3V0-21.21 health - Advanced Design VMware vSphere 7.x Updated: 2024

VMware is urging partners to target the health-care market as the industry is seeking to modernize data centers, transform security and integrate public clouds.

Frank Rauch, vice president of VMware's Americas Partner Organization, said the virtualization leader has all of the offerings – vSphere, vSAN and NSX – for partners to win health-care deals that typically come with a 5X drag for the channel.

"Whether it's hardware drag or software drag, you're turning a $22,000 [vSAN] sale into six figures," said Rauch during his keynote at XChange 2018, hosted by CRN parent The Channel Company. "Forty percent of customers are rebuying within eight months of their original purchase and they're rebuying at 140 percent of what they originally bought."

[Related: VMware, AWS Execs: 'Tremendous Momentum' For Partners Around VMware Cloud On AWS]

Rauch said VMware has over 500,000 vSphere customers and only 14,000 of those have purchased virtual storage or hyper-converged solutions. "You do the math. That's a lot of customers that remain as targets," he said. "The health-care industry is ripe."

George Pashardis, vice president and national leader of health care at solution provider powerhouse ePlus Technology, said the company's VMware health-care business has grown a whopping 1,400 percent in 2018 driven by Workspace ONE, NSX and cloud sales.

Pashardis said hospital CIOs are looking to strengthen their data security and analytics capabilities as well as patient satisfaction. VMware is one of the "very few vendors that truly has a health-care vertical," he added.

"We were able to certify most of our reps with Workspace ONE and do some test drives. Test drives are really important because you're guaranteed 40X to 50X in ROI," said Pashardis.

VMware’s approach to health care is to leverage virtualization and hyper-converged infrastructure to reduce hardware, manage through software, and achieve a hybrid-cloud-ready data center, according to Rauch. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based vendor's vast product set supports future cloud-based architectures, development platforms and ecosystem partners while also maintaining support of legacy applications.

VMware is enabling partners to go after the health-care market not only with offerings like VMware Cloud on AWS and AppDefense, but by providing the channel with leads and identifying targets based on its licensing data.

"We have a war room set up to be able to help you beat the competition," Rauch said. "We are doing everything to be able to enable the channel to grow even faster."

CloudHealth by VMware is rolling out an expanded channel partner program that includes a new tiered structure based on experience, and the company plans greater investments in its partner advisory board and highlighting partner success stories as it integrates more closely with new owner VMware.

“The channel has always been very strategic to CloudHealth,” CEO Tom Axbey said. “The MSPs are a big route to market for the people getting their businesses transformed by the cloud. So we’re going to have a big investment in our partner ecosystem this year.”

The Boston-based company’s public cloud management platform helps organizations manage their cloud costs, ensure security compliance, Improve governance, and automate actions across multi-cloud environments.

CloudHealth currently has about 150 MSPs in its global partner ecosystem.

“With this relaunch of our partner program, what we’re looking at is exponential growth in the number of our partners,” said Bob Kilbride, CloudHealth’s senior director of global channel sales. “Last year we doubled our partner base—we signed about 70 new partners—and up until now, we’ve had a one-size-fits-all approach.”

The revamped partner program has three tiers based on partner certification, revenue, growth and customer retention, and the names of the levels match those used by VMware for consistency.

The entry-level professional tier is for partners who are new to cloud or CloudHealth and in the early stages of productizing their cloud managed services offerings.

“Some partners are really in the enablement phase, where they are just building out their business and learning how to be a cloud service provider and how to go to market,” Kilbride said. “So we’re going to …focus on helping them grow the business.”

The midlevel enterprise tier is for partners with established cloud managed service offerings, strong technical capabilities and demonstrated investment in training and go-to-market strategy with a growing customer base.

The premier partner tier is for top-level cloud service providers offering suites of managed service capabilities and possessing high-level CloudHealth expertise and a well-established go-to-market strategy and customer base.

“We expect that the premier level [partner] is going to be fully integrated into our partner ecosystem, so we’re in lockstep selling with them … and also pulling them into opportunities—so not only just providing leads, but working with them jointly on some of our larger opportunities,” Kilbride said.

Certification expectations will come with the new tiered partner program. CloudHealth has added a second level of certification—a partner platform certification—with requirements related to growth and customer retention.

“We’re going to be measuring it very closely, and we’re going to be reporting back to the partners,” Kilbride said. “And in areas where we’re not seeing growth, we’re going to take action.”

