Cloud computing will have an immense impact on the economics of managing health plans in the months and years to come.  Organizations in the public and private sectors are scrambling for new ways to streamline operations and reduce costs while securing better healthcare outcomes for health plan members.

Specifically, cloud computing offers an opportunity to:

Bring together health plan management data that exists in different databases for consolidated analysis;

• Create an architectural framework that allows meaningful analysis to take place for better decision-making;
• Collaborate across organizational boundaries in a constructive and HIPAA-compliant manner; and
• Accelerate the creation and adoption of shared health plan management strategies.

Health plan administration processes today are hampered by silos of automation based on the limitations of legacy mainframe and client-server systems.  Pertinent data is locked in servers and mainframes that cannot be accessed by decision-makers. This is a significant problem when you consider the inter-organizational nature of health plan management.  Optimum results – on both the cost containment and healthcare outcome fronts – can only be achieved when employers, beneficiaries and healthcare providers have secure access to current, medical, pharmaceutical and financial information.

The inability to access current data and correlate them for collaborative analysis and action is one of the reasons health plan management is one of the fastest growing budget line-items for organizations. 

In this webcast you will receive a multi-disciplinary perspective on:

• Why health care reform is creating more pressure for better collaboration among employers, beneficiaries and health providers.
• The limitations associated with the current fragmented systems upon which many health plan management systems are based.
• How Cloud-Computing infrastructures can immediately reduce costs and improve outcomes for plan members;
• Examine the impact that a cloud-based architecture can have on plan design.

The panel of experts discussing these critical issues include:

• Henry Cha, President of HealthCare Interactive, a healthcare technologist who specializes in delivering software as a service (SaaS) offerings that help companies better manage employee healthcare programs and related costs.
• Todd C. Thompson is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for the Financial Services & Human Capital line of business within Lockheed Martin Corporation.  
• Michael Clark, Vice President of Development for Pacific Intermedia, a professional services and technology development organization serving the financial, healthcare, manufacturing and government markets.\

The webcast will be moderated by Lane Cooper, Editorial Director of the HPM Institute.