IBM has recently patented a system of reward in hard cash for those who consume healthy foods. The patent, entitled “providing consumers with incentives for healthy eating habits,” aims to reduce the indirect costs that companies have when employees are off for health reasons (in many cases due to inadequate nutrition) and encourage people to be healthier in general.

For example, if your mid-morning office snack is an apple, you get points. But if you eat chocolates or ice cream, you will get nothing. Likewise, if you eat a midday meal of vegetables and grilled chicken instead of a hamburger, you accumulate more points that turn into money.

The invention has its roots in technology. The person uses a micro payment network system to buy food, and the system will then monitor the purchase against the person’s health record. If the employee ordered a healthy food choice, then the automated system will generate a reward program on the employer’s payroll server.

The automated process also relates back to health insurance companies and FDA servers to gain data about policy changes and food products.

In this way, the program encourages people to change their eating habits and making healthy behavior a routine part of their lives. In fact, this program has already been tested in previous years for people to try to stop smoking, and the results were amazing.

This is a win-win situation for IBM. They claim the investment that companies can implement turn key, and employees all around can work towards getting in good physical shape.

Microsoft and GE Join Hands for Healthcare

IBM is not the only IT provider who has jumped to healthcare data initiatives. Recently Microsoft and GE join hands to develop and sell open source software that allows the unification and sharing of patient information. The deal promises to help storing, accessing and sharing patient information within and outside hospitals.

To put into practice a longing for companionship, special programs will be established. Both the companies will concentrate on the following main lines:

Healthcare Information, software designed to connect data in health treatment;

Clinical Surveillance, Protocol helps to understand the best way to solve the problem of patients in real time;

Management of Population Health, a program designed to identify patient groups;

Transaction patient within the hospital, a program focused on understanding the patient’s passage in different areas of the health unit,

Hospital Readmission, a system that identifies whether or not the patient returns to hospital.

New Health Tech

A recent study from University of Missouri and TigerPlace stated motion sensing devices like Microsoft Kinect can be used to identify possible illnesses by looking at behavioral patterns and routine alterations.

Cisco on the other hand is working with Government and industry to transform the delivery of healthcare through 21st-century technology. Cisco Care-at-a-Distance Solutions in the Middle East and Africa region are transforming healthcare by providing a new access model that enables patients to easily connect with the best clinician for their specific condition, regardless of patient or clinician’s location.