The partner tiers are helpful to customers who want to ensure they’re engaged with a partner who can help them navigate the complexity of public cloud cost management, said Nick Barron, business manager of platform services and cloud at CloudHealth partner Softcat, a United Kingdom-based information technology infrastructure provider,

“The new tiers help add some rigor around this, providing an easy way to see what partner has achieved what level,” Barron said. “Between the partners, this helps to promote a healthy competition, as we will easily be able to measure and benchmark ourselves against each other.”

Approximately 70 percent of CloudHealth’s 4,500 customers came through its channel partners. The company anticipates business growth of 30 percent to 40 percent through its channel program this year.

“The CloudHealth channel product essentially is designed so our channel partner can manage all of their hundreds or thousands of accounts seamlessly through one partner program,” Axbey said. “We’re getting and ingesting all of their billing data from their cloud provider and allowing them to partition it into the usage of each one of their clients and the associated governance, and they can pass down metrics and dashboards to their customers. It’s not just a partner selling our product down to their end users. They’re actually using and consuming our technology to scale their businesses.”

Palo Alto, Calif.-based VMware acquired CloudHealth in a deal that closed in October and was valued at an estimated $500 million, according to a Reuters report.

“You’re going to see an evolution of our route to market now because we are part of VMware,” Axbey said. “They’ve got a very robust channel program, so we can leverage that. With VMware’s offering of VMC [VMware Cloud] on AWS, that’s a whole new opportunity not only for our partner ecosystem, but for their partner ecosystem.”

CloudHealth plans to double down on its 50-member partner advisory board, adding more representation for global partners, as well as cloud service providers and systems integrators and systems outsourcers as it expands its partner base.

“There’s always been a robust communication between us and our partners,” Axbey said. “They really do deliver us feedback and help shape our product and our road map, but even more now our business strategy as well.”

CloudHealth plans to be more data-driven in allocating market development funds and to more loudly broadcast the successes it’s having through the partner ecosystem.

“In the past, we would do an announcement saying, ‘Oh, we signed this partner,’ but now we’re going to take it to the next level and actually talk about use cases with our partners,” Axbey said. “The partners are doing some really advanced services now, and we want to be more of a conduit for that. You’re going to see more stories or use cases coming out about how we’re really affecting these end users’ business transformation.”

CloudHealth’s user conference in September in Boston also will include a new separate partner track.

“It’s a really exciting time to be CloudHealth by VMware, not only because of what we’re doing in the marketplace and how impactful it is, but the VMware strategy as well,” Axbey said. “We’ve got the best of both worlds.”

The partner program changes will make CloudHealth a “little more official,” said John McGivern, senior director of cloud optimization services at Groupware Technology in Campbell, Calif., and a member of CloudHealth’s partner advisory board.

“I’ve been working with them for two years now, and they have matured just as you would hope every small company would,” he said. “I find the advisory board to be very helpful, because I get to talk to other partners, and we learn a lot from each other.”

Advanced Health Intelligence Ltd (AHI) is engaged in developing and delivering user-friendly biometric scans to render vital signs and health risk estimates to a smartphone. By leveraging the smartphone with purpose-built computer vision, machine learning models, and patented algorithms, AHI provides a private and secure way for individuals to perform biometric health-risk assessment and stratification. AHI's technology delivers simple-to-use, scalable, and cost-effective means to enable individuals to check, track and act towards better health outcomes. The combination of the patented and proprietary BodyScan dimensioning and composition capabilities and, FaceScan to return vital signs enables a unique health assessment capability made accessible anytime, anywhere through the smartphone.

Saitech Inc, is VMware Advanced Level Virtualization Solution Provider serving our esteemed SLED Clients nationwide.

Program Mission
To advance the health and wellbeing of all communities and individuals in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and beyond through transdisciplinary:

• Education to prepare diverse public health leaders who can advance health in all policies
• Research that transforms public health science and policy
• Collaborations with diverse communities to attain the highest level of health for all people

The Department of Public Health offers the following graduate programs:

Master of Public Health (MPH)

• Option in Dietetics
• Option in Epidemiology
• Option in Social & Behavioral Sciences
• Option in Healthcare Management
• Option in Nutrition

Master of Science in Health Information Management (MS)

• Option in Health Informatics
• Option in Health Management

Doctor of Science in Public Health (ScD)

• Option in Occupational and Environmental Health
• Option in Epidemiology

Graduate Certificates

The new year is the perfect time to get a new smartwatch, packed with all the latest tech and features that the newest models have to offer. The best smartwatches do so much more than tell the time. Robust health features like 24/7 heart rate or body temperature tracking, sleep tracking and stress monitoring tools help you stay aware of your health and spot early warning signs that it's time to talk to your doctor or make a lifestyle change.

