Healthcare First Look at technologies that will vitalize life sciences
In their rush to solve pressing problems with new IT applications, life sciences CIOs risk missing the business opportunities inherent in deploying five maturing technologies.

1. RFID will track every last drug. Wal-Mart has led the RFID charge, and now it's time for life sciences companies to embrace the technology and its potential to address counterfeiting, theft, and re-importation. With RFID standards development progressing, Forrester expects mainstream adoption by life sciences firms to lift off in 2004.

2. Web services will yield universal data access in drug discovery. Duplication of experiments, data locked away in disparate databases -- these discovery challenges will yield to the true potential of Web services. Life sciences companies can now look to best-practice solutions at reasonable costs to inform their strategies for deploying this powerful antidote to the major data extraction and sharing hurdles in drug discovery.

3. Handhelds will yield faster trial documentation. Doctors already love them, patients are getting there and can be easily trained to use them, and vendors have developed apps to put PDAs in a leading role in the clinical trial process. It is time for life sciences companies to look to vendors like PHT, invivodata, and CRF Box for solutions that will enable faster trial feedback from patients and closer monitoring of results by sponsors, to drive trials, saving precious time and resources in the process.

4. Collaboration apps will put scientists on the same page. GlaxoSmithKline already grooves on collaboration. Documentum's purchase of eRoom gives life sciences companies two valid choices, eRoom or Groove Networks, in collaboration apps, either of which will help scientists share complex data, graphics, and ideas without the need to travel. What's more, researchers can convene less structured forums at a moment's notice and address key questions quickly, speeding the rule-in-or-out process that is central to the scientific method.

5. Voice over IP will cut telecom costs in half. Why pay more for calls when choosing the right VoIP solution can return such handsome dividends so quickly? VoIP adoption is on the rise, and life sciences CIOs have no reason not to make VoIP one of their success stories in 2004.

Doctors are high on PDAs and broadband
Compared with the general population, doctors are certainly no technology slouches. They own more mobile phones and PCs, but they really stand out in their PDA adoption. Forty percent of MDs own a PDA versus only 8% of the rest of consumers. What do they do with all of this hardware? Doctors are bigger users of online education courses and health research sites than the rest of the population, favoring government sites over commercial ones.

We are very interested in your feedback on our research. Do you have topics to recommend, data you would like to have, technologies you want assessed? Drop me a line with your input at bradholmes@forrester.com.


Brad Holmes
Healthcare Research Director

Research Referenced In This Issue If you printed this email, get links to the research featured in this week's issue by going to www.forrester.com/go and entering the five-digit number of the report you'd like to read. Anthem's ByDesign Catches Up To The Competition (16797) Benchmark June 2003 Data Overview: Covers Forecasts, Devices, Broadband, Online Activities, Telecom, Finance, And Retail (16730) Best Practices For Web Services Success (16292) Consumer-Directed Health Plan Leaders Poised For Growth (16035) Doctors High On PDAs And Broadband (32277) Documentum Nabs eRoom -- Smart Move (15775) Five Information Technologies Vitalize Life Sciences (32281) GlaxoSmithKline Grooves On Collaboration (15430) How To Make VoIP Successful (15936) Pharma And Plans: Brace For The Boomer Vanguard (17089) Pharma eDetails Work: Doctors Prescribe More (16798) The Truth About Web Services (15036)    UCC And Auto-ID Center: A Win For RFID Standards (16846) Wal-Mart's RFID Endorsement: The Tipping Point (16962) Web Services' True Costs Revealed (14558)

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