Perhaps this is more a wish than reality right now, but IBM’s Barry Mason, their VP in charge of global healthcare payers, sees the ‘Wal-Mart moment’ of transparency between insurance companies, hospitals, medical devices and pharma coming up shortly. The four are actually considering sharing data, restructuring their organizations to work more closely together and even going ‘joint’. This sentiment seems to be on display in this week’s World Health Care Congress. The aforementioned ‘Wal-Mart moment’ is when Wal-Mart opened its books on sales data and inventory levels to vendors, creating a superior level of transparency. The ambitious list he proposes includes supply chain data (claims data), complete sharing of clinical data from providers and all consumer data. Amazing potential here…but many rivers to cross, filled with rocks. Again. Healthcare convergence moves beyond the buzzword. But here’s what still needs to happen (MedCityNews)
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