A great smartwatch can also be your own personal fitness coach thanks to activity tracking, workout guidance and exercise reminders. On top of all that, our favorite smartwatches also serve as tiny on-wrist phones, allowing you to do things like check your email, answer calls and even respond to text messages.

To make sure you get the one that does everything you want it to do, we've rounded up our favorite smartwatches for 2024 that will help you crush your fitness goals and answer your texts while you're at it.

Best smartwatch overall: Apple Watch 9

Siri Health may be the best new upgrade in the Apple Watch 9. It makes starting your workouts and getting status updates along the way a breeze. Instead of navigating the watch screen, just say "Siri, start an outdoor run workout" or "Siri, start a yoga workout." Your new watch will immediately start tracking the activity, even when you're not connected to Wi-Fi or a cellular network. You can also ask Siri for updates during a session like what your current heart rate is or how much distance you've covered so far.

This makes the Apple Watch 9 a great choice for people who need to interact with their watch during workouts to check stats or start and stop timers. The hands-free functionality will seriously Improve your workout experience so you can accurately log your activity without having to fuss with your watch.

The Apple Watch 9 is at the center of an international trade dispute between Apple and another tech company, but as of now, you can still get it at Amazon and Walmart.

The smaller-sized 41 mm version is $399 at Amazon and Walmart.

Top features of the Apple Watch 9:

• Siri Health turns Siri into your built-in fitness trainer, letting you start or stop workouts, check your health stats, and more with voice commands on your watch, with no Wi-Fi required.
• The new double tap gesture lets you control any active app on your watch by double tapping your finger and thumb so you don't have to stop or slow down to navigate your watch.
• The improved dictation is up to 25% more accurate so you can reply to texts, email and more while you work out.
• You can take an ECG anytime.
• The Apple Fitness+ app (three months free) offers new ways to train and gives deeper metrics into your body's performance.
• Use Apple Wallet on the go so you can step out for a run without your phone.

An Apple Watch 9 alternative: Apple Watch SE

Because it doesn't have the blood oxygen tracking feature at the heart of the international trade violation case, the Apple Watch SE will remain on shelves even if other models disappear. This lower-cost Apple Watch offers the same quality and seamless iPhone pairing as other models but without some of the more premium features you'd find in the Series 9 or Ultra 2. 

That makes the Apple Watch SE the best alternative to the Apple Watch 9, especially for iPhone users. The design, user interface, and even many of the features are the same. 

This version of the Apple Watch still boasts an accurate heart rate tracker, 18-hour battery life, and important safety features like emergency SOS and fall detection. 

The only major things its missing compared to the Apple Watch 9 are the new Double Tap gesture, the Siri Health functionality and, of course, the blood oxygen tracking feature. 

The 40 mm size retails for $240 on Amazon.

Top features of the Apple Watch SE:

• The crack-resistant and swim-proof design can withstand any workout.
• Call, text, stream music and use Apple Pay from your watch even when you leave your phone at home.
• Get access to thousands of apps so you can use your favorite fitness apps with your Apple Watch.
• Access tons of workouts through the Apple Fitness+ app and follow them from your watch.

Most advanced health tracking features: Pixel Watch 2

The Pixel Watch 2 is the latest model of Google's smartwatch. One of the biggest changes coming with the second generation watch is the improved heart rate sensor that's up to 40% more accurate than the first Pixel Watch even during intense workouts.

Borrowing tech from the now Google-owned Fitbit, the Pixel Watch also added a skin temperature sensor and a continuous electrodermal activity (cEDA) sensor. A feature not even the Apple Watch has, the cEDA sensor continuously measures changes in the electrical currents on the surface of your skin to help track your stress levels.

Those new sensors deliver the Pixel Watch 2 the ability to offer new health insights like a sleep score and daily readiness score. One of the most impressive additions is "Body Response," a measure of stress and excitement that can send you a notification when it detects heightened stress and take you through guided breathing or mindfulness exercises to help you find your calm.

Beyond stress management, the new Pixel Watch 2 packs tons of new fitness tools. You can now do heart rate zone training with real-time feedback and coaching during your workout when you go above or below your target zone. You can also do pace training, with similar real-time alerts when you go above or below your target pace.

Top features of the Pixel Watch 2:

• The upgraded sensors and Google AI make for the most accurate heart rate tracking of any Google or Fitbit device.
• Leave your wallet at home and pay for things with Google Wallet on your watch.
• Get turn-by-turn directions with Google Maps on your watch.
• Emergency SOS, safety check alerts and fall detection can automatically alert your close contacts and emergency services.
• The watch is waterproof down to 50 meters so you can swim or shower with it on.
• Respond to texts or make calls from your wrist.

