business
AMA announces more partners in Web portal project
■ One of the new collaborators, Dell, will donate hardware to clinics testing the platform.
By Pamela Lewis Dolan — Posted March 16, 2010
The American Medical Association announced March 1 that it is collaborating with Dell on its Web portal project, expected to launch nationally later in 2010. It also announced the first electronic medical record system to be made available through the portal.
Pilot-testing of the portal, described as a one-stop shop to buy and access electronic clinical tools, is going on in Michigan in collaboration with the Michigan State Medical Society. Six "model" practices are being set up to test the technology and help the AMA determine what physicians need to meet meaningful use requirements and qualify for Medicare incentive payments.
Dell has donated equipment for those pilot sites, as well as for a model physician office being installed at AMA headquarters in Chicago.
Robert Musacchio, PhD, senior vice president of publishing and business services for the AMA, said the Association is in negotiation with Dell to include additional pilot sites in five other states.
The announcement was made at the annual meeting of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, held in early March in Atlanta.
Meanwhile, the AMA announced that the Ingenix CareTracker is the first electronic medical records product announced to the portal. Ingenix is a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group.
Other technology partners that will be offering systems on the AMA's platform include Allscripts and DrFirst, both e-prescribing systems, and Microsoft Corp., which is granting access to its personal health record platform, HealthVault. Isabel, a decision-support tool, also will be made available. The technology platform on which the portal runs was developed by Covisint, a subsidiary of Detroit-based Compuware Corp.