The acquisition of Global Care Solutions (GCS) gives Microsoft's Health Care Solutions Group an integrated hospital and clinical management product that is likely to play a major role in Microsoft's healthcare strategy outside the United States.

Integrated Hospital Management

GCS, based in Bangkok, Thailand, initially developed its software for Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok, eventually building about 50 modules that cover patient intake, registration, scheduling, bed selection, order entry, pharmacy, radiology, inventory management, accounts payable, general ledger, and other aspects of hospital administration and management. The company has since sold the product to six other hospitals, including a three-hospital group in Singapore.

The software is built entirely on the Microsoft platform, including the .NET Framework, and uses a single SQL Server database for all modules, ensuring that patient data entered through any module is available through any other module. It is capable of handling high patient loads, Microsoft says: Bumrungrad, a privately owned hospital, sees more than 1.2 million patients from 190 countries each year, about one-third of them from outside Thailand.

Microsoft says the software has a number of other advantages:

• Built-in multilanguage support, for use in different countries or countries that use numerous languages
• Business rules capabilities that can be used to meet specific local requirements, such as ensuring that a patient's blood is drawn by someone of the same gender, which is mandatory for some religious communities
• Compatibility with common interoperability standards, such as HL7 (a protocol for exchanging healthcare data)
• Compatibility with current hospital accreditation agencies in the United States and other countries. (Bumrungrad was the first hospital in Asia to be accredited according to standards set by the U.S.-based Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.)

Aimed at Emerging Markets, Governments

The GCS software will complement Microsoft's 2006 purchase of Azyxxi, software developed at the Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C. Azyxxi integrates data from multiple existing clinical systems. Consequently, Microsoft will sell Azyxxi to healthcare organizations that already have advanced management software (typically in countries with mature health delivery systems), while selling GCS in emerging markets.

The GCS software is well-suited for countries with government-funded healthcare systems, where common management software and data schemas can offer significant efficiencies. Currently, this software market is highly fragmented, with no clear leader. Eventually, the GCS software could be integrated with Microsoft's HealthVault offering, which stores patient records online, where they can be accessed quickly by healthcare providers.

GCS employees will join Microsoft's Health Care Solutions Group. Microsoft has also signed an agreement with the Bumrungrad Hospital, which will serve as a development site for the software. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The Azyxxi purchase was described in "Healthcare Software Expansion" on page 15 of the Sept. 2006 Update.

Health Vault was described in "HealthVault to Share Patient Data" on page 36 of the Nov. 2007 Update.