Anthem And Epic Partner To Expand Data Sharing, Improving Efficiency And Interoperability

With patient data continuously flowing through health systems, the need for system interoperability continues to increase amid demand for personalized patient experiences and data-driven care. Anthem and Epic are working to provide for this need through a recently announced partnership. The goal of this collaboration is to expand on bidirectional data exchange and to better streamline previously troublesome administrative workflows.

Through this partnership, providers who utilize Epic software will have access to Anthem's operating system. This system captures and analyzes patient data in order to develop data-driven insights and delivers them to healthcare providers in proximity to real time.

Some examples of patient health data that will be shared include clinical information, admissions and discharges, and transfer data. Healthcare providers will also be notified of major health events among patients.

Chief Data and Analytics Officer at Anthem, Ashok Cennuru, claims that this new partnership will impact over 14.7 million patients who are Anthem customers whose clinicians utilize Epic software. MetroHealth, a four-hospital system located in Cleveland, is one of a handful of initial providers that will engage in Anthem and Epic’s efforts.

One of the administration issues Anthem and Epic are tackling is the prior authorization process. This process is used by healthcare providers to approve services and to qualify for payment coverage, but is notoriously time-consuming and lacking in efficiency. This collaboration will allow providers to send authorization requests through Epic, transforming the requests into an electronic system.

Anthem and Epic’s collaboration will expand interoperability as Anthem’s operating system combines with Epic’s payer platform.  The bidirectional data exchange will provide care providers with data driven insights and will ultimately streamline experiences and decrease time spent on administrative tasks to allow physicians to spend more time delivering care.