Leading Israeli HMO Maccabi Healthcare Services today announced that it is making its technology-driven health value-added knowledge base, which it currently uses to manage over 30 million patient-HMO interactions annually among its 1,7 million members - more than one-quarter of Israel's total population available for adoption by HMOs worldwide. Health Value Added Patient Care Knowledge Base enables HMOs to harness the power of HIT (healthcare information technology) to achieve unprecedented levels of excellence in medicine quality, knowledge and service delivery, qualities for which Maccabi is recognized globally.
Health Value Added Patient Care Knowledge Base is an efficient HIT strategic management solution that enables HMOs to measure quality of care, improve budgeting and increase member satisfaction by recording, analyzing and making accessible all patient medical data, including all patient-HMO interactions. HMO health practitioners can edit and view patient information in real-time, subject to confidentiality safeguards, while HMO management can analyze macro-data to improve business efficiency and track medical trends.
The solution is offered as a flexible hands-on consulting service that includes needs characterization, change management education, implementation guidance and comprehensive follow-up. Client organizations can elect to use Maccabi's integrated IT platform or transfer its principles and methodology to their own IT system.
"We are a healthcare supplier, not a technology company, which gives us profound insight into the needs of HMOs," said Ofer Carmel, CEO of Maccabi Group Holdings. "The system we created is the healthcare delivery backbone for almost two million people in Israel, whose healthcare expenditure, according to WHO, is only 2/3 as much per capita as countries like Sweden and France, and 1/3 that of the United States. Yet Israel has comparable, and in many cases better, life expectancy and child/adult mortality rates, and lower expenditure as a percent of GDP only 60 percent that of the United States. These figures are a direct reflection of efficient healthcare system management. We want to work with HMOs around the world that appreciate our direct interest in better patient care and more efficient system management."
Using secure, real-time data integration and transmission, patient data can be input by primary and secondary care physicians and is instantly available to diagnostic services, pharmacies, hospitals and other treatment centers. Automatic registry creation enables HMO management to analyze disease incidence, morbidity and other factors that aid in identifying medical outcomes and trends. Additional data sets provide information on such subjects as utilization rates, staff productivity and patient compliance, and all HMO members can view their password-protected personal file at any time. HMO management also benefits from more efficient recording and transmission of data required by third-party insurers, as well as improved supplier coordination and liaison.
World Bank Finances Bulgaria's Choice of Maccabi
After a long, competitive selection process, Maccabi's Health Value Added patient care knowledge base and its IT partners were selected over well-known global competitors to develop Bulgaria's national heathcare information system. Now underway, the system will serve eight million people when fully implemented.
"Healthcare professionals around the world have recognized that our integrated approach is an effective way to implement change that benefits all healthcare system stakeholders," says Yosi Jan, Maccabi Healthcare Services Chief Information Officer. "Senior Bulgarian health ministry representatives carefully scrutinized our system and also recognized that we were the right people to build a similar system for them."
Key Solution Attributes
- Online centralized medical record
- Patient magnetic card system
- Cost reduction: High-level economics evaluation including comparison of costs and outcomes over time and populations
- Lab system links physicians to specimen-collection point and lab facility
- Comprehensive web-based interface lets patients see current and past lab results, billing information, drug purchase history, health and diet recommendations, appointments and insurance status
- Pharmacy system delivers prescriptions directly to pharmacy computer, avoiding data re-entry, plus monitors for overdose and interactions
- Links to telemedicine systems including tele-radiology, tele-ultrasound, tele-holter, tele-ECG and more
- Permits evidence-based management, enabling strategic and day-to-day decisions based on up to date information and knowledge
- Infinite flexibility for all operational models, including:
- Primary care models
- Resources management (EBM-CT preauthorization)
- Disease management programs
- Central computerized database
- Planning for the needs of the elderly
- Healthcare insurance programs
About Maccabi
Maccabi Healthcare Services is Israel's fastest growing health maintenance organization, whose 9,000 employees provide comprehensive medical coverage to more than 1,7 million people, about a quarter of Israel's population. Established in 1941, it operates 5,300 clinics throughout Israel, utilizing the services of 3,600 physicians, including some 450 senior consulting physicians heading departments at the country's private and public hospitals. Its network of institutes and clinics provides a full range of consultation and laboratory services and treatments that increasingly employ telemedicine, while Maccabi's own 44 pharmacies and 600 private pharmacies throughout the country dispense prescriptions received by satellite link.
www.maccabi-health.co.il