In less than two years we have gone from Accountable Care Organization (ACO) as a concept, to ACO as a new model of care delivery. With the January announcement that there were 106 more added to the Medicare ACO program, we now have 254 ACOs nationwide. David Muhlestein of Leavitt Partners has done some of his own research and puts the total number of ACO-like entities at over 400. And let’s not forget that commercial insurers are putting forth their own contracts with providers to set-up similar accountable delivery systems where there is some element of gain and risk sharing with providers.

Now it is one thing to say you have signed on to become an ACO and quite another to actually execute on the contract. Among the numerous challenges that an ACO model presents, is the need for more sophisticated IT systems that will support distributed care management across a diverse care team that extends from the primary care physician, to the specialists, to the care manager, the patient and others. EHRs today will simply not get you there.

Today, there is no such out of the box solution from any one vendor that will enable an ACO model. But there are several vendors positioning themselves to be that one stop shop to enable your ACO strategy.

Following are some vignettes of several vendors looking to enable an ACO strategy and what they have on offer. (Note: This is our proverbial toe-in-the-water as we’ll be doing a comprehensive report on this market later this year)

Aetna: A commercial payer, Aetna is looking for new high-growth revenue opportunities and has targeted healthcare IT. Shortly after acquiring leading HIE vendor Medicity, and soon after leading mHealth App iTriage the company announced its ACO-enablement suite that combines the two above with analytics/managed care solution Active Health.

Strengths: Strong HIE brand, good consumer/patient engagement tools

Weakness: Predictive analytics and care management tools are not as competitive

CareEvolution: A privately owned HIE targeting the private, enterprise market, the company has built its own analytics engine, Galileo. Galileo provides deep dive capabilities into clinical, operational and claims data contained within a given network of providers.

Strengths: State of art HIE solution, good analytics capabilities

Weaknesses: Consumer/patient engagement tools are almost non-existent, low recognition in market

Cerner: Cerner’s HealtheIntent is part of the company’s broader strategy to move beyond being an IT company to becoming a health company. Like most EHR companies, ability to move as fast as market requirements is a challenge.

Strengths: Leading EHR, strong brand, leading visionary among EHR companies, has a good HIE solution, has broad suite of consumer engagement tools

Weaknesses: Analytics is lagging, resources to respond quickly is a challenge, distributed care management tools still work in progress