MOSCOW – Healthcare in the United States has its own myriad, manifest and much-discussed problems. But they're nothing compared to those afflicting the primitive and limited systems in many other parts of the world.

 

"The healthcare system is far from perfect here in Russia," says Arjan de Jongste, CEO & Area Manager Philips Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Central Asia. Speaking by Skype from Moscow, he points out how the "quantity and sophistication" of healthcare is lacking, especially when it comes to "the install base of basic diagnostic equipment."

 

So Philips recently partnered with the Grant Life Foundation, outfitting a new Children’s Oncology complex in Moscow with an array of imaging equipment. The firm provided its Achieva 3.0T X-series MRI at a discount, and it donated several other scanners and ultrasound systems that are meant to be child-friendly for frightened young patients.

 

de Jongste says the gifts "fit with our philosophy of moving away from just being an equipment supplier," and toward taking more of an active role in helping take foreign healthcare systems "to a level where it can really make a difference to the country as a whole."

 

Philips also sees deals like these as a way of growing its markets, of course. But by establishing so-called “knowledge bridges” with emerging markets such as Russia, helping facilitate the exchange of shared clinical expertise, it's clearly a good thing for world healthcare.

 

There's a hunger for knowledge in fast-evolving countries like Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (collectively, BRICS), too. As was proven in a Manhattan Research report from May, which showed higher-than-usual use of social networking among docs in those countries, "where physicians are still hungry for clinical information and peer knowledge," according to Monique Levy, VP of research at Manhattan Research.

 

Philips has done similar projects in other countries, too, like one announced in March, in which it donated ultrasound equipment, training and research funding to Uganda through the Imaging the World (ITW) organization.

 

"In the end, every country, whether it's government or it's private, deals with the same dilemmas," says de Jongste. And when Philips looks at areas around the world, "we see a lot of solutions which are developed, and have been developed, in mature countries – or are being developed in developing countries like China and India – which are sort of inspiration on bringing across to a country like Russia."

 

Developing countries are happy for the help. "They realize that international companies have this vast experience," says de Jongste, "and are very eager to learn and work with international companies."

Ravi Amble is CEO of San Jose-based TeleVital, which has installed telemedicine technology from Elko, Nev. to upstate New York. And while he says "our best work is right here at home," he has also seen to it that his firm helps out with projects around the world.

 

These include a mobile surgical unit in Ecuador, where a TeleVital uplink helped "save the life of a patient undergoing a gallbladder operation," and in India, where, by "transmitting the vital signs of victims to specific super-specialty hospitals on the mainland," its technology "saved the lives of thousands" after the 2004 tsunami.

 

Indeed, TeleVital has its remote healthcare monitoring installation in every state in India today, says Amble: "550 installations, and growing," connecting large hospitals to more than 500 rural clinics.

 

By "virtue of our success in India," he says, TeleVital was awarded work on a pan-African e-health project, "where we are solely responsible for setting up a telemedicine network amongst the 53 countries in Africa."

Indeed, telehealth "has not only shown an increase in its demand in the U.S., Europe and Japan, but also in emerging and lucrative markets, such as India, China and other South Asian countries," said Frost & Sullivan analyst Arjunvasan Ambigapathy. "The development of new technologies and availability of sufficient funding from government agencies and venture capital firms has stoked growth," he added.

 

That's one reason Qualcomm, alongside Lexington, Mass.-based Click Diagnostics, saw it as worthwhile to partner with the Egyptian telecom firm Mobinil, in April, helping launch a teledermatology pilot to help enable dermatologists use the latter's 3G mobile network to diagnose skin conditions remotely.

 

From imaging in Russia to telehealth in India and China to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where GE Global Research recently announced it would be opening a new site in 2012, health IT companies are increasingly finding their way to the world's fastest developing countries.

 

That's good for the citizens of those countries, and, ultimately, for the entire world. As Patricia Abbott, associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health, told an audience at HIMSS11 earlier this year, IT has vast potential to help improve global health – indeed, its promise might be for naught if it's only ever "thought of in purely western terms.”