29-Dec-15 The Chilean company AccuHealth, a pioneer in virtual clinical hospitals, has joined the Business Call to Action (BCtA) with a patient-centric telemonitoring service designed to improve the health and livelihoods of chronically ill patients at an affordable cost. By 2020, AccuHealth aims to serve 200,000 chronically ill patients living at the base of the economic pyramid in Chile. [image: Business Call To Action]

28-Dec-15 Russia plans to allow drugstore chains to sell medicines via the Internet as of 1-Jan-17. "This type of selling the drugs will be accessible to all customers with access to the Internet and cover all the groups of medicines, except narcotics and psychotropic substances," the government press service said. [image: Retail & Loyalty]

15-Dec-15 Japan's government will begin developing a new communications service to facilitate the transportation of patients to core hospitals in times of disaster. The move comes after it was found that many core disaster medical centers were not equipped with satellite data communications systems, potentially causing problems if they had to accept patients after a major disaster. [image: The Yomiuri Shimbun]

14-Dec-15 Chinese consumers spent RMB65 bn (USD10 bn) buying medicines, healthcare products and services on Alibaba’s Chinese retail sites in 2014, up 63% from a year earlier. In addition, sales of nursing care services grew 205% on Singles’ Day, while sales of health insurance increased 432% on Alibaba’s sites, including the huge Taobao and Tmall marketplaces. [image: International Supermarket News]

11-Dec-15 Singapore will seek to improve healthcare accessibility for patients, and promote innovation in medical technology, the Minister for Trade and Industry has said. To boost healthcare accessibility, he said the healthcare workforce has to grow by 50% by 2020. Singapore will also add at least 1,700 acute beds and double the number of community hospital beds to 3,000. [image: APACMed]