Information quality is always important. In the life sciences sector, however, information quality, or its absence, can be a matter of life and death. Even if poor quality information can be worked around, it is draining precious time and resources away from other activities that might improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the care being given.

With there being an accelerating movement towards digital healthcare information the targets for both minimal and optimal levels of information quality are in fact being raised. The issue to be weighed is the fact that achieving even minimal levels of information quality can be expensive and can require a deliberate program of investment in content technologies. Fortunately, the movement towards digital healthcare information and services is happening at a time when there is a substantial body of knowledge and experience that has already been built up, typically within the contexts of other industries where information quality is critically important.

Among the most important of the lessons learned from past investments is the importance of leveraging intelligent automation to assist in the creation, management and delivery of high quality information resources and services. One of the areas of particular interest for the life sciences sector will be the role automation can play in validating content and facilitating the progressive elimination of errors and their sources. As has been illustrated, especially within the Aerospace and Defense sector, extraordinarily high levels of information quality can be achieved and sustained in ways that save time and money even when compared to activities that had been performed in order to meet far less exacting quality measures.

This presentation will introduce some of the background about the science of content validation and verification that is available to companies in the life sciences industry in its quest to achieve ever higher levels of quality. 

Expiring patents, increasing shareholder and customer expectations, rising competition, and expanding regulations put pressure on Life Sciences’ firms to find effective ways to produce reliable content. Developing a repeatable process for creating, managing, and delivering content efficiently saves time and money, strengthens the bottom line, and builds a solid foundation for future growth.

Life Sciences organizations create huge amounts of content. They put a lot of time and effort into creating this content—both from a regulatory perspective, and from sales, marketing, and customer perspectives. Yet, much of the business critical content is locked away in silos. It does not provide maximum value to the organization because it is not easily discoverable, is hard to share, lacks consistency and structure, and costs much more to create than it should. It doesn’t have to be that way. Content can be aligned to business goals and strategies—even across silos—by adopting a unified enterprise content model.

Learn how companies in various regulated industries:

• Manage content through the development, manufacture, approval and marketing of a product
• Maximize intellectual capital while satisfying regulatory requirements
• Reduce time to market
• Address a global market

This session provides an understanding of a unified content model and identifies both the roadblocks and the reality of a common model. Topics include:

• Understanding a unified content model
• Steps required to achieve a unified content model
• Roadblocks and realities of moving to a unified model

A lot of attention has been devoted to the subject of Web 2.0. Companies are exploring how to incorporate Web 2.0 concepts into their externally-facing systems. Some take an IT-centric approach, focusing on the underlying technology and its implementation. Others examine the potential business benefits through improved communication and collaboration. However, both perspectives frequently struggle to demonstrate ROI in the face of uncertain user adoption and control/security issues.

This presentation will examine Web 2.0 from a very specific angle: user experience in a business context, where “can do” meets “will do”, and how that applies in life sciences, where customer needs are unique compared to traditional e-commerce or brochure-ware sites.

The Web 2.0 paradigm is here to stay, giving users far more control to become content contributors and choose the types of interactions they want. Successful companies will have to design a useful, relevant, compelling user experience for customers.

This presentation will cover:

1. The evolution from Web-enabled self-service user control with Web 2.0
   
   • Implications for design: navigation, search, content creation & publishing, page design, and brand experience
2. How businesses can profit from Web 2.0
   
   • From customers (externally-facing sites)
   • Defining the trust factor in health care sites, and the Web 2.0 impact
   • Openness & collaboration
   • Knowledge management
3. The future: Pulling it all together

The ECM marketplace is changing rapidly with no slowdown in sight. As major infrastructure vendors (IBM, Microsoft and Oracle) threaten to take over the sector, what will happen to incumbents like EMC, OpenText and Interwoven? How will Open Source options play out - and what about Software as a Service? One thing is for sure the ECM market is growing substantially - yet making sense of it becomes harder by the day. In this session we will look at current trends in the vendor marketplace, and how they will play out in 2008 and beyond. We will also subdivide the sector both by technology orientation and geographic dominance, and give our honest and independent opinion on the vendors in this space.

English is one of the most expressive languages on Earth; with a vocabulary of over 900,000 words, no wonder there are so many ways to say the same thing! Mission critical, life saving messages must be communicated clearly in English as in target languages. Even if your content is still in “English only”, this presentation will give you insights to more effectively communicate your intent, in words and images, to a diverse audience. Find out what global forces are eroding market boundaries and helping “make the world flat,” broadening your future audience to include languages you may not have considered before.

This presentation will cover many considerations, including:

• Is your content written as clearly and as to the point as possible?
• Does your content use consistent terminology?
• Has your company acquired other subsidiary divisions that have different standards for writing and managing content and language translation? If so, how do your coordinate your efforts in this arena?
• How do you optimize source, English content to leverage as much previously translated text from legacy material as possible?
• How can a professional linguist be certain of your intent during translation?
• How can you validate content translated for overseas markets?
• When does “fancy” formatting and page layout become an impediment to language translation?

No doubt you’ve already heard about Controlled English, and the many challenges to effectively translating rich, technical content from English to other languages. At first glance, the task can seem overwhelming. Believe it or not, you are already “shifting gears” and writing at different levels of English for different audiences. The same skills you use every day in editing you own email can be transposed to effectively create focused, technical content for a broad global audience.

Domestically, a significant proportion of medical staff are non-native English speakers. In an emergency, all staff must instantly grasp the intent of written instructions on complex equipment. The “life-saving” ramifications of your content become even more pronounced when your words are translated from English to another language. Attend this session to learn even more ways to avoid errors and save lives. (And you thought you were just creating content!)