One benefit of Kaiser Permanente spending an estimated $6 billion for an integrated electronic health records (EHR) system to serve 9 million people across eight regions from coast to coast is it that has amassed a vast repository of clinical data. That storehouse also contains information from a patient portal, ancillary systems, smart medical devices and even home-based patient monitoring systems.

All those terabytes of electronic data now are helping to fuel a massive analytics operation, part of an overall organizational goal of improving care and reining in costs. "It's all about the data and information, not the electronic health record," Carol Cain, senior director of clinical information services for the Kaiser Permanente Care Management Institute, said this week at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) annual conference in New Orleans. Read full story on InformationWeek


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