The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) is looking to spend $352m on products from IBM which it will use to digitize all its medical records and integrate its operations in a bid to facilitate information sharing across its facility.
The UPMC is expecting the overhaul to reduce its number of systems and servers, which may lead to IT cost savings of 15-20% by the end of the project. However, officials appear to be keen to stress that the deal is not an outsourcing one, since the Center is planning to retain its own IT staff.
In the second part of the agreement, IBM and UPMC plan to establish a research group to address challenges faced by healthcare companies in their quest to adopt more technology within their organizations. It is hoped that this group will produce products that will tackle issues including biosecurity, cancer research and treatment and electronic health records (EHR).
Industry observers are predicting that new tools will help hospitals respond to large-scale epidemics and bioterrist attacks, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags for checking medicine and tracking, and technology to improve care for cancer patients.
The deal is believed to be the latest attempt by IBM to capitalize on the Bush Administration’s aim to integrate EHRs across the US by 2014. The company recently bought healthcare consultancy Healthlink and revealed plans to test a medical information exchange system that it said will facilitate collaboration within the healthcare industry in order to stem the spread of disease.
