Special Olympics Healthy Athletes Global Partner

Since 2003 Health One Global Limited has been the exclusive Special Olympics Healthy Athletes Global Partner for athlete electronic health records. Healthcare Technology International (HTI) and BHM Healthcare is now a partner in this effort, supplying the North American division with this powerful technology.

Timothy P. Shriver, Special Olympics Chairman, says of Health One Global Limited’s contribution “A global technology partner of this caliber is exciting for Special Olympics.  As our Movement continues to grow and further benefit the lives of individuals with intellectual disabilities, we need the kind of state-of-the-art databases and software systems that Health One Global can provide”.

Health One Global supports Special Olympics as a charitable donation.  Special Olympics uses HEALTHone to record the health screening data at the 600 Healthy Athletes events each year in 65 countries.

With HEALTHone Special Olympics has created the world’s largest and most comprehensive research database on the health of citizens with intellectual disability.

Special Olympics World Summer Games

At the Special Olympics World Summer Games in Shanghai in October 2007, 7,000 athletes from 169 countries around the world, participatedin the biggest sporting event on the planet in 2007. HEATHone was the sole provider of medical records for this event.

Special Olympics usedHEALTHone to record some 20,000 healthcare screening of the athletes in 8 days.

In addition 150 medical centers across Shanghai at sports venues, residential venues and hospitals will access HEALTHone over the Internet in Chinese and English to record details of any medical problems experienced by any of the 7,000 athletes, 40,000 volunteers, 3,500 event officials and thousands of families, volunteers, spectators and journalists from every continent attending the World Games.

This summer, HTI and BHM Healthcare will be partnering with this effort to bring Athlete Electronic Healthcare Records to the healthy athlete program once again in Athens for the 2011 World Summer Games.

Special Olympics

Special Olympics was founded in 1968 by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the sister of John F Kennedy, as an international non-profit organization dedicated to empowering individuals with intellectual disabilities through sports training and competition.

Special Olympics the world’s largest amateur sports organizationprovides year-round training and competition in 26 Olympic-type summer and winter sports.

2.5 million athletes in 169 countries participate at over 20,000 events every year at county, state, provincial, national and regional level, culminating in the Summer and Winter World Games every 4 years.

Alongside its sporting activities Special Olympics runs a global program called Healthy Athletes to provide free healthcare screening at the largest 600 Special Olympics sports events worldwide each year. This makes Special Olympics unique.  There is no other organization in the world that seeks to offer free healthcare services to a population of 2.5m individuals in 169 countries.

There is no charge to athletes to participate in Special Olympics and the whole movement, world-wide, is supported entirely by volunteers and sponsorship.

Special Olympics are open to all races, religions and ethnicities regardless of income, class or gender.  As a result, Special Olympic athletes represent the whole of humanity, multicultural and multilingual, from all societies and from all walks of life.

Special Olympics has no ethnic, religious or social agenda, simply the desire to help individuals achieve self respect and dignity, and acts with complete ethnic, religious and social sensitivity in all its global operations.

Proven benefits of participation in Special Olympics include:

• enhanced self-confidence and social abilities in daily life;
• greater readiness for employment;
• better preparation for independent living;
• increased ability to make personal decisions;
• improved friendships and family relationships.

Put simply, Special Olympics changes lives.