Longest battery life: Garmin Venu 3

The Garmin Venu 3 boasts an upgraded touchscreen display compared with the previous generation. It's larger and more responsive, so you can easily check metrics and navigate through features mid-workout. The fitness-focused Garmin smartwatch can track heart rate, respiration, blood oxygen levels and more.

But what really sets it apart is its 14-day battery life. When you're out backpacking or camping, that two-week battery life can make a huge difference. But even during your everyday life, it's a nice perk to know you can go weeks in between charges.

Speaking of that workout, the watch comes preloaded with routines that target different muscle groups or performance goals. When you pick one and tap start, the watch not only starts a timer but shows an animated display of how to perform the exercise you're doing in each interval. 

As you cycle through your intervals, the watch will show you which exercise you're on and alert you when your interval ends. So there's no need to look at your phone at all. Just tap start on your watch and focus on your workout.

If you don't want to use a preloaded routine, the Garmin app has a database of more than 1,400 exercises, categorized by which muscle groups they work. Build your own custom routine in the app on your phone. Then obtain it to your watch and get moving. The smartwatch has a 4.4-star rating on Amazon. It's on sale for $425 on Amazon right now (regularly priced at $450).

Top features of the Garmin Venu 3:

• The battery lasts up to 14 days on a single charge.
• Follow along with animated on-screen workouts.
• Customize the display to show you the metrics you care about during your workout.
• Use Garmin Pay to make payments with your watch.
• Get text, email and other notifications on your watch.
• Use Siri, Google Assistant or other compatible voice assistant to make calls and respond to texts from your wrist.

Best smartwatch for stress management: Fitbit Sense 2

The Fitbit Sense 2 is the smartwatch that does it all. Answer calls on your wrist. Pay with Fitbit Pay or Google Wallet using your watch. Track your routes with built-in GPS. And, of course, it comes with all your essentials like heart rate, blood oxygen and activity tracking.

On top of those features, the Sense 2 adds an EDA sensor so you can take an ECG to get a more accurate heart rate reading. But the most standout feature that separates the Sense 2 from the pack is the all-day body response tracking. 

Using the EDA sensor, skin temperature sensor and heart rate sensor, the Sense 2 constantly monitors for fluctuations in your stress level throughout the day. When it spikes, you'll get a notification so you can pause to reflect or use the built-in mindfulness and breathing exercises to relax.

At the end of the day, you'll get a report that shows when your physical stress levels spiked and dropped so you can better identify patterns around when, where and why you're feeling stressed.

Normally retailing for $300, it's the most expensive Fitbit in the lineup. But those advanced health and wellness features make it worth the price for anyone who's trying to Improve their overall wellness alongside their workout performance. And right now, you have a chance to get it for just $246.  

Top features of the Fitbit Sense 2:

• With on-wrist phone calls, built-in Alexa and notifications from your calendar, email and other apps, the Sense 2 is a fully-functional smartwatch with all the bells and whistles.
• The all-day body response tracking uses advanced tracking features to continuously monitor your physical stress levels so you can look for patterns and identify the best ways to reduce your stress.
• Use Fitbit Pay or Google Wallet with your watch.

Best smartwatch under $100: Amazfit Bip 5

If you're looking for the best smartwatch under $100, look no further than the 4.2-star-rated Amazfit Bip 5. An Amazon bestseller, this budget watch has a lot of the same features that pricier watches do. You can use it to answer calls (via Bluetooth), track your blood oxygen and stress levels, monitor your sleep quality, log all your workouts automatically with auto-detect and more. Amazon Alexa is built in for voice commands and smart home control.

You can get the surprisingly feature-rich smartwatch at Amazon for $90.

Top features of the Amazfit Bip 5:

• It features a large 1.91-inch screen. (It's noticeably bigger than the Apple Watch 9.)
• It lasts for 10 days on a single charge with normal usage, or up to 26 days in its battery saver mode.
• The under $100 price point is hard to beat, especially considering its advanced feature set.
• Use the built-in Amazon Alexa to set timers, check the weather, get translations and more.

Founder & CEO at Spatially Health, turning spatial data into a market-leading healthcare strategy.

Healthcare has a data optimization problem. Instead of continuing to catalog this under "acceptance," let's pivot our thinking: The industry also has an unprecedented opportunity to optimize that data. And doing so will advance health equity and lower the total cost of care.

