December 13th, 2007
A better way to track equipment with a better name needed
Skytron, a medical equipment company, and Clinical Engineering Consultants, a re-seller, are teaming up to build a Web portal for tracking the performance and ownership costs of medical equipment.
It’s a great idea but they’re going to have to work on the name.
The portal product is called Helios Technology Management, but there is already a Helios in the air traffic control area, and a HELIOS Kliniken offering health care in Germany, along with a Helios Software.
The underlying technology is called BEAMworks, but there’s a Beamworks in circuit board assembly, another renting lighting and audio gear, and Terravox produces a software product under that name.
The idea appears sound, and the partners seem to have the skills needed to pull it off. Skytron has product knowledge, CEC has management knowledge, and there are many fine software products on which to base the technology.
The name problem was a running gag in Tom Stoppard’s Oscar-winning screenplay for Shakespeare in Love. The playwright’s best names mainly came from other people.
Whether hospitals fall in love with this has yet to be seen, but they might want to take one bit of advice from another part of the art world.
Make certain it scales.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist since 1978, and has covered technology since 1982. He launched the Interactive Age Daily, the first daily coverage of the Internet to launch with a magazine, in September 1994. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
Subscribe to ZDNet Healthcare via Email alerts or RSS.
