Healthcare Technology Featured Article

January 31, 2014

Walgreens and Inovalon Push Harder on Bringing Big Data to Healthcare


For many people, Walgreens is the tip of the spear when it comes to healthcare options. When that first tickle in the throat starts, or that first muscle ache arrives, it's off to the drugstore for some over-the-counter remedy. Usually this is sufficient to take care of most healthcare issues, but Walgreens has been augmenting its systems all the same. This is evident by recent reports of an expansion effort between Walgreens and technology firm Inovalon, Inc., in what's regarded as an attempt to bring big data-style analytics systems to Walgreens' Healthcare Clinic lines.

Walgreens has over 400 such Healthcare Clinics in operation, and the new move with Inovalon will bring a new patient assessment system to the clinics' operations. The Inovalon Electronic Patient Assessment Solution Suite (ePASS), as it's known, will allow the Healthcare Clinics to bring in a set of new patient assessment options, much as the name suggests. The ePASS system is Web-based, so it can be operated on a variety of different platforms for added flexibility, and allows its user to derive key facts like gaps in care and accompanying documentation, results from diagnostic efforts, history of encounters with healthcare providers and more besides.

Having this information on hand can not only help in the regulatory sense—which is an ever-increasing facet of the healthcare industry as a whole—but can also help in the provision sense, allowing healthcare providers to make better decisions about what's going on with a patient and how to apply care accordingly to fix issues that crop up.

Inovalon's president and CEO, Keith Dunleavy M.D., offered a bit of comment on Inovalon's—and ePASS'--value within the healthcare field, saying “Bringing advanced analytics to the point of care in real time is a powerful benefit for patients being seen in today’s highly complex health care environment. We are proud to be working with Walgreens on this industry leading initiative, supporting its commitment to improve health care outcomes for Healthcare Clinic partners and patients nationwide.”

Indeed, the more that healthcare providers know about each individual patient's healthcare history, the better off both the provider and the patient are in terms of getting just the right kind of care in play. Healthcare providers get to know what's been tried already and may not have had the right kind of success, and can adjust treatment patterns accordingly to produce the best results. Patients, of course, get access to the best results, which is the whole point of seeking healthcare in the first place. Having the kind of big data capabilities that the ePASS system can offer helps to provide that information, and allows for better overall care. Plus, when simpler problems can be found and treated—which is likely much of the scope of a Walgreens Healthcare Clinic—it keeps patients out of doctor's offices and emergency rooms, cutting down the burden on such places and making the whole system flow more efficiently.

This combination of Walgreens and Inovalon may not be the silver-bullet approach to fixing healthcare, but it certainly will help in the long run, and may be part of an overall solution package that gives us all a better trip to the doctor when it's needed.




Edited by Cassandra Tucker
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