• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Alere Offers Single-Source Solution for Health Plans Seeking to In-Source Health Management Programs

Posted on: Tuesday, 3 February 2009, 06:00 CST

• Many health plans are moving to in-source Disease Management and Health Services programs to control costs and improve member outcomes

• Alere's robust Integrated Health Management Solution(IHMS) platform fully integrates a wide range of programs on a single IT platform

• Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina completes IHMS installation to improve care and manage members' healthcare more consistently

ATLANTA, Feb. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Alere (www.alere.com ) announced today that its Integrated Health Management Solution (IHMS) will be offered as a web-hosted licensed application to health plans seeking to in-source their health management programs. This move enables health plans to better integrate programs ranging from wellness to high acuity chronic care. It also helps plans avoid the excessive investment costs of building their own technology platforms. Alere, a member of the Inverness Medical Innovations family of companies (NYSE: IMA), is recognized as one of the nation's leading providers of comprehensive health service programs.

"Today, health plans need differentiated services to compete in the marketplace and at the same time control trends and medical loss ratios," said Ron Geraty, M.D., CEO of Alere. "In addition, they have become increasingly dependent on complex information technology systems, spread across multiple disparate platforms, to support clinical decision-making and patient-care delivery. We have developed a solution that addresses those challenges - a technology platform that they can use to cost-efficiently run, manage and integrate all of their in-sourced, and if applicable, outsourced programs."

Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina (BCBS/SC) recently became one of the first health systems in the nation to complete the integration of its DM programs with the IHMS system. The platform merges all of BCBS/SC's disease management, maternity management and personal health records, as well as complex care and wellness programs. The IHMS platform is also used to process all of the claims, pharmacy and medical data for BCBS/SC's 1.5 million covered lives.

"We're extremely pleased with the flexibility that Alere's integrated platform allows us to have with our customers," says David Boucher, president and COO of Companion Global Health Care, a subsidiary of BCBS/SC. "We can either develop programs internally or outsource our programs depending on the needs of our clients. This flexibility gives us a distinct competitive advantage and most importantly is enabling us to provide better care to members while we control costs for our customers."

In addition to providing the ability to insource or outsource, the value of the IHMS system to health plans is that it brings together management, oversight and data analysis for case management, disease management, and wellness onto a single technology platform. This enables greater administrative efficiency and control, resulting in an overall reduction in healthcare costs for health plans.

The IHMS technology can be used by any health plan, using either internally developed or outsourced DM programs. Using IHMS, health plans can:

• Integrate Alere's Personal Health Record which includes personalized health content, interactive member messaging, an online care plan, auto-generated reminders to member email addresses and/or cell phones for tasks and appointments, and an auto-populated claims and medication history system
• Initiate chronic interventions 60 to 90 days ahead of traditional DM models to better control costs and improve outcomes
• Streamline care management to ensure better coordination of care for members
• Improve depth and flow of information to physicians, care managers and clinicians for all care and disease management programs
• Increase adherence to rules-based actions for health plans, employers and consumers

"We recognize that health plans and health care organizations are facing a number of challenges in today's marketplace," said Dr. Geraty. "In this current economic climate, IHMS provides decision makers with economies of scale and the most comprehensive platform in the industry to access and manage critical data, translate it in the right form, and get it to the right person, at the right time."

About Alere

Alere(www.alere.com) is a member of the Inverness Medical Innovations (www.invernessmedical.com) family of companies and represents the union of Alere Medical, ParadigmHealth and Matria(R) Healthcare. Alere, a Latin verb, meaning "to care for" or "to support", offers the most patient-centered health services available from a single provider in the industry. Alere services provide health interventions that are designed for the entire lifespan from pre-cradle (high-risk pregnancy and NICU management) to end-of-life care (complex care) as well as the continuum of health from wellness (health and productivity programs) to prevention for those at risk for illnesses.

About Inverness

By developing new capabilities in near-patient diagnosis, monitoring and health management, Inverness Medical Innovations enables individuals to take charge of improving their health and quality of life. A global leader in rapid point-of-care diagnostics, Inverness' products, as well as its new product development efforts, focus on infectious disease, cardiology, oncology, drugs of abuse and women's health. Inverness is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts.

SOURCE Alere

Source: PR Newswire

More News in this Category