indian enterprises. Indian respondents reported significantly higher-than-average agreement that their enterprises lack the IT skills to meet business demands or to set up a secure, compliant cloud infrastructure. A majority also reported having difficulty retaining IT talent. That’s likely why 97% of respondents stated that they are investing in reskilling their IT teams to keep pace with emerging technologies—far more than averages in APJ (90.66%) and the world (90.94%).

MultiLiving Raises USD 6 Million from Lodha Ventures; Launches Operations in Mumbai

MultiLiving, a unique real estate platform announced raising USD 6 million from Lodha ventures and the launch of its operations in Mumbai. The platform goes live with an endeavor to make lives easier and enriched for the tenants and homeowners and bringing them together in an ecosystem. A new-age gamechanger, MultiLiving enables tenants to rent curated homes with a personal concierge & added services along with ensuring hassle-free management of assets & steady returns for the homeowners. By creating a rental housing ecosystem through technology, MultiLiving endeavours to streamline the home renting and management situation for urban professionals.

A brainchild of a group of IIM and IIT educated entrepreneurs and real estate veterans, MultiLiving was envisioned and established as a breath of fresh air in the country’s dormant residential real estate market. It intends to eliminate the inefficiencies prevalent in the existing rental system. The platform strives to unlock the enhanced rental value of the extremely large residential real estate segment, thereby enriching the lives of both tenants & homeowners in their respective value chains. It curates apartments from the homeowners, performs the quality check & requisite transformation and offers the homes with built-in services to the potential tenants. That said, the platform delivers smarter solutions for both tenants and owners against the traditional rental model.

Speaking on the revolutionary launch, Mr. Pankaj Singh, CEO & Founder of MultiLiving said, “Life of an urban professional is extremely hectic and the stress of finding and managing a home simply adds up to the burden. MultiLiving is an advanced way of owning and renting out a flat where we take care of everything involved in this space so that individuals can reclaim their time and focus on what truly matters. All our apartments are carefully selected in the niche societies and gated communities. We carefully screen every potential tenant who will love and take care of the home like it was their own. However, the final decision stays with the owner.”

Backed & funded by Lodha Ventures – the family office of Mr. Abhinandan Lodha who is also on the board of advisors, MultiLiving aims to serve proprietors who are owners of premium residential properties by ensuring steady predictable returns from their investments and managing the same for long term. Meanwhile, the platform also serves the new age families who are looking to stay on rent by offering them world-class curated homes with intuitive services to make daily life easy and hassle-free. For the potential tenants, MultiLiving ensures a comfortable and convenient lifestyle, which is beyond the average rented space. All its homes are handpicked basis the location, amenities at the society, condition of the house amongst other parameters. They undergo a thorough 50-step quality check process and are also assigned a dedicated transformation team to deliver the property in a 100% top-notch and ready-to-move-in state. All the homes come with a personal concierge to take care of all the daily chores and housekeeping. Tenants also get access to on-demand services like cooking, party planning, travel booking, etc. All these services are managed and monitored through an easy-to-use app.

Meanwhile, for the property owners, MultiLiving promises regular & steady returns. The platform takes charge of finding the tenants as per owners' choice and assure regular rentals. It handles the entire paperwork and monthly rent collection, promising a hassle-free experience to the asset owners. It also covers the owner's property for any accidental damages, regular maintenance fees or unforeseen expenses through MultiLiving’s exclusive insurance policy, the HomeShield Plan. This means the owner will never have to bother about leaking taps, broken A/Cs or similar troubles. The platform also arranges for urgent repairs and ensures routine check-up at no extra cost.

The real-estate firm currently operates in Mumbai with a limited number of curated flats at some of the most premium locations across Mumbai including Lower Parel, Powai, BKC, Kanjurmarg & Vikhroli.

World Obesity Day - More than 13.5 Cr Indians suffering from Obesity

India is the third most Obese nation with more than 13.5 Cr people suffering from Obesity. Obesity is linked to many other commodities such as heart disease, hypertension, sleep apnea, type 2 diabetes mellitus, infertility and PCOD and so on. Obesity affects the overall quality of life of an individual as well as the productivity of a workforce.

Obesity has been associated with an increase in all-cause mortality rates. According to reports, this disease which has reached epidemic proportions reduces life expectancy by 9 years in women and 12 years in men.

On the occasion of World Obesity Day –March 4, 2020, Bangalore Bariatric club and Realize, a patient awareness digital initiative of Johnson and Johnson Private Limited, has organized an interactive press meet to spread awareness about Obesity and its life-threatening impact on overall health of an individual. Realize has been at the forefront of the multi-city #IndiaFightsObesity campaign in an effort to spread awareness about this epidemic that plagues our country.

The event will bring together leading experts from the field of bariatrics and wellness. The keynote speakers for this conference are India’s leading Obesity experts Dr. Shivaram H V, Dr. Moinoddin G and Dr. Sumit Talwar. They will share insights on the growing epidemic of Obesity in India and some of the treatment options.

Key Messages from the event –
 
Obesity is a disease which needs treatment by an Obesity specialist/expert.

Govt is very serious about tackling this epidemic through Ayushman Bharat and #FitIndiaMovement.

In a major relief for those suffering from obesity-related comorbidities, insurance cover is now provided for obesity treatment as per medical advice. Insurance will cover medically advised treatment as per new IRDAI regulation effective October 2020

Urgent need for steps to counter rampant misinformation about obesity & its treatment

Surgery is one of the proven options for 40+ BMI and 35+ BMI with comorbidities.

Stigma associated with Obesity leads to patients not seeking the right treatment and psychological impacts that includes blaming themselves for the condition

Quotes from KOLs –

Dr. Shivaram H V: Obesity has become a “growing and disturbing health crisis”.

It is the fastest emerging life-risking disease and the mother of all other ailments. The 2019 Lancet Commission report has warned that obesity is the first amongst the three biggest threat to humanity (the other two being under- nutrition and global warming) yet there is no concrete action plan to stop this monster. The global surveys, research and studies have all observed that our physical activity is constantly on the decline whereas the mental activity and stress is continuously on the rise. The food intake is on the rise with abundant calories but there is no provision to burn the excess calories in the body. It is possible only by physical activity. Once obesity sets in all the organs of our body need to overwork and finally, they fail giving rise to diseases.

To save mankind from this disaster called OBESITY there is an urgent need to invent ANTI-OBESITY VACCINE, and the government and professional bodies need to work together to achieve this.

Dr. Moinoddin G: The adverse effects of obesity on women's health is overwhelming and indisputable.

Obesity in young women has seen steep increase in trend, 1 in 10 adolescent girls and young women in India are suffering from Polycystic ovarian disease, leading to many related issues such as delay in menstrual cycle or no menses and hirsutism features. Weight reduction can help these young women in reversing the health issues to a great extent. If they are slightly overweight, they can go ahead with diet and life style Modifications and exercise but if their BMI goes above 32.5 then we have key hole surgery option for treating their obesity and related issues.

Dr. Sumit Talwar: People who are obese are at high risk of developing diabetes.

He strongly points out that Obesity and diabetes are closely related. Shockingly, 25% of obese people are diabetics compared to 5% of the general population. There is strong and consistent evidence that losing weight can delay progression from prediabetes to type 2 diabetes and is beneficial in the treatment of type 2 diabetes.