MEDecision and Medem Collaborate to Deliver Robust Electronic Health Record to Improve Patient Care
Payer-Provider Strategy to be Highlighted in HIMSS Demonstration Project Showing Integration of MEDecision's Patient Clinical Summary with Medem's iHealthRecord
WAYNE, Penn. and SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. - February 20, 2007 - MEDecision, Inc. (NASDAQ: MEDE), a provider of software, services and clinical content to healthcare payers, and Medem, Inc., a leading provider of online physician-patient communications services, today announced a unique collaboration to combine health plan information with the physician-patient relationship to deliver a transportable personal health record through a payer-provider partnership.
Through this collaboration, MEDecision will deliver its Patient Clinical Summary, a payer-based, clinically-validated, electronic health record, to patients and their providers through iHealth, Medem's secure, interactive and fully transportable online personal health record. Representatives will demonstrate this technical integration in MEDecision's booth #2731 throughout the HIMSS07 (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) Annual Conference and Exhibition, February 25 - March 1, 2007 in New Orleans, Louisiana.
"By combining our resources, MEDecision and Medem have created a way for each of the key stakeholders in the healthcare process to work together to improve care," said MEDecision Founder and CEO David St.Clair. "Essentially, it's a means for payers to support and enhance the physician-patient relationship by delivering detailed patient information to the point of care. This is precisely the type of collaboration we believe is necessary to meet the universal goals of improving medical outcomes and lowering healthcare costs."
Medem CEO Edward Fotsch, M.D., a member of Health Level Seven (HL7), a healthcare Standards Developing Organization, and several other personal health record committees, added, "The physician-patient relationship has proven to be the key to success in real utilization of personal health records. In our experience, physicians are considerably more successful in actually engaging patients online with personal health records. Combining physician access and credibility with patients and health plan information is the winning strategy that delivers real patient engagement online. With MEDecision, we will promote physician-patient interactions to facilitate a progressive collaboration between payers and providers to benefit patients at the point of care."
The MEDecision/Medem collaboration can positively impact each healthcare constituency in different ways:
For physicians, hospitals, clinics and other providers, it can result in improved practice marketing, efficiency and documentation; fulfillment of pay-for-performance requirements; and a higher level of patient care.
For payers, the affiliation can result in enhanced member engagement through partnership with providers; the delivery of patient education and care management messages through the physician-patient relationship; and the ability to drive more member traffic to online member portals.
Patients can benefit through online secure email communication with their doctor; transportable and accurate personal health records for their families delivered through a partnership between their doctor and their health plan; and an end to medical clipboards and phone tag with providers.
For MEDecision, the collaboration with Medem represents a larger overall initiative announced earlier this month to drive greater adoption of health information exchange between patients, payers and providers. MEDecision recently announced that it has established the Interoperability Competency Center, an organization chartered with facilitating an open technology platform for the exchange of health information, and the Center for Collaborative Health, a group that will address workflow process requirements to ensure patient information is fully utilized by providers at the point of care.
Medem's iHealth is currently used by tens of thousands of physicians for online personal health records, physician-patient communication and elimination of the registration clipboard. Patients automatically create an iHealthRecord by registering online for their next doctor's appointment. Patients and providers using iHealthRecord will now have customized and transportable access to a Patient Clinical Summary from MEDecision, which offers a common patient view of historical and current medical information from doctors, labs, pharmacies and other provider organizations.
For more information about MEDecision, please visit www.MEDecision.com. For more information about Medem, please visit www.Medem.com.
About Medem, Inc.
Based in San Francisco and incorporated in 1999, Medem was founded by the American Medical Association and several national medical specialty societies to develop and provide secure, online communications services for use by physicians and other healthcare providers, including hospitals, health systems, etc., with their patients. Together with a broad constituent of industry partners, medical societies, patient advocacy groups and government agencies, Medem is uniquely positioned to transform the healthcare delivery experience for physicians and their patients.
Tens of thousands of physician practices, along with numerous health systems, hospitals, payers and employers, have implemented iHealth Services to improve consumer engagement, advance disease management, increase efficiency and decrease costs. iHealth Services provides the connectivity between community and regional stakeholders in healthcare which will fulfill the vision of interoperable health records for all Americans by 2014.
About MEDecision
Founded in 1988, MEDecision provides healthcare payer organizations with software, services and clinical content that allow them to increase administrative efficiency and improve the overall quality and affordability of their members' healthcare. A provider of Collaborative Care Management, MEDecision's technologies analyze data, automate payer workflow processes and electronically connect patients, providers and payers to give each a common view of the patient's medical history, helping to foster better clinical decision making. MEDecision believes that, in the aggregate, its customers insure or manage care for approximately one in every six people in the U.S. with health insurance. For more information about MEDecision, please visit www.MEDecision.com.
MEDecision is a trademark of MEDecision, Inc. The MEDecision logo and product names are also trademarks or registered trademarks of MEDecision, Inc. Other product and brand names are trademarks of their respective owners.
CONTACTS:
Tracey Kohler Costello
MEDecision
(610) 540-0202
Tracey.Costello@MEDecision.com
Jason Best
Medem, Inc.
(415) 644-3800
jason.best@medem.com
