" ITREALMS: Rao honoured with Siemens scientist of the year

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Rao honoured with Siemens scientist of the year

Siemens AG President and CEO Dr. Klaus Kleinfeld recently presented an “Inventor of the Year” award to senior director, Engineering Research Development, Computer-Aided Diagnosis and Therapy Group, Siemens Medical Solutions, Dr. Bharat R. Rao.

Dr. Rao was recognized for his pioneering work in developing an automated data collection and analysis tool known as Reliable Extraction and Meaningful Inference from Nonstructured Data (REMIND), which enables caregivers to utilize disparate healthcare information to personalize patient care plans and enhance patient outcomes.

“Much of the data in the healthcare system is not in a format that could be readily accessed or applied at the point of care,” said Dr. Rao, who cited an example with the key clinical information, saying in clinics, “information is stored as written text in patient records, discharge summaries, progress notes and radiology reports”.

Without requiring any manual entry or change in workflow, REMIND, he explained integrates patient data with medical information and current treatment guidelines, and through a sophisticated algorithm, “REMIND then analyzes the data and extracts key nuggets of information that will help clinicians make more informed treatment decisions”.

This information, according to Donna Picciocchi in a press statement made available to ITRealms Online, could be utilized for applications such as alerts, case management, and adherence to treatment guidelines.

Dr. Rao’s vision, as said by Picciocchi, is to organize the vast amount of diagnostic images, patient records, best practices and treatment outcomes to help personalize care.

He also said, REMIND will provide ways to review years of data to find patterns of treatment, as well as identify people eligible for clinical trials.

“We are not replacing the doctor with computer-aided diagnosis. The word ‘aided’ is specifically important in healthcare. We’ve come to accept that other aspects of our lives, such as the cars we drive or the airplanes we travel in, will have some elements controlled by computers, but it is much harder to accept that computers can assist doctors so that they can provide better, more accurate care,” Dr. Rao enlightened.

President, Siemens Medical Solutions United States of America (USA)
Tom McCausland, Siemens recognition is given to one of most important competitive advantages the employees made to help the company to continuously maintain the tradition of innovation and with REMIND, Dr. Rao has developed a tool that will have a positive impact on the healthcare industry, and deliver significant advantages to our customers.

“Siemens has been a leader in developing healthcare information technology solutions for over 30 years, and we intend to maintain that leadership position into the future. Now with the global push for electronic health records, we will continue to deliver innovative tools that make implementation of these solutions seamless and beneficial to healthcare providers,” he said.

McCausland also said that REMIND has been successfully rolled out to a number of healthcare facilities and could be applied at all levels of complexity, from simple practice administration to patient management systems in large clinics, even as it is currently deployed across multiple disease areas for more than five million patients in the United States.

Dr. Rao received his undergraduate training from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, in his native India, and then earned master’s and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, the doctorate focusing on machine learning.

Siemens Medical Solutions of Siemens AG with headquarters in Malvern, Pennsylvania and Erlangen, Germany, is one of the largest suppliers to the healthcare industry in the world.


The company is known for bringing together innovative medical technologies, healthcare information systems, management consulting, and support services, to help customers achieve tangible, sustainable, clinical and financial outcomes.

Employing 430,000 people in 192 countries, Siemens AG has submitted more than 8,800 invention reports and 5,700 patent applications in the past fiscal year alone. Overall, Siemens holds a total of 53,000 patents.

Since 1995, the “Inventor of the Year” award has been presented every year to 12 Siemens’ employees for outstanding contributions to improving the technical expertise and the economic success of the company.

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