Latest News
June 2011
ii4sm suggests Swiss healthcare semantic standards for nation-wide health information exchange
ii4sm - together with the University of Applied Sciences in Geneva and the University of Applied Sciences for Western Switzerland in Sierre - has a mandate from the Swiss Coordination Office for eHealth ("eHealth Suisse") to suggest nation-wide healthcare semantic standards empowering the health information exchange between stakeholders and establishing a new dimension of care practice and interoperability between regions in Switzerland.
The basic unit for the architecture of the medical system, the Electronic Health Record (EHR), contains the primary information needed for data exchange and integration. Within the context of the EHR it is key to be able to structure information produced by various diagnostic, therapeutic (pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic) and care-related information originating from health care professionals (general practitioners, specialists, nurses, physiotherapists, pharmacists, nutritionists, etc..)
In the context of this important and challenging task, "eHealth Suisse" has created a work package composed of ii4sm and the University of Applied Sciences in Geneva as well as the University of Applied Sciences for Western Switzerland in Sierre to define standards for semantic interoperability and architecture for the healthcare data exchange.
“We are very proud to support "eHealth Suisse" in the definition of semantic interoperability standards for Switzerland and are convinced that compliance to such standards by all involved healthcare stakeholders will generate massive healthcare costs savings and improve patient care and safety. The "eHealth Suisse" lead as coordination organ between Swiss regions and the Swiss Confederation is key for the success of this important healthcare project ”, says Dr. Dominik Aronsky, CTO at ii4sm.
March 2011
ii4sm announces CSI Platform for healthcare and life sciences
The International Institute for the Safety of Medicines Ltd. (ii4sm) is proud to announce the launch of its patent-pending Computable Semantics and Interoperability (CSI) software Platform for the healthcare and life sciences sectors. This unique Platform enables unambiguous and context-rich information exchange, integration and analysis as well as computer-based decision support of healthcare and life sciences data in an unprecedented way.
“The Platform is used to build and power Smart Health Applications – by ii4sm or its clients – generating substantial cost reductions while improving technical, scientific and medical benefits for the pharmaceutical industry, payers, providers, regulators and ultimately patients”, says Dr. Roland Haag, CEO of ii4sm.
ii4sm’s Platform and Smart Health Applications are ideally positioned to make a real difference, as confirmed by US and EU expert reports mentioning the “Lack of a platform for innovative applications, … open and robust platform for software developers to build applications to improve data entry processes, provide decision support, or other functionality” and the fact that “… semantic interoperability is the key factor for realizing a wide range of expected benefits from the implementation of eHealth infrastructures and applications” (President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology report, December 2010 and eHealth Strategies report, January 2011, respectively).
Improving healthcare efficiency with innovative IT solutions is key to curbing spiraling costs. As an example, the US could save about $78 billion annually (source) with the adoption of efficient, meaningful and context-rich information exchange. There is a declared need for better communication, especially for the automated exchange of contextual patient data, and for avoidance of the current ambiguity in medical terms.
The CSI Platform applies innovative ontology-driven information models that maintain the context of life science and healthcare data across applications in a system-independent way. The CSI Platform captures data within context and allows powerful reasoning capabilities, supporting a flexible, scalable, easily configurable and low-maintenance software development environment.
The Platform and its Applications provide the following technical, medical, and business benefits:
- Dramatically reduced costs in healthcare and life sciences, thanks to efficient applications in drug development, drug safety, providers and payers operations, etc., strongly automating processes and extracting value from context-rich data
- Computer-based decision support enabled by cutting edge semantics infrastructure
- Reduced time and effort to develop custom applications; greatly reduced costs to maintain, adapt, and enhance applications after initial deployment
- Better compliance with standards, higher security and less upgrading effort due to configuration vs. customization benefits
- Interoperability among applications resulting in highly efficient health information exchange
- Innovative machine-based data interpretation / reasoning; context-rich reporting and analysis through structured representation of information
“The advantages of innovative computable semantics on the way to real interoperability among IT systems within and between companies, public institutions, and other stakeholders will benefit the exchange of context-rich data to generate new knowledge, perform powerful analyses, and empower computer-based decision support”, says Dr. Dominik Aronsky, CTO of ii4sm.
To learn more about the Platform and its Applications or to schedule a demonstration please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . For more information on ii4sm and its product portfolio, please visit the website.
February 2011
ii4sm joins Tata Consultancy Services’ Co-Innovation Network (COIN™)
The International Institute for the Safety of Medicines Ltd (ii4sm) is pleased to announce that it has joined forces with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) by entering the TCS Co-Innovation Network (COIN™). TCS an IT services, business solutions and outsourcing organization that delivers real results to global businesses, ensuring a level of certainty no other firm can match, has selected ii4sm as its partner under its TCS COIN™ initiative.
