McKesson, IBM team to provide analytics solution for payors
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| IBM, McKesson to merge healthcare business solutions. Image Source: www.flickr.com |
The new solution will allow health plans to improved decision-making across their businesses and externally with health services enterprises, employers and consumers, according to the companies.
McKesson and IBM said they are developing a solution for plan-based analytics by addressing the data, communication and ease-of-use issues. The relationship will bring health plans a business intelligence solution that will consolidate, aggregate and analyze data from multiple sources and infuse it with clinical content and business logic.
In addition to IBM Cognos 8 BI business intelligence software, the solution will employ IBM’s application development expertise, as well as its Health Plan Data Model, InfoSphere Information Server, InfoSphere Warehouse, Optim and WebSphere Application Server.
“The complexity of the decisions facing health plans today is unprecedented and requires a central source of business intelligence that can be used to improve medical cost ratios,” said Dan Pelino, IBM general manager of global healthcare and life sciences industry. “The combination of IBM and McKesson Health Solutions technologies and industry expertise can help our health plan customers transform vast amounts of disparate health data into information assets, enabling key stakeholders to effectively collaborate as well as change and enlighten the way decisions are made in the health-benefits market.”
The solution will be provided in modules that address health benefits business issues. The payor will have the ability to deploy the information—provided via IBM Cognos 8 BI dashboard and reporting capabilities—to employers, consumers and providers, IBM and McKesson said.
The first set of health plan-focused clinical resource management solutions is scheduled for release in summer of 2009.