More than 150 professionals and decision makers from the healthcare and IT industries attended the summit to discuss how to improve operational efficiency by applying IT solutions to the healthcare industry. They all are looking to grab a piece of China's lucrative healthcare IT solutions market. CMP Consulting Services Inc., a computer programming service company based in Miami, Florida., has forecast that the market here is valued at 2.8 billion yuan ($412 million), representing a compounded annual growth rate of 28 percent during the period of 2008-12.

"It remains a great challenge for Chinese hospitals to make full use of information technologies to enhance their management efficiency and better serve the patients," said Fu Zheng, Vice Chairman of China Health Information Association, at the summit.

Deng Xiaohong, Deputy Director of the Beijing Health Bureau, said 97 percent of the top level-three hospitals in Beijing have installed a basic data management system for patient check-in and registration, payments, drug dispensing and patient transfers. China's hospitals are divided into three tiers based on the quality of their service, with level-three institutions providing the highest quality.

But the problem is that hospitals usually cannot share information because they have different IT systems due to a lack of a unified application standard in the industry, Deng said. Furthermore, the levels of IT applications in hospitals nationwide vary largely, because the institutions have different opinions about to what extent IT solutions can improve their efficiency and services, he said.

IT solutions can minimize human errors and improve the quality of management through the integration of RFID, biometric and wireless technologies, said Lai Sau Shue, President of RCG's M2M Business, at the summit. For example, remote diagnosis becomes possible through M2M technology, he said. In cases where someone suffers a heart attack, a RFID tag will allow doctors to find the patient's identity and medical records through wireless tools and conduct a timely remote diagnosis. Lai said 84 million Chinese suffer from heart problems, and more than 7,000 of them die every day, of which more than 70 percent died because they lacked access to timely and effective treatment.

Wuxi People's Hospital in Jiangsu Province, for example, has become a flagship public hospital in applying IT solutions to all aspects of its medical care for precise, standard and real-time process management with high efficiency and security, said Ji Jianwei, the hospital's director. The IT system is human-oriented, much more convenient for patients, nurses and doctors to use, and it increases the interaction between the hospital and patients in surrounding communities, he said.