U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Joins OptumLabs
November 18 2015 - 08:00AM
Business Wire
- Federal agency will use health data to
create additional value for the nation’s health system and drive
improvements in patient care
- Health care research and innovation
collaborative co-founded by Optum and Mayo Clinic
OptumLabs, the collaborative health care research and innovation
center co-founded by Optum and Mayo Clinic, announced that the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has joined the
collaborative as a research partner.
Agencies under HHS’s purview will now have the opportunity to
develop and lead innovative health care research using OptumLabs’
big data resources, which link de-identified medical claims and
clinical data to provide holistic views of populations and patient
care.
“As HHS and its affiliates seek opportunities to improve the
health, safety and well-being of all Americans, we believe that
partnering with private-sector organizations such as OptumLabs will
help accelerate the discovery of new health care models and
practices,” said Susannah Fox, chief technology officer of HHS. “We
are eager to collaborate with OptumLabs and its partners on a
variety of initiatives that harness the power of health data to
improve patient care and outcomes.”
The first research project to be conducted through this
arrangement is with senior scientists at the Agency for Healthcare
Research and Quality (AHRQ), the lead federal agency charged with
improving the safety and quality of America’s health care system.
The agency will compare and contrast health care trends identified
in its Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) with those
identified in real-world administrative health care claims records
for the commercially insured population in OptumLabs’ databases,
with the goal of increasing the value of MEPS to researchers
exploring health care costs. MEPS collects data on the health
services that Americans use, the cost of these services and how
they are paid for.
HHS and its agencies also will work with OptumLabs on other
projects, including research related to population health and the
economics of health care – such as identifying whether disparities
exist and can be measured in health care delivery at the national
and local levels. All research is performed using de-identified
outcomes-based data that can help answer questions about
improvements in health care quality and delivery.
“Government is a key stakeholder in health care, and through
this partnership now has a seat at the table of our collaborative
community at OptumLabs,” said Paul Bleicher, M.D., Ph.D., CEO of
OptumLabs. “We are grateful to have HHS as a new partner and
welcome its active engagement as we focus on new initiatives that
can directly translate to improvements in patient care.”
OptumLabs, with one of the largest de-identified patient
databases in health care, is the first open, collaborative research
and innovation center designed to accelerate health care
innovation, leading to improved patient care and patient value.
More than 100 research projects are currently underway or in
development, and members of OptumLabs and its partner organizations
have published more than 20 articles in leading health research
journals.
About OptumLabs
OptumLabs was established in 2013 through a partnership between
Optum, a leading information and technology-enabled health services
business, and Mayo Clinic, a nonprofit worldwide leader in medical
care, research, and education, as an open center for research and
innovation. AARP, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization with a
membership of more than 37 million individuals, is its Founding
Consumer Advocate Organization. Today, OptumLabs has more than 20
collaborating organizations, representing participants from across
the health care system. For more information, visit
www.optumlabs.com, or follow OptumLabs on Twitter, @OptumLabs.
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version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20151118005115/en/
OptumJeffrey Smith,
612-632-6213jeffrey.p.smith@optum.com
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