IBM's Chairman, President and CEO Samuel J. Palmisano has launched a major initiative to bring IBM's global information technology services expertise and capabilities to China.

As part of that initiative, Palmisano announced that IBM will work with the Ministry of Education to introduce a services science curriculum within Chinese universities. IBM will also coordinate development of a pilot program with the Ministry of Health to use information technology to improve the quality of regional medical services throughout the country.

A Memorandum of Understanding between IBM and the Ministry of Education will lead to the creation of a new academic discipline within Chinese Universities: Services Science, Management & Engineering (SSME). Through case studies of real businesses and scientific programs, particularly in information technology and business services, the new curriculum will focus on the issues involved in aligning people and technology for both services providers and services clients.

The goal of SSME is to create a services sector that can develop and implement technological applications to help businesses, government agencies and other organizations improve what they do and tap into completely new areas of opportunity. This requires a thorough understanding of how to create and deliver reusable assets so that services engagements can be more easily replicated and more effectively delivered. This new field brings together computer science, operations research, industrial engineering, business strategy, management sciences, social and cognitive sciences, and legal sciences to develop the skills required in a services-led economy.

The agreement is the latest in a series between the Ministry of Education and IBM China dating from 1995 to cooperate on development of an information technology and skills training curriculum within Chinese institutions of higher education. Thus far, more than 300,000 students have been trained in IBM-related technology courses.

The Ministry of Education and IBM hope to initiate an SSME curriculum within two to three years at 50 leading universities across the country. IBM will share knowledge, teach skills, furnish case studies and teaching materials and conduct joint research with the universities. As it trains faculty members, it will introduce teaching materials and best practices from its operations around the world.

IBM also will organize international and domestic academic conferences to share information with Chinese researchers and teachers. The first such session will begin November 30 when IBM will co-host the 2006 Asia Pacific Symposium on Services Science, Management and Engineering with Tsinghua University in Beijing. More than 200 researchers and professionals from government, academia and industry will discuss issues and share their insight, research and experiences in the areas of services science, management, engineering, solutions, education and policy.

IBM and the Ministry of Health will also collaborate over the next four years to improve regional healthcare systems through the creation of a common information technology platform based on open standards and SOA to share clinical information among health care institutions. Education and training programs also will be developed.

With this project, IBM will bring the technology, business thought leadership and industry standards to create new processes and workflows to drive better outcomes, lower costs and encourage a more patient-centric approach to healthcare. This will lead to the integration of information, which is imperative to help deliver improved patient care. By sharing the same software and hardware environments and information service standards, regional hospitals will be able to share patient information in a secure environment.

The common information technology platform will capture all aspects of medical services delivery at hospitals, including physician diagnostic and treatment notes. The platform will provide basic data and technical support for the construction and optimization of systems for the management, monitoring, analysis and evaluation of medical services.

Once the common IT platform is built, pilot programs will be conducted in selected regions. Medical institution managers will use the platform to analyze data and improve the overall quality of management. Medical workers will use the platform to analyze clinical data to improve clinical research. Compliance with established diagnostic and treatment practices will help prevent and reduce incorrect diagnoses and ineffective treatment of patients.

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