“COIN™ is an ecosystem for emerging technologies and high-tech business collaboration; it perfectly suits the innovative character of ii4sm’s activities, such as our computable semantics interoperability platform (CSI) that we are launching this month in the healthcare and life sciences market”, says Dr. Roland Haag, CEO of ii4sm.
TCS’ Co-Innovation Network (COIN™) is a rich and diverse network that provides value to its customers within the entire technology landscape. It is a network that connects several players, small and big, in the technology landscape creates true synergies in the innovation space. Read more information on the COIN™ initiative.
TCS's Innovation Labs attract the best talent as they are equipped with best in class infrastructure, and well networked with external academia and industry experts, to provide an environment that is conducive to harbouring sophisticated research. They explore leading-edge technologies and networks in collaboration with best-of-breed institutions to understand innovative and disruptive ideas. Over the past years, these labs have worked with its COINTM partners to develop path-breaking ideas, many of which have been successfully transformed into solutions for internal and commercial use.
“We are very proud of the fact that TCS selected our company to join its COIN™ program, an offer that is only extended to a small number of candidate companies. Through this cooperation we look forward to enrich our product portfolio of cutting-edge solutions in the fields of clinical development, drug safety and other domains in life sciences and healthcare. TCS will enable us to further increase the medical and economic value realized by our CSI platform and its new-generation smart health applications”, concludes Dr. Haag.
A part of the Tata Group, India’s largest industrial conglomerate, TCS has over 186,500 of the world's best trained IT consultants in 42 countries. The Company generated consolidated revenues of over US $6.3 billion for fiscal year ended 31 March 2010 and is listed on the National Stock Exchange and Bombay Stock Exchange in India. For more information, visit www.tcs.com
October 2010
Kinapse selected by European Medicines Agency to provide EudraVigilance data management services
Kinapse announced today that it has been selected through a European open procurement procedure to provide data management services to the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The estimated contract value is € 6,500,000.
The scope of the agreed framework contract covers detection and management of duplicate Individual Case Safety Reports (ICSRs), manual recoding of medicinal product information contained in the ICSRs, data validation and cleaning of medicinal product information in the EVMPD, quality control of ICSRs and translation of case narratives in ICSRs.
Andy Black, Kinapse Chief Executive Officer commented “We are delighted that the EMA has entrusted Kinapse to successfully deliver this critical priority. We will be making every effort, in close collaboration with the EMA, to enhance the quality of the data residing within EudraVigilance over the next four years. This contract enables Kinapse to play an important role in supporting the enhancement of pharmacovigilance across the European Union and globally, together with our delivery partners the International Institute for the Safety of Medicines (ii4sm), QSI and RWS Translation Services.”
“We are very pleased that we have been chosen to provide pharmacovigilance expert consulting and quality assurance services to EMA in collaboration with Kinapse” said Dr. Roland Haag, CEO ii4sm. “This important contract is a recognition for ii4sm as a comprehensive provider of specialized safety services for the life sciences sector.’’
Kinapse Ltd.
About Kinapse
Kinapse provides consulting and outsourcing services to the global life sciences industries. Our clients include many of the world’s leading pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device and specialty pharmaceutical companies, government organisations and life sciences service providers. Kinapse specialises in addressing the challenges of life sciences. We understand the complex issues faced throughout the life sciences value chain and offer innovative insights, advice and service delivery to our clients.
August 2010
ii4sm and CIOMS/WHO collaborate on the Global Vaccine Safety Blueprint Project
WHO launched the Global Vaccine Safety Blueprint Project, a new initiative that aims at developing a concerted approach for a global, regional and country level vaccine safety assessment and response system. This project addresses best practices and governance in providing support on vaccine safety for countries with emerging economies.
In most countries, the vaccine licensing process includes a requirement for manufacturers to communicate serious Adverse Events Following Immunization (AEFIs) captured through their notification systems. Regulators and Industry are extremely interested to improve on the availability of vaccine safety information, in particular through the Public Sector, in order to optimize vaccine utilization.
With support from the CIOMS/WHO working group on vaccines pharmacovigilance, ii4sm is analyzing current Industry practices and expectations from large vaccine manufacturers - six of them are worldwide established companies and the other six are large manufacturers active in countries with emerging economies.
ii4sm is providing analysis services from vaccine post-marketing surveillance data, highlighting the information flow between manufacturers, immunization programs and regulatory authorities and suggesting collaboration models between the Public Sector and the Industry. ii4sm is also analyzing potential risks and suggesting preventive actions which will be summarized in a report for the WHO/CIOMS scientific committee.