Information technology  

Cardinal Health joins US Dossia project to develop online personal health records for employees

19 February 2007

Dublin, Ohio. Cardinal Health has become the sixth member of the Dossia Founders Group, an organization funding the non-profit Omnimedix Institute to develop Dossia, a Web-based framework through which US employees, dependents and retirees can maintain lifelong personal health records.

Cardinal Health is the first healthcare company to join Dossia, which was first announced in Washington, DC in December 2006. Fellow Dossia Founders Group members include Applied Materials, BP America, Inc., Intel Corporation, Pitney Bowes, Inc. and Wal-Mart.

"Cardinal Health looks forward to sharing our healthcare industry expertise to support the development of this innovative health records system," said R. Kerry Clark, chairman and CEO of Cardinal Health. "We've long encouraged employees to take an active role in managing their health care and believe that empowering consumers with this resource will lead to improved health-care quality, efficiency and better patient outcomes."

The Omnimedix Institute is the non-profit organization responsible for developing Dossia, the Web-based infrastructure which will empower individuals to manage their own healthcare records and maintain comprehensive, up-to-date histories for themselves and their families, in a secure and private environment.

The system seeks to improve population health by facilitating preventative health measures and improving consumer communication with healthcare professionals. Ultimately, the system also aims to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the US health-care system, reducing waste and duplication of effort for consumers and providers.

At the request of each participating employee, the Dossia framework will gather health information on behalf of the individual from various sources and store it within secured databases. Health records will be secure and private, accessible only by the individual or by others to whom they have granted permission. Employees will choose whether or not to participate, and those who do opt-in will choose how much of their personal data is shared, with whom and in what form. Records will also be portable, even when employees change employers, health plans or doctors.

Dossia has received the support of key health-care industry and consumer groups including the American Association of Family Physicians (AAFP), American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Council on Clinical Information Technology, The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Consumers League.

The more than 2.5 million U.S. employees, dependents and retirees of Cardinal Health and fellow members of the Dossia Founders Group will receive initial access to Dossia upon its launch, which is targeted for mid-2007. The system will soon be made available to other communities of users and personal health applications developers.

To top

To top