Coordinated Care Management

February 14, 2012

Cloud-based Applications for Physicians Help Improve Patient Care



While we know by now the value of cloud-based solutions and applications to the business enterprise, there are other groups who are finding just as much value in the cloud. Physicians, for starters, who are increasingly using secure, cloud-based applications to share information with patients over the Internet.

To this end, UnitedHealth Group’s Optum business is launching a new service that will facilitate this information-sharing over the Internet. The goal is to help health care companies continue their push to improve care with better coordination. The suite of services was created in partnership with Cisco, IBM and Hewlett-Packard Co., among others.

The cloud-based nature of the new suite means that physicians and other healthcare providers can access patient information or care updates while on the go, from portable devices such as smart phones or tablet computers. Practitioners can use the Optum cloud-based solution to track patients, receive automatic updates on a hospitalized patient’s condition or be notified when a patient visits an emergency room or fails to fill prescriptions, a company spokesman told the AP.

This goes above and beyond current piecemeal efforts physicians must rely on to keep track of patients, such as hoping hospitals or other physicians will notify them of their patients’ visits to other facilities. In addition, physicians can use the new cloud-based service to collaborate on patient care, sharing records and test results.




Tracey Schelmetic is a contributing editor for HealthTechZone. To read more of Tracey's articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Jennifer Russell
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