NEW YORK, April 28, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- ConvergeHEALTH by Deloitte is announcing that Forest Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE: FRX), a leading, fully integrated, specialty pharmaceutical company, and Intermountain Healthcare have entered into a multi-year collaboration to conduct outcomes research leveraging a next generation platform for generating insights into what works for patients.  The initial focus of the collaboration is on respiratory disease. 

Forest will be part of a collaborative rapid learning network created by Intermountain Healthcare and ConvergeHEALTH that leverages OutcomesMiner, an analytics solution designed to accelerate the development of new treatments, create better therapeutic products and improve patient outcomes while taking costs out of healthcare delivery. 

"At ConvergeHEALTH we believe that the shift to value based, personalized healthcare is a team sport that not only requires technology and scientific innovation, but new networked R&D models that support a rapid learning healthcare system, all for the benefit of patients," said Brett Davis, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP and general manager of ConvergeHEALTH.  "We look forward to Forest joining the ConvergeHEALTH rapid learning network to support this aim as part of a multi-year collaboration with Intermountain Healthcare." 

Dr. Gavin Corcoran, executive vice president, medical affairs, health economics and outcomes research and patient safety at Forest, said "we are excited to work with Intermountain as part of ConvergeHEALTH by Deloitte's rapid learning network. Intermountain Healthcare has long been a leader in leveraging electronic health information to drive unnecessary variation out of care, while keeping quality high and costs low."

"This aligns with Forest's vision of collaborative research with institutes like Intermountain Healthcare enabled by next generation tools like OutcomesMiner, which provides a platform to conduct real world research and insights into patient care," said Dr. Shailja Dixit, executive director, health economics and outcomes research at Forest.  "In particular, we believe this collaboration has the potential to provide unique insights into respiratory disease, which will help optimize use of the appropriate treatment for better patient outcomes."

Leveraging electronic medical records data, OutcomesMiner will help Forest understand associated outcomes for treatments and filter for sub-populations using phenotypic characteristics and specific medical associations. The solution draws upon Intermountain's vast repository of electronic health data in supporting analysis around patient and product outcomes under a double-blinded format designed to protect the privacy of personal health information.  As part of the collaboration, Forest can engage with Intermountain's Homer Warner Center for Informatics Research in conducting institutional review board approved follow-on studies to support comparative effectiveness research programs, new product planning activities, health economic and outcomes research and observational insights that support safety analytics and decision making.  The Homer Warner Center for Informatics Research is a research facility dedicated to the discovery and implementation of innovative information technologies and leveraging Intermountain's data for the improvement of clinical care.

"We are excited to work with Forest to tackle important scientific questions that can be best answered by leveraging informatics techniques and real-world evidence from electronic medical records," said Dr. Peter Haug, director of the Homer Warner Center for Informatics Research at Intermountain Healthcare.  "Our goal is to continue to improve our ability to understand the healthcare needs of our patients and to provide critical insights into the processes of care delivery necessary to optimize outcomes for patients globally." 

Greg Reh, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP and U.S. leader of Deloitte Consulting's life sciences practice, said that "by bringing together our leading clients with analytics and research we've created together, we are creating a quantum leap in the ability to provide services that address the heart of the business of what our clients need, deliver quality studies, analytics and analysis to understand what works in healthcare." 

ConvergeHEALTH will be co-presenting with Forest and Intermountain Healthcare at the Medical Informatics World Conference, April 28-29 in Boston.

About Forest Laboratories

Forest Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE:FRX) is a leading, fully integrated, specialty pharmaceutical company largely focused on the United States market. The company markets a portfolio of branded drug products and develops new medicines to treat patients suffering from diseases principally in the following therapeutic areas: central nervous system, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, respiratory, anti-infective, and cystic fibrosis. Our strategy of acquiring product rights for development and commercialization through licensing, collaborative partnerships, and targeted mergers and acquisitions allows us to take advantage of attractive late-stage development and commercial opportunities, thereby managing the risks inherent in drug development. The company is headquartered in New York. To learn more, visit www.FRX.com.

About Intermountain Healthcare

Intermountain Healthcare is a Utah-based not-for-profit system of 22 hospitals, 185 clinics, a Medical Group with about 1,300 employed physicians, a health plans division called SelectHealth, and other health services. Intermountain is widely recognized as a leader in transforming healthcare through high quality and sustainable costs.  For more information about Intermountain, visit www.intermountainhealthcare.org.

About ConvergeHEALTH

ConvergeHEALTH brings powerful, proven analytics platforms and data models from Recombinant, advanced proprietary and open source analytics, content and benchmarks from associations with industry leaders and expertise from Deloitte's life sciences and health care consulting practice to help our clients thrive in the new paradigm of value-based, personalized medicine.  For more information, visit www.converge-health.com.

As used in this document, "Deloitte" means Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries. Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting.

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