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Article
· Oct 21, 2015 1m read

Industry Consolidation Underscores the Need for IT System Integration Planning

#HealthShare

Changes in reimbursement approaches in healthcare are unleashing unprecedented business forces in the industry. As a result, providers are consolidating into larger integrated delivery networks, hoping to achieve economies of scale and operating efficiency.

But it’s difficult to truly integrate organizations, and that’s particularly true when it comes to getting disparate information systems to work together. Overall, consolidation has become more difficult because providers now have a variety of IT systems in place. Because these IT systems have become mission critical for healthcare organizations, it’s no small task to bring together these systems and the information they contain.

As new payment models take hold and profit margins tighten, these new, larger organizations need to integrate data from their systems in order to improve care coordination, patient experience, and financial performance.

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Article
· Oct 21, 2015 2m read

Data Scalability with InterSystems Caché and Intel Processors

#Caché

InterSystems Caché 2015.1 soars from 6 million to more than 21 million end-user database accesses per second on the Intel® Xeon® processor E7 v2 family compared to Caché 2013.1 on the Intel® Xeon® processor E5 family

Overview

With data volumes soaring and the opportunities to derive value from data rising, database scalability has become a crucial challenge for a wide range of industries. In healthcare, the rising demands for healthcare services and significant changes in the regulatory and business climates can make the challenges particularly acute. How can organizations scale their databases in an efficient and cost-effective way?

The InterSystems Caché 2015.1 data platform offers a solution. Identified as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Operational Database Management Systems,1 Caché combines advanced data management, integration, and analytics. Caché 2015.1 is optimized to take advantage of modern multi-core architectures and represents a new generation of ultra-high-performance database technology. Running on the Intel® Xeon® processor E7 v2 family, Caché 2015.1 provides a robust, affordable solution for scalable, data-intensive computing.

To examine the scalability of Caché 2015.1, InterSystems worked with performance engineers at Epic, whose electronic medical records (EMRs) and other healthcare applications are deployed by some of the world’s largest hospitals, delivery systems, and other healthcare organizations. The test team found that Caché 2015.1 with Enterprise Cache Protocol® (ECP®) technology on the Intel Xeon processor E7 v2 family achieved more than 21 million end-user database accesses per second (known in the Caché environment as Global References per Second or GREFs) while maintaining excellent response times. This was more than triple the load levels of 6 million GREFs achieved by Caché 2013.1 on the Intel® Xeon® processor E5 family.

"The scalability and performance improvements of Caché version 2015.1 are terrific. Almost doubling the scalability, this version provides a key strategic advantage for our user organizations who are pursuing large-scale medical informatics programs as well as aggressive growth strategies in preparation for the volume-to-value transformation in healthcare."

– Carl Dvorak, President, Epic

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Article
· Oct 21, 2015 1m read

Driving True Patient Engagement Beyond the Basic Patient Portal

#HealthShare

Comprehensive patient view, communication and data sharing, and population health management are key components

Federal agencies have been incenting healthcare providers to leverage their electronic health records (EHRs) to get patients involved in the management of their care. Most organizations, however, haven’t moved beyond patient engagement as an item to be checked off in order to receive meaningful use incentive funding.

Typically, providers rely on patient portal functionality that healthcare IT vendors package with their EHR products. While fulfilling requirements of meaningful use, these basic portals are EHR-tethered and single source, and have done very little to engage patients in their care.

The next-generation portals, however, are interoperable, which allows them to be an integral part of a robust patient engagement initiative – one that transforms patient behavior and mindset so patients can take an active role in their self-care.

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Article
· Oct 21, 2015 1m read

Accelerating Clinical Trials Through Shared Access to Patient Records

#HealthShare

Improved Access to Clinical Data Across Hospitals and Systems Helps Pharmaceutical Companies Reduce Delays and the Costs Associated With Bringing New Treatments to Market

Executive Summary

The pharmaceutical and life sciences industry has a strategic imperative to accelerate clinical research in order to reduce overall R&D costs while delivering innovative treatments.1 Yet virtually all pharmaceutical manufacturers and contract research organizations (CROs) recognize that the limited quantity and quality of available patient data are fundamental problems that have led to escalating costs and delays in clinical trials for new drugs and treatments.

The underlying problem is accessing and sharing connected, comprehensive, and credible patient records across hospitals, healthcare organizations, communities, and countries.

The answer is to provide the clinical trials ecosystem with a foundational health informatics platform and complementary solutions that enable researchers to access and use clinical data from hospitals and other healthcare providers. With such a solution in place, clinical researchers can more quickly evaluate protocol feasibility, identify and recruit viable patient candidates for trials, track patients enrolled in clinical trials, and conduct efficient, accurate health surveillance and observational studies once a drug or treatment is on the market.

accelerating-clinical-trials-real-world-patient-data-wp.pdf
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Article
· Oct 21, 2015 2m read

Collaboration Is the Key for Health Plans in a Shared Risk Environment

#HealthShare

Information Sharing Enables Health Plans to Leverage Data and Analytical Assets to Deliver Sustained Value

Executive Summary

The shared-risk payment models that are central to health reform all require tight coordination among payers, providers, and patients if they are to succeed. As payers and providers enter into more and more such agreements, they need to enhance success by communicating and collaborating more effectively with their partners and actively engaging, supporting, and empowering their members.

To foster this collaboration and engagement, payer organizations must make critical decisions about technology and solutions that will provide timely, comprehensive information at the point of care. This will enable providers to make better clinical decisions and members to better understand and manage their health.

Delivering the right actionable information for risk mitigation is challenging. Health plans and providers have extensive investments in data and analytic assets. Yet neither party in most risk-sharing agreements has the full picture, and there is often no efficient mechanism for getting the information to those involved in clinical decisions in a timely manner to optimize care delivery.

Care communities of payers, providers, and patients need the right foundation to effectively connect people, organizations, and systems. That foundation includes information sharing through a secure, comprehensive health informatics platform. Information exchange builds sustainable value through enhanced care management, risk mitigation, and optimized engagement. Ultimately, health plans that invest in information exchange are able to deliver the right information in the right amount to the right person at the right time to drive the right actions by everyone involved. They deliver better health through connected care.

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