What’s next in technology for Chicago’s business scene?

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Updated: January 17, 2012 11:07AM

Imagine the day when you can take a pill with a sensor inside that’s activated by your stomach juices, and it alerts a nurse that you’ve taken your medicine as you should have.

Such “always connected” technology is emerging now, helping advance the notion of letting the elderly stay in their homes and giving doctors and nurses real-time information about the patient’s condition, said Paul E. Martin, chief information officer for Baxter International, the Deerfield-based specialty disease solutions company.

“Patients now may use a monitoring device that captures weight, blood pressure and certain ‘smart pill’ technology,” Martin said.

Martin was one of 40 CIOs and chief technology officers (CTOs) who volunteered to be celebrity bartenders at Techbash 2011, a fundraiser and networking event hosted Nov. 15 by i.c. stars, a Chicago-based non-profit that teaches young people technology job skills. Four of the CIOs spoke with the Chicago Sun-Times about trends in their industry, next-generation forecasts and things that keep them up at night.

Wheeler Coleman, chief technology officer for the Health Care Service Corp., including Blue Cross/Blue Shield coverage areas in Illinois, Texas and Oklahoma, says telemedicine is serving many of the same purposes in providing people access to skilled physicians and specialists they otherwise couldn’t travel to see.

“It’s allowing people to have access to specialists who may not be in their city, town or neighborhood,” he said.

The same philosophy extends to kiosks being developed for clinics, grocery stores, drug stores and other public places that will connect people with health-care specialists.

The ability to go to a kiosk-like device and sit in front of a computer will let patients reach out to hospitals and doctors not in the same neighborhood, Coleman said.

Already, people may monitor their blood pressure and eyesight at drug-store kiosks, and find out the location of the closest specialist who will take their insurance or provide care on a sliding-fee scale.

A similar “virtual reality” is emerging between tax filers and their tax preparers, said Yvonne Scott, CIO with Crowe Horwath LLP, a Chicago-based public accounting and consulting firm.

Tax-return preparation is becoming a paperless affair as more people email their information to their accountants, and the tax preparers email back, she said.

“We are increasingly seeing that people aren’t sending us a box full of receipts for tax returns,” Scott said. “We’re returning their completed tax returns electronically, just as we file (the returns electronically) with the federal government and in many states.”

A related trend is for people to “meet” their tax preparers virtually, using videoconferencing, Skype and other technologies that allow people to see each other via their desktop computer screens.

“The ability to use email, instant messaging and social context lets us converse more broadly,” she said.

Scott said her biggest concern is that older people are often isolated and left out of the process because they don’t have the latest technology.

“What do people do when they have no access to this technology? That is a big issue,” she said.

Newspapers are joining the ranks of “always on” technology, with employees working anywhere at any time to get the newspaper out, said Jeff Kane, vice president of technology for Sun-Times Media, owner of the Chicago Sun-Times and suburban daily and weekly newspapers throughout the region.

“We were among the first to move into the cloud when, a couple years ago, we started moving advertising and editorial into the cloud,” Kane said.

Cloud computing is the technology underlying the ability of healthcare, accounting, publishing and other industries to work virtually. Cloud applications are completely Web-based, from the user to the administrator.

The next phase of virtual work and communication is already becoming a reality as people access everything from their morning newspaper to their tax returns to their corporate emails on smartphones, tablets and wireless notebook computers, the executives agreed. Most companies are allowing employees to choose their own mobile device for work, including “instant-on” iPads that save time by eliminating the need to boot up.

As employees scatter, they must find new ways to communicate and feel as though they still work together, so companies are setting up their own, internal LinkedIn-style networks to help people find experts, seek specific information and share stories with colleagues with similar interests, the executives said.

Said Coleman, “Social networks improve the way employees interact with each other and with partners and customers.”