The Smart Hospital Consortium will further the Mater's existing Smart Hospital agenda, which aims to use IT to improve healthcare delivery.

MHS Brisbane Chief Information Officer Malcolm Thatcher said innovative technologies will strengthen clinical practice, thereby improving patient outcomes.

MHS delegates will visit IBM facilities to access healthcare and life sciences tools such as Discovery Link and Genomic Modelling and will be briefed on advances in these technologies.

MHS will also have access to IBM's Centre for Healthcare Management, IBM Computational Biology Centre, IBM Deep Computing Institute, IBM Research and IBM Global Business Services.