Healthcare Providers and Patients Reap Benefits of AT&T's Ramped-Up Community of Care

DALLAS, Feb. 22, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Technology can help transform the delivery of care by connecting all members of the healthcare community. Information exchange is not a one-way street. Providers need access to complete and accurate patient information, concerned family members need to be kept abreast of situations, and patients need to be able to manage and access all of their records.

AT&T* Healthcare Community Online powered by Covisint, the company's advanced collaborative care and health information exchange (HIE) platform, provides the foundation for a fully clinically integrated system. This fosters the ability to access clinical applications, exchange and analyze patient information across the entire care team in a highly-secure manner.

Enhanced Care Management

When patient health information resides in disparate data sources, AT&T Healthcare Community Online can empower connected care.

The platform now includes a care management enhancement, powered by HealthyCircles. This integrated suite of online portals can seamlessly connect patients to their care team — such as their physicians, caregivers, family — so they can exchange highly-secure clinical and administrative data. With the care management enhancement, healthcare organizations can better engage their patients, successfully manage care transitions, and address the evolving care delivery models of accountable care organizations. Patients can share information in real-time, have full-access to their personal health records, and utilize web services.

• Using the accompanying triage dashboard, healthcare professionals can monitor the needs of their patients and rapidly respond to high-risk care situations to provide connected, patient-centric care.
• Patients can share information in real-time, and have full-access to their personal health record and take advantage of additional services such as telemedicine services, and online health programs.
• Families and other members of a patient's care team can have access to the patient's records, simplify processes and get rid of "shoebox" filing systems; the portal enables them to view and exchange messages with the involved healthcare professionals, book appointments, and more.

"Our solutions are focused on providing better clinically integrated care - improving collaboration among providers, patients and the whole healthcare team," said Randall Porter, Assistant Vice President, AT&T ForHealth, AT&T Business Solutions. "AT&T Healthcare Community Online is a powerful collaborative care platform, and the cornerstone of our AT&T ForHealth practice.  These enhancements and relationships are evidence demonstrating the validity of our strategy."

Put to Practice                     

VoCare is a company that is active in patient and clinician engagement. For example, in the senior care community, VoCare is connecting physicians with their patients and adult children with innovative solutions designed to bring peace of mind to the care community while allowing the elderly to maintain their mobility and autonomy. VoCare's robust telehealth program offers a unique bundled service replacing a variety of different device and software vendors. 

All of these services and devices need to be integrated into diverse and multiple electronic health record (EHR) systems. AT&T Healthcare Community Online Clinical Message Exchange is providing a "hub" – one platform, one solution to reach a number of physicians, groups, and more, so VoCare does not need to configure their technology to communicate with a variety of systems.

By working with AT&T, VoCare is able to quickly and easily connect with, and provide healthcare information to a variety of sources without needing to link directly to each source.

"We chose AT&T because of their commitment to investing in their HCO presence," said Steve Peabody, CEO and President of VoCare. "This also allows us to strengthen our interactions with medical providers — AT&T has a proven track record of relationships with medical clients."

AT&T and Baylor Health Care System have populated AT&T Healthcare Community Online with live patient demographic data—from Baylor's inpatient EHR platform and ambulatory electronic medical record (EMR), as well as live radiology information from their radiology information system (RIS) platform — to provide more information to the many physicians treating patients throughout the Baylor Health Care System.

As announced recently, AT&T is also collaborating with:

• American Medical Association (AMA): AMA and AT&T announced a strategic alliance and will integrate AMA's AMAGINE™ physician community portal for physicians with AT&T Healthcare Community Online
• Indiana Health Information Exchange (IHIE): IHIE will implement AT&T Healthcare Community Online's Clinical Message Exchange.

AT&T Healthcare Community Online will be demonstrated at booth #3829 at HIMSS12 in Las Vegas from Feb. 20 - Feb. 24, 2012.

*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.

About AT&T

AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) is a premier communications holding company and one of the most honored companies in the world. Its subsidiaries and affiliates – AT&T operating companies – are the providers of AT&T services in the United States and around the world. With a powerful array of network resources that includes the nation's fastest mobile broadband network, AT&T is a leading provider of wireless, Wi-Fi, high speed Internet, voice and cloud-based services. A leader in mobile broadband and emerging 4G capabilities, AT&T also offers the best wireless coverage worldwide of any U.S. carrier, offering the most wireless phones that work in the most countries. It also offers advanced TV services under the AT&T U-verse® and AT&T |DIRECTV brands. The company's suite of IP-based business communications services is one of the most advanced in the world. In domestic markets, AT&T Advertising Solutions and AT&T Interactive are known for their leadership in local search and advertising.

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SOURCE AT&T Inc.