July 10, 2008 Parkview Health Expands Partnership with ikaSystems to Encompass Integrated Medical Management

Successful Replacement of Legacy Claims System Leads Health Plan to Implement ikaSystems’ Full Medical Management Product Suite

Southborough, Mass., Parkview Health, a not-for-profit, community-based health system serving northeast Indiana, western Ohio and southern Michigan, has selected ikaMM, ikaSystems’ full medical management software suite, to support the medical management initiatives of its health plan, Parkview Health Plan Services (HPS). HPS, which achieved an autoadjudication rate of 86 percent within a month of implementing ikaClaims, ikaSystems’ next-generation claims system, will build on its existing relationship with the company, a premier provider of enterprise-level Web-based technologies for the payer market, to better integrate the information and people involved in its care management programs. As a result, HPS expects to improve the quality of care its members receive while expanding the services it can offer.

“Our success with ikaClaims and the degree of trust we have developed in ikaSystems led us to explore the company’s medical management offerings, which run on the same technology platform and offer the same power to automate manual processes while improving the flow of information to everyone involved in care management decisions,” said Philip Henneman, RN, director of HPS Clinical and Technical Operations. “As we look to offer additional services to our members, a key priority is making sure our extensive physician network has important, usable information at their fingertips, plus the ability to more easily collaborate with care managers and members to achieve the best results.”

ikaMM provides a secure environment for payers, providers, care management staff and members to communicate and collaborate on the Web. Because all ikaMM modules draw upon a single, comprehensive data warehouse for financial and clinical analyses, everyone shares the same version of “the truth,” information that is updated in real time or near real time. Armed with more timely, complete and accurate information, physicians and other caregivers can proactively uncover opportunities to close gaps in care or offer services that keep members healthy. In the process, health plans can significantly improve their HEDIS and other quality scores and more precisely determine the types of programs that will benefit their membership.

“Everyone engaged in care management knows that retrospective information, although helpful, cannot significantly influence physician or member behavior because it isn’t truly ‘actionable’,” explained Robert S. London, M.D., ikaSystems’ general manager and a nationally recognized expert in healthcare management, benefits design and medical informatics. “The challenge has always been to provide data that allows physicians and others to respond proactively — before a test is missed or an important warning sign becomes more serious. To date, ikaSystems is the only vendor in the market that has managed to tap the potential of real-time quality metrics to influence the quality and cost of care across the healthcare continuum.”

In addition to ikaDWH, ikaMM’s underlying data warehouse of claims, laboratory, pharmacy, encounter data, practice management, and electronic medical record information, HPS will implement the following ikaMM modules:

• ikaDM, which connects disease and case managers, physicians and patients on the Web for optimal information sharing and collaboration while providing powerful identification, stratification, enrollment, monitoring, alerting and self-management tools, including health risk questionnaires and patient-centric tools such as personal health records (PHRs)
  
  
• ikaProHEDIS+, which gives health plans unprecedented ability to proactively monitor and share quality data with staff, physicians and members, supporting HEDIS® and other quality programs with timely and actionable information and easy-to-use tracking tools
  
  
• ikaProfyle, which reliably measures and compares the performance of primary care physicians, specialists, hospitals and networks using concurrent data and case-mix adjusted methodology for economic medical performance and quality of care
  
  
• ikaUA, which delivers comprehensive analytics and reporting for executive management, actuarial, underwriting, financial, quality and medical management decision-making
  
  

“Parkview Health has been our valued partner for over two years, and we are committed to their success with this latest initiative,” said Ravi Ika, president of ikaSystems. “Our clients are embracing the new technology paradigm that ikaEnterprise represents, adding new modules with greater frequency and building the strong and agile technology infrastructures that help improve quality of care and market responsiveness while reducing administrative, medical and information technology expenses.”

About Parkview Health
Parkview Health is a not-for-profit, community-based health system that serves northeast Indiana, western Ohio and southern Michigan. Parkview is home to the region's only Verified Level II Adult and Pediatric Trauma Center. Additional services include the Samaritan Flight Program, Parkview Heart Institute, Orthopaedic Hospital, a Certified Stroke Center, Women's & Children's Hospital, Outpatient Services Center, and Comprehensive Cancer Center. Employing more than 6,000 full and part-time staff, Parkview Health’s mission is to provide quality health services and improve the health of the communities it serves.