McKesson Health Solutions and IBM to Deliver Business Intelligence Solutions to Health Plans

McKesson Health Solutions and IBM today announced they are working together to unleash the power of business intelligence for healthcare by creating an analytics solution for public and private health plans. McKesson’s premiere clinical content and healthcare business expertise combined with IBM’s information management software and health plan data model will fundamentally change the way insurers use healthcare information. The new solution will enable health plans to facilitate smarter, faster decision-making across their businesses and externally with health services enterprises, employers and consumers.

As health costs continue to rise and medical loss ratios become increasingly difficult to control, business intelligence is more critical than ever. Yet, in today’s environment, health plans rely heavily on partial data sets to identify opportunities to improve quality and better manage results. Without a solution to integrate the data from disparate sources, plans are unable to turn their disconnected data-streams into real business value.

Together, McKesson Health Solutions and IBM are developing a solution that will unleash the power of plan-based analytics by addressing the data, communication and ease-of-use issues inherent in today’s environment. The relationship will bring health plans a business intelligence solution that will quickly consolidate, aggregate and analyze data from multiple sources and infuse it with rich clinical content and business logic. The result will be intelligent, actionable information that drives the consistent, timely care and sound business decisions that health plans need today. 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.

"We’re excited to be working with IBM, who brings unmatched technology credentials, a strong commitment to healthcare, the deep resources to execute and, most importantly, an unparalleled track record in teaming to deliver transformational solutions,” said Emad Rizk, MD, president of McKesson Health Solutions. "Together with McKesson’s unmatched strength in clinical content and deep understanding of the health insurance industry, we look forward to providing groundbreaking business intelligence solutions to this community.”

"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, 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 critical health benefits business issues. The health plan will have the ability to deploy the information – provided via IBM Cognos 8 BI dashboard and reporting capabilities – to employers, consumers and providers. The first set of health plan-focused clinical resource management solutions is scheduled for release in summer of 2009 and will be designed to be capable of scaling to support the nation’s largest health plans.

"Together, we will deliver a market-leading suite of healthcare business intelligence tools to help health plans and their customers make better healthcare decisions – faster, more informed and more intelligent – than ever before,” said Dr. Rizk.

About McKesson Corporation

McKesson Corporation, currently ranked 18th on the FORTUNE 500, is a healthcare services and healthcare information technology company dedicated to helping its customers deliver high-quality healthcare by reducing costs, streamlining processes, and improving the quality and safety of patient care. McKesson is the longest-operating company in healthcare today, marking its 175^th anniversary this year. Over the course of its history, McKesson has grown by providing pharmaceutical and medical-surgical supply management across the spectrum of care; healthcare information technology for hospitals, physicians, homecare and health benefits companies; hospital and retail pharmacy automation; and services for manufacturers and health benefits designed to improve outcomes for patients. For more information, visit http://www.mckesson.com.

About IBM

IBM Information Management solutions: www-01.ibm.com/software/data.

Healthcare and Live Sciences Industry Solutions: www-03.ibm.com/industries/healthcare