ActiveHealth (Aetna) and IBM Pioneer Cloud Computing Approach to Help Doctors Deliver High Quality, Cost Effective Patient Care


ARMONK - 05 Aug 2010: IBM (NYSE: IBM) and ActiveHealth Management, an Aetna (NYSE: AET) subsidiary, today unveiled a new cloud computing and clinical decision support solution that will enable medical practices, hospitals and states to change the way they deliver healthcare, providing better quality care at a lower cost.
IBM and ActiveHealth Management worked together to create the Collaborative Care Solution that gives physicians and patients access to the information they need to improve the overall quality of care, without the need to invest in new infrastructure.
Patients often have to carry their health history information with them from visit to visit. Doctors don't always have the information they need when they need to quickly make patient care decisions. The Collaborative Care Solution addresses these issues by gathering patients' health data from multiple sources to create a detailed patient record.
The solution employs advanced analytics software to provide an innovative approach to patient care in which physicians can easily access and automatically analyze a patient's condition. By combining information from electronic medical records, claims, medication and lab data with ActiveHealth's evidence-based clinical decision support CareEngine® and delivering it through an IBM cloud computing platform, doctors will be able to deliver more complete and accurate decisions about patient care. This should reduce medical mistakes and unnecessary, costly treatments.

Using Collaborative Care, hospitals and medical practices can achieve the following:

• Connect, analyze and share a wide range of clinical and administrative data from disparate systems and sources via a health information exchange or "health Internet" to reduce errors and inefficiency
• Automate the measurement, tracking and reporting of clinical quality performance at the patient and practice level using the Active CareTeam(SM)
• Improve patient care through the use of evidence-based, clinical decision support powered by the ActiveHealth CareEngine®
• Transform practices and assist them in achieving NCQA Level 3 Patient Centered Medical Home status and becoming Accountable Care Organizations
• Engage patients in their care through the use of the MyActiveHealth(SM) patient portal that provides for secure electronic communications between the health team and their patients

ActiveHealth