AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), Covisint, which is a subsidiary of Compuware Corp.
(Nasdaq: CPWR), and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) today announced a major
eHealth initiative -- a nationwide information exchange -- to enhance the
health care experience for patients and practitioners alike.
The new eHealth information exchange is a revolutionary approach
designed to reduce costs and improve the quality of care while putting
patients in control of their medical records. It allows consumers using
Microsoft(R) HealthVault(TM), a software- and service-based platform for
storing and accessing personal health information, to share information
with authorized physicians and health care providers connected to AT&T
Healthcare Community Online.
A Virtual Private Network (VPN)-based portal, AT&T Healthcare Community
Online is founded on two AT&T patents that enable electronic health care
data exchange among existing systems of health care providers and
physicians. AT&T Healthcare Community Online offers managed services,
applications and authentication services and promotes the widespread
adoption of health- information technology by providing authorized doctors,
hospitals, pharmacies, labs and patients with access to test results,
prescription records, best practices and medical histories.
The new eHealth information exchange, enabled by Covisint's On-Demand
Healthcare Platform and layered on AT&T's patented eHealth solutions and
Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) network, shares information
electronically and in a security-enhanced way across the continuum of care
-- from patient to provider communities such as HealthVault,
health-information exchanges and insurers.
The new exchange platform brings together the key elements required to
establish comprehensive interoperability and collaboration communities for
national, state and local health-information exchanges, enabling such
applications as:
- Prescribing pharmaceuticals online (also known as "ePrescribing").
- Providing clinical messaging among health care providers.
- Sharing high-density images, including X-rays, MRIs and CT scans.
- Exchanging patient-aggregated information via portable health records,
which provides patient profiles, medical history, prescriptions, etc.
- Uploading of data from home health devices such as blood pressure
meters, glucometers, etc., allowing for remote diagnostics and chronic
disease monitoring and management.
- A streamlined clinical and administrative process.
This platform is highly scalable and may be rapidly deployed to large
and small health-information exchanges as a hosted and managed service by
subscribers to AT&T Healthcare Community Online. In addition, AT&T's
connectivity offerings, combined with Covisint's platform, enable health
care organizations to quickly establish high speed Internet and VPN
connectivity to the extended health care community.
After broad-based communities are connected, authorized community
members will immediately be able to access clinical applications, share
health information and collaborate on specific medical cases. AT&T's
managed telemedicine services enable patients in rural or underserved areas
to consult with medical specialists and even receive examinations in the
comfort of their primary physician's office, community hospital or clinic.
"Through our cooperative efforts with AT&T and Covisint, we are giving
consumers the opportunity to make informed choices regarding their health
and the health of their families by putting them in more control of their
personal health information," said Peter Neupert, corporate vice president
of Microsoft Health Solutions Group.
Roman Pacewicz, senior vice president, Regional Business Marketing for
AT&T, said: "AT&T is committed to applying technology that will transform
the delivery of health care, enhance operational efficiencies and,
ultimately, improve the quality of life. We're proud to be working with
Microsoft and Covisint to help enhance the health care experience, offering
anytime, anywhere delivery of care and medical information."
HealthVault is designed to put people in control of their health data.
It helps them collect, store and share health information with authorized
family members and participating health care providers, and it provides
people with a choice of third-party applications and devices to help them
manage things such as fitness, diet and health. HealthVault also provides a
privacy- and security-enhanced foundation on which a broad ecosystem of
providers -- from medical providers and health and wellness device
manufacturers to health associations -- can build innovative new health and
wellness solutions to help put people in control of their and their
family's health.
The Covisint platform enables improved security and accuracy in
providing quality care. Covisint's comprehensive interoperability framework
enables extended health care communities to effectively collaborate between
physicians and practices, health systems and hospitals, health plans, labs
and other third-party community members.
The Covisint solution brings together all health care data available
from a wide variety of disparate systems under the context of a specific
patient and aggregates this information into a single portal dashboard,
which is then made available to the patient's physician. This capability --
along with the ability to perform cross-domain single sign-on -- enables
all applications and data from the extended health care community to be
brought together and behave as one cohesive application.
"This alliance focuses on the fundamental problems facing every health
care interoperability initiative today: privacy, complexity and cost," said
Brett Furst, vice president of Health Care for Covisint. "For the first
time, institutions, communities and consumers can leverage a secure
on-demand framework connecting patients and caregivers in a matter of days,
rather than months -- or even years."
The new eHealth information exchange, which was showcased earlier this
month at the Microsoft HealthVault Solutions Conference in Bellevue, Wash.,
extends the capabilities announced in February by AT&T regarding
Tennessee's statewide eHealth information exchange, which is also secured
by Covisint's platform.
Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in
software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize
their full potential.
AT&T
AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) is a premier communications holding company. Its
subsidiaries and affiliates, AT&T operating companies, are the providers of
AT&T services in the United States and around the world. Among their
offerings are the world's most advanced IP-based business communications
services and the nation's leading wireless, high speed Internet access and
voice services. In domestic markets, AT&T is known for the directory
publishing and advertising sales leadership of its Yellow Pages and
YELLOWPAGES.COM organizations, and the AT&T brand is licensed to innovators
in such fields as communications equipment. As part of its three-screen
integration strategy, AT&T is expanding its TV entertainment offerings. In
2008, AT&T again ranked No. 1 on Fortune magazine's World's Most Admired
Telecommunications Company list and No. 1 on America's Most Admired
Telecommunications Company list.
Source:
AT&T
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