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(Dublin, IRELAND) — Today, Betterhealth Global Holdings Ltd and Special Olympics officially announced their global five-year partnership at a reception held at the Stillorgan Park Hotel, Dublin, Ireland. This exclusive partnership is a major advance for Special Olympics, enabling real-time electronic management of athlete medical information from around the world. This integrated system is replacing a set of individual, non-real-time databases that Special Olympics has used in the past.
The roots of the partnership were established informally during the 2002 World Summer Special Olympics Pre-Games in Dublin. Betterhealth Global staff visited the Special Olympics Healthy Athletes® screening area and noted the need for an electronic information collection process. This past June, Health Ireland Partners (HIP), a subsidiary of Betterhealth Global (Europe), created the software and database HEALTH one to manage medical incidents for all participating athletes, coaches, the 30,000 volunteers and spectators of the 2003 Special Olympics World Summer Games held in Dublin, Ireland. They also created the Healthy Athletes Software System (HASS), derived from their Integrated Care Manager, as an information system supporting the Special Olympics Healthy Athletes program. HASS integrates health screening data from various disciplines and makes individual athlete and group data available on the spot as necessary.
“A global technology partner of this caliber is exciting for Special Olympics,” said Timothy P. Shriver, Special Olympics Chairman and CEO. “As our Movement continues to grow and further benefit the lives of individuals with intellectual disabilities, we need the kind of state-of-the-art databases and software systems that Betterhealth Global can provide.”
This Special Olympics Healthy Athletes database will be the largest investigatory database for people with intellectual disabilities in the world, capturing information on the free health screenings offered by Special Olympics to its athletes during Games. In the nine days of the 2003 World Games, for example, the results of 10,000 screenings were recorded, several thousand by clinicians using HP iPAQ handheld over a secure wireless network, directly into the database. On a broader scale, given the diversity and variable access to technology around the world, the HASS has been designed to accept athlete screening information from hundreds of annual events at all levels, regardless of the level of sophistication of the data input method, from paper forms on up.
The Healthy Athletes database will continue to be used at the 2005 Special Olympic World Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, and the 2007 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Shanghai, China, and, eventually, will extend to capture information on all Special Olympics athletes who experience any Healthy Athletes screening.
Dr Stan Shepherd, Chairman of Betterhealth Global Holdings, sums up the feelings of everyone at BHG when he says “Delivering the software solution to Special Olympics Healthy Athletes for secure, worldwide operation across the Internet is an exciting opportunity and one that is unique in our field. We can think of no more rewarding place to put all our best talents and energies than Special Olympics. Special Olympics delivers what others only talk about.”
About Betterhealth Global
Betterhealth Global Holdings (BHG) is an international group providing medical software solutions that are evidence based, community focused, outcome driven and proven. BHG enables shared care locally, regionally and nationally to improve clinical outcomes significantly. BHG brings unity and consistency to fragmented healthcare communities without inhibiting the variable needs of healthcare professionals. BHG enables communities to deliver the most clinically effective and cost effective care to achieve the outcomes they want and that meets the needs of all the stakeholders in healthcare — patients, healthcare professionals, purchasers, providers, funders, insurers, planners, suppliers, government and politicians.
Betterhealth Global Europe Ltd (BHGE) is an Irish company based in Dublin and Arklow. From here development is managed for BHG products in 11 countries namely France, Belgium, Portugal, Switzerland, UK, Canada, USA, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and in Ireland where BHGE owns Health Ireland Partners one of Ireland’s leading providers of software for General Practitioners. Visit http://www.betterhealthglobal.com/ or http://www.bhgeurope.com/.
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