As enterprise supply chains and consumer demand chains have beome globalized, they continue to inefficiently share information “one-up/one-down”. Profound "bullwhip effects" in the chains cause managers to scramble with inventory shortages and consumers attempting to understand product recalls, especially food safety recalls. Add to this the increasing usage of personal mobile devices by managers and consumers seeking real-time information about products, materials and ingredient sources. The popularity of mobile devices with consumers is inexorably tugging at enterprise IT departments to shifting to apps and services. But both consumer and enterprise data is a proprietary asset that must be selectively shared to be efficiently shared.
About Steve Holcombe
Unless otherwise noted, all content on this company blog site is authored by Steve Holcombe as President & CEO of Pardalis, Inc. More profile information:
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An online food safety information site for consumers and those working in the area has been set up by the White House Food Safety Working Group.
The group's charge:
To have safe food that does not cause us harm and to enhance our food safety systems by fostering coordination throughout the government including enhancing our food safety laws for the 21st century. These laws will be designed to keep the American people safe and will be enforced.
The group's commitment:
To modernize food safety by building collaborative partnerships with consumers, industry and our regulatory partners. Through a transparent process, build a food safety system that will meet the challenges posed by a global food supply in the 21st century.
Here's an excerpt from the New York Times article published 17 January 2009:
President-elect Barack Obama’s plan to link up doctors and hospitals with new information technology, as part of an ambitious job-creation program, is imperiled by a bitter, seemingly intractable dispute over how to protect the privacy of electronic medical records ....
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island ... [says] electronic medical records could be more secure than paper records.
"If the files are electronic," Mr. Whitehouse said, "computers can record every time someone has access to your medical information."But, he said, the challenge is political as well as technical.
"Until people are more confident about the security of electronic medical records," Mr. Whitehouse said, "it’s vitally important that we err on the side of privacy."*
[I orginally published this entry on 15 April 2008. I am re-publishing with the addition of a relevant video published 5 Dec 2008 by the Lou Dobbs Show].
The Economist.com published this on April 10th with an interesting reference to the safety of toys (given the toy product example I am using in my multi-entry Data Portability, Traceability and Data Ownership blog).
[An area] where mobile technology is beginning to have a big impact is health care, especially in poor countries. In South Africa people can text their location to a number and get an instant reply with the nearest clinic testing for HIV. HealthyToys.org, founded by a parental advocacy group and two American organisations, lets concerned parents text in the name of a toy they are considering buying in a shop and instantly reports back with information about lead or other toxins that may have been found in it. Soon mobile technology could play a large role in detecting, mapping and responding to epidemics. A lot of information about a recent polio outbreak in Kenya became available because health workers were using hand-held devices to collect data that used to be recorded on paper forms.
The following excerpt is from an article reported on December 2, 2008 in FoodProductionDaily.Com:
The not-for-profit US consumer advocacy group, Consumers Union (CU), claims that while the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) new report on its current food safety activities shows some progress, it is not enough to adequately protect the American food supply.
As reported on August 26, 2008 by Health Content Advisors, a division of InfoCommerce Group:
Earlier this year, Steve Case used the phrase “not for the faint of heart” to describe the environment for producers of online consumer health sites. By now, most readers of this blog have heard that Revolution Health is on the block. Also, we learned last week that Xoova, a shining star among health 2.0 companies just a year ago, has quietly shut down.
These events point to a more widespread shakeout in online consumer
health sites. We’re not predicting a collapse in online consumer
healthcare resources; the long-term outlook is still very positive.
However, some companies in the most crowded, undifferentiated and
geographically dispersed segments (e.g., sites for rating
practitioners, general health and wellness sites, and social media
sites where patients share experiences) will fail and some will
consolidate. It’s a fairly predictable outcome as this hot new market
matures ....
Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 9:35AM 