IBM and Aetna subsidiary ActiveHealth Management, alongside Medens Corp., will deliver cloud services to help physicians in Puerto Rico share and exchange health information and make more accurate decisions about patient care.

Currently, fewer than 6 percent of doctors in Puerto Rico use health information technology, and the territory lags behind the rest of the nation in access to patient information, the use of electronic medical records and the ability to share and analyze health data to improve the health of the archipelago's nearly four million citizens.

As a result of the new agreement, Medens Corp., a Dorado, P.R. health IT firm, will provide the cloud-based IBM and ActiveHealth Management solution for collaborative care with the cloud based SOAPware EMR and Practice Management System as the foundation of its own offering, called the Medens Cloud.

The Medens Cloud provides a suite of services that allows doctors to easily manage all their medical and financial data for a more productive, efficient practice. It also facilitates better exchange of patient information and delivers intelligent clinical decision support to improve patient care. Medens will make this available throughout Puerto Rico to its 11,000 physicians.

The collaborative care solution gathers patient health data from multiple sources to create a detailed patient record, then runs that data through the ActiveHealth CareEngine and delivers clinical decision support that provides physicians with information to improve patient care. With all healthcare data and IT resources managed in a secure cloud environment, the system enables the coordination of patient care among teams, so doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, aides, therapists and pharmacists can more easily access, share and address information about patients from a single source.

It also enables patients to keep and view a secure personal health record, communicate with their provider in a secure Web-based portal and via e-mail as well as stay up to date on their medical history and current medications.

For a fixed monthly fee, doctors in Puerto Rico will have access to all healthcare IT and services without having to make significant upfront solution investments – avoiding the challenge and cost of updating systems when clinical guidelines or reporting requirements change, or when patient loads grow.

The system also incorporates IBM's standards-based health information exchange (HIE) technology, allowing healthcare providers in the region to work within an interoperable system to securely share data.

Additionally, the Medens Cloud may help physicians to qualify for stimulus funds.

"Not only will this provide the physicians and patients of Puerto Rico access to important new health information technology, it also provides them the tools to redesign the way they deliver care to support emerging accountable care and patient-centered medical home models," said Orlando Fiallo, president of Medens Corporation. "This is the type of care that will truly transform our healthcare system in Puerto Rico and allow physicians to be reimbursed based on the quality of care, not simply the number of procedures performed."

The cloud solution will allow physicians to analyze multiple patient data sources highlighting gaps in care, clinical research or potential drug interactions and see trends in patient populations, for example where patients with chronic conditions may not be in compliance with established care guidelines.

"Improving patient care starts with creating a more connected health system and making it easier for caregivers to coordinate around their patients' needs," said Robert Merkel, vice president and healthcare industry leader, IBM Global Business Services. "There is real opportunity to create smarter, more efficient healthcare throughout Puerto Rico and the work under way there is a model for the rest of the nation."