Verizon introduces cloud-based HIE that will standardize data

Despite ongoing concerns with the security of cloud computing, offsite data storage is booming in healthcare, and companies with lots of storage space are jumping into the market. The latest entrant is Verizon Communications, which last week announced its intention to build a health information exchange in the cloud.

Verizon's value proposition is in its plans to translate various forms of clinical data into standardized format and present the consolidated information through a web portal.

"By breaking down the digital silos within the U.S. healthcare delivery system, the Verizon Health Information Exchange will address many of the interoperability barriers that prevent sharing of clinical data between physicians, clinics, hospitals and payers," Verizon Connected Health Care Solutions Global Managing Director Kannan Sreedhar says in a press release. "Providing secure access to patient data will enable healthcare organizations to make a quantum leap forward in the deployment of IT to meet critical business and patient-care issues."

Verizon will enlist MEDfx, Oracle and 10-year-old IT collaborative MedVirginia to help develop some of the HIE's features, including a clinical dashboard, a record-locator service, a cross-enterprise patient index and secure clinical messaging technology. Verizon says MedVirginia has agreed to join the Verizon HIE. "Our current and future needs require enhanced functionality, flexibility, performance and scalability, and the cloud-based Verizon Health Information Exchange meets those requirements," MedVirginia CEO--and chairman of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology's NHIN Coordinating Committee--says in the Verizon statement.

For further details:
- take a look at this Healthcare IT News story
- see this GigaOM blog post
- read this Verizon press release
- visit Verizon's HIE page

Related Articles:
Microsoft touts cloud computing in healthcare as providers wait for better security
Accenture report: Healthcare embracing cloud computing at same high rates as other sectors

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