IBM Prescribes IT for Health Care Woes

Containing the rising cost of health services, while at the same time preserving quality of care, is one of the primary challenges for the healthcare industry. To that end, IBM has teamed up with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) to resolve the inefficiencies that emanate from an infrastructure that is still largely paper-driven.

Big Blue and UPMC have invested eight years and $402 million to modernize and integrate information systems that hold patient records and to develop commercial medical technologies for managing patient care and public safety concerns.

$352 million of the funds will be earmarked to UPMC's internal needs, to create an "on-demand" environment, and the remaining $50 million will be invested in strategic initiatives that improve electronic patient records, biosecurity and information-based medicine.

The $50 million is a joint investment that may be raised to $200 million over the life of the contract.

"The health care industry has no hope of dealing with the pressing issues of quality care, patient safety, the threat of worldwide epidemics and bioterrorism or even of bringing the latest in medical research to the bedside, unless information technology is more consistently and rapidly integrated across all health care organizations, allowing for a tightly-interconnected health care industry," stated Jeffrey Romoff, UPMC president.

Internal projections predict a total cost savings of between 15 and 20 percent per year once the new "on-demand" environment is in place. UPMC's IT infrastructure will also be consolidated, reducing the number and footprint of production servers, storage arrays and the number of running operating systems from nine to three.

The strategic initiatives are comprised of four core projects: the Biosecurity Information Project to prepare for large epidemics or terrorist attacks; the Intelligent Hospital Project to improve the communication and portability of patient records and deploy radio-frequency identification (RFID) to track people and equipment; the Cancer Institute Information-Based Medicine Project to study cancer treatments and prevention; and the Safe and Lean Hospital Project to advance operational safety, efficiency and capacity management.