Healthcare leader joins major U.S. employers group to help deliver empowering health data to employees through personally-controlled health records
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Dossia, a leading provider of personally-controlled health records, today announced that Vanguard Health Systems is the newest member of the Dossia Consortium, a non-profit organization comprised of nine other top U.S. employers dedicated to empowering their employees to make smarter, more informed healthcare decisions by providing them with access to their health data through personally-controlled health records (PCHRs). The Dossia Consortium Founders now include Applied Materials, AT&T, BP America, Cardinal Health, Intel, Pitney Bowes, Abraxis BioScience, sanofi-aventis, Wal-Mart and Vanguard Health Systems.
In September 2008, Dossia and Wal-Mart carried out the inaugural deployment of the Dossia PCHR to thousands of Wal-Mart Associates. Through the Dossia system, Associates were able to gain access to, and control over their lifelong, personal, private and portable health information. Dossia is currently working closely with its Consortium members to deploy the Dossia solution to the other Founders. Upon deployment, Dossia Founders will be able to connect their employees to their health information, enabling them to become agents for change in their own lives.
"I am very excited for Vanguard to be a part of Dossia's mission to bring vital healthcare tools to our employees, and look forward to further developments from this partnership in the future," said Charlie Martin, Chairman and CEO of Vanguard Health Systems. "Current market conditions are creating a great need for untethered PHRs, and Dossia's PCHR is perfectly positioned to fill that need. Transportability of healthcare data is key to empowering employees with control over their own healthcare."
"As employer healthcare spending is spiraling out of control, major employers are starting to realize that the key to decreasing healthcare costs is through employee empowerment, giving employees responsibility over their own health and healthcare," said Colin Evans, President and CEO of Dossia. "We are also very pleased to welcome Vanguard Executive Vice President of Strategy and Innovation and Chief Transformation Officer Brad Perkins M.D. to the Dossia Board of Directors."
Dossia's primary goal is to create a Web-based infrastructure for the storing and managing of each employee's health information via private and portable electronic health records. By working collectively instead of as individual companies, Dossia's Consortium Founders have created a unified coalition of corporations, providers, payers and personal health applications developers oriented around a common goal: to improve the quality of employee's healthcare while reducing the costs of healthcare as a whole.
About Dossia
Dossia is a non-profit organization consisting of several large U.S. employers who have united under a common vision: to empower their employees to make smarter more informed decisions about their healthcare. Through Dossia, they will leverage their combined influence to break down barriers to health information, which will help drive consumer-initiated change. The Dossia Founders group includes AT&T, Applied Materials, BP America, Cardinal Health, Intel, Pitney Bowes, Abraxis BioScience, Vangaurd Health Systems, sanofi-aventis, and Wal-Mart. For more information, visit www.dossia.org.
About Vanguard
Vanguard owns and operates 15 acute care hospitals and complementary facilities and services in Chicago, Illinois; Phoenix, Arizona; San Antonio, Texas; and Massachusetts. Vanguard also owns three managed care health plans: Phoenix Health Plan, a Medicaid managed health plan in Arizona; Abrazo Advantage Health Plan, a managed Medicare and dual-eligible health plan in Arizona; and MacNeal Health Providers, a preferred provider network in Chicago. Vanguard's strategy is to develop locally branded, comprehensive healthcare delivery networks in urban markets. Vanguard will pursue acquisitions where there are opportunities to partner with leading delivery systems in new urban markets. Upon acquiring a facility or network of facilities, Vanguard implements strategic and operational improvement initiatives, including improving quality of care, expanding services, strengthening relationships with physicians and managed care organizations, recruiting new physicians, and upgrading information systems and other capital equipment. These strategies improve quality and network coverage in a cost effective and accessible manner for the communities we serve.