Health data is abundant. One part is already aggregated in varying stages of integration or at least "bucketed" to some extent; the other part is available yet not usefully incorporated—or simply not incorporated at all.

To be clear, I'm not talking about the batch processing of billing records. This is about using modern tools to get more granular and to help accountable care organizations capitalize on pattern recognition and analysis with far greater nuance than before when it comes to patients and health applications—and where latency is the enemy when seeking to Improve care coordination.

The aim is a comprehensive, end-to-end procedural system in which interlocking data sets foment complete, expedient solutions (and not information overload or chaotic, disorganized intel).

Once we harness the already collected data with what's available, ACOs and physician networks can achieve that North Star: accessible, real-time analytics working hand-in-glove with real-world decision making, executed through prudent utilization models.

Here's how we might accomplish that process.

Utilize The Data You Have; Get The Data You Need

It's a phrase you've likely heard before: Get to know the patient before they become one. Once we start adjusting the strategy away from "last mile" treatment as the default, we're taking that crucial first step toward developing data-driven relationships with people at the first mile of their health journey.

First, it's important to remember that clinical care comprises about 20% of what shapes health outcomes. The other 80% is tied to behaviors and environments—the social, economic and physical factors that describe where and how people live their lives. The use of social determinants of health (SDoH) provides important building blocks in understanding these behaviors, but what's necessary for optimization to occur is an additional layer that reduces ambiguity: on-the-ground, spatial-based intelligence that takes the form of useful health analytics.

Second, there is a noticeable gap to bridge: When compared to hospitals and health systems, many physician practices and provider organizations have trended toward markedly better outcomes with respect to Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation pilots, specifically around acute care and outpatient facility spending.

However, these same organizations are generally far less likely to have a population health strategy in place, and what strategy they do have (or are planning) may be ill-equipped to scale.

In other words, while an ACO may not have the resources to dedicate a team (or enable the tech) to develop a population health framework, they already possess an innovative spirit, one poised to achieve targeted benchmarks in improving health equity.

This is where trusted data partners play such an important role: By delivering the active analytics that help physician practices directly tie data to outcomes, these partners help ACOs embrace all the factors that constitute a truly consequential, 360-degree visualization of patients across the care continuum.

The Right Frame Of Mind: Applying Predictive Models To Propel Value-Based Care

Aligned mindsets help strengthen the tech solution built to optimize health data. The following factors may be viewed as part of an actionable path forward.

• Modern applications of population health initiated to configure programs that intelligently tie risk to outcomes.

• Being self-aware about how to Improve performance and achieve benchmarks.

• Physician-led emphasis on value and quality, openness to innovation and identification of inefficiencies when they arise.

• ACOs entering into shared-risk agreements incentivizes the drive to Improve outcomes.

That last point is crucial: How do ACOs successfully predict risk—one of the most significant drivers in hitting benchmarks in value-based care?

Straightforward use case examples help illustrate why progressive health tech analytics provide answers here and are a recurring benefit for care organizations.

1. Employing localized insight helps determine the factors behind risk and how enhanced analytics better effectuate linking risk to desired outcomes. By highlighting where local need is greatest, this directly translates to your team spending less time figuring out how to "strategize smarter," and therefore, more time is available for successful implementation—immensely useful, for example, when conducting proactive campaigns of prevention.

2. Facilitate truly comprehensive market analysis to predict where specific services are in higher demand. Doing so means including and going beyond amassing claims data or the demographics connected to zip codes—important because of the dynamic nature of changing conditions across populations and markets and the inherent benefits of responding quickly.

The integration of spatial intelligence is key here. Predictive models can be customized so that the right data questions are answered before implementation: criteria such as, "Where is the most useful data concentrated?" and "How frictionless is sharing that data for preventative applications?"

Applying location-based insights opens a window into the unique characteristics of target populations and their subsequent interlocking connections. And it makes a quantifiable difference when developing strategic solutions, one measured both in saved time and improved outcomes.

In Sum

Physician-led ACOs tend to perform better than those led by hospitals or health systems. A trusted data partner delivering on-demand analytics translates to more personalized care models designed to be responsive by nature. This modern partnership—meeting members and patients where they are in their health journeys—is a success for everyone. Preventative strategies keep people healthier and costs down, and streamlined BI revolutionizes the day-to-day for medical teams drowning in redundant paperwork.

Tomorrow's ACOs will shine through championing innovative thought, properly integrating useful data and utilizing customizable optimization models. This modern approach includes fully embracing the accessible, actionable and valuable health data delivered through intelligently measuring individual behaviors and community needs, thereby identifying how interlocking patterns at the local level impact human health.

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