Healthcare Technology Featured Article

April 16, 2014

HTH Chooses Cognizant for Mobile Healthcare Partnership


HTH Worldwide, a health services and information company, has selected Cognizant in an initiative that provides mobile technology to manage patients’ healthcare needs while they’re traveling globally.

Among the applications that will benefit are HTH’s mPassport and GeoBlue. Now, members will be able to better “understand, access, and pay for the best available healthcare services in any corner of the world,” according to a company statement.

Members of HTH, by using their smartphones, can find out health information specific to where they are traveling, and if needed, find doctors, emergency health services, hospitals, pharmacies, schedule appointments, and translate medication names, medical terms and phrases, the company adds.

The app is needed given the current numbers of people who travel globally. According to the World Health Organization, over 900 million global journeys are made yearly. These expose people to varied health risks. And the number of trips is likely to rise, with recent data saying global arrivals are predicted to total 1.6 billion by 2020.

The World Tourism Organization, a few years ago, estimated that trips for leisure, recreation and vacations were 51 percent or 446 million arrivals of the total. On the other hand, 5 percent of international travelers were traveling for business and professional purposes, and about another 27 percent traveled for visits to friends and relatives, religious reasons, or health treatment.

"Innovation is the cornerstone of our mission to help travelers deal with medical questions quickly, efficiently, and safely," Angelo Masciantonio, CEO of HTH Worldwide, said in a statement. "As mobile devices become the gateway to understanding, finding, and accessing care, the convenience and reliability of an optimized mobile experience are what our members need to manage existing and unanticipated health conditions in faraway places where finding a doctor and explaining symptoms cannot be left to chance. In Cognizant, we have found a partner that understands our enterprise mobile strategy and has the capabilities to help us enable our members to make the most of their travel, no matter where they are."

Cognizant provides information technology, consulting and business process outsourcing. Also, Cognizant says it has among its customers 27 of the top 30 global pharmaceutical companies, 15 of the top 20 health plans in the United States, five of the top six pharmacy benefit management companies in the United States, nine of the top 10 biotech companies, and 12 of the top 20 medical device companies.

In addition, Krish Venkat, president of Cognizant's Healthcare and Life Sciences practice, said the firm’s background in social, mobile, analytics and cloud technologies will “help HTH Worldwide continue to transform how it delivers health services to its members across the globe and engages with them. With smartphones and tablets empowering users and fast transforming the delivery of care, assuring a cutting-edge mobile experience for world travelers will help HTH Worldwide unlock greater competitive advantage and raise the bar of customer engagement."


Edited by Rory J. Thompson
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