24-Nov-14 Malaysia’s Deputy Health Minister has said the infrastructure and culture of the country’s healthcare needs to be re-engineered to deliver better services to its people, in the face of complexity caused by changing disease patterns and reform initiatives. The government is supporting health research by making it a national agenda. [image: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas]

23-Nov-14 A Chinese health official has said that Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) will take a bigger role in medical reform in future as it has certain advantages in both prevention and care. In 2013, China’s TCM output was over USD91 billion, one third of the country’s medicine industry. [image: China Daily Europe]

18-Nov-14 Singapore-based RingMD has launched its first app, designed to connect patients anywhere in the world to doctors anywhere in the world. The platform currently has about 100 doctors, mostly in Singapore, who currently mainly see patients from Southeast Asia. Besides the international focus, what sets RingMD apart is a marketplace approach to virtual care. [image: MobiHealthNews]

Nov-14 Health services in the Arabian Gulf region are at a crossroads. Despite heavy investment in new hospitals, the rise in non-communicable diseases cannot be halted unless there is a whole systems approach. The region will either follow a route of reactive medicine and spiralling costs, or a preventative one, adopting technology to change the way care is delivered in the community. [image: Arab Health Magazine]

18-Nov-14 In March 2014, the Indian government started a pilot of 4,250 Swasthya Slates in six districts of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The health kits allow doctors to diagnose and advise patients remotely, through telemedicine via technologies such as Skype and FaceTime, helping to prevent lifestyle diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular illness. [image: VentureBeat]