Aetna to Offer Incentives for Physicians to Achieve MU

Hartford, Conn.-based Aetna announced its plan to advance electronic health records adoption and meaningful use to help drive improvements in health care quality, cost, and accessibility. To support this work, Aetna will, through its provider contracting process, offer financial incentives to physicians who achieve specific quality of care goals and who make investments in technology for implementation of an electronic health record.

Also, ActiveHealth Management, an Aetna subsidiary, announced it has entered into a significant relationship with IBM to jointly design, develop, market and operate a product called Collaborative Care Solution. The solution will enable medical practices, hospitals and states to effectively change the way they deliver health care–using health information exchange and real-time clinical decision support–and demonstrate that they are providing better quality care at a lower cost.

The solution is not simply enablement of electronic exchange, but gives care teams the ability to improve the care that they deliver. The solution harnesses data from multiple sources to create a more complete view of the patient, and enables doctors to act on it at the point of care. They can communicate with their patients, either in person or electronically through secure channels, or with other members of the extended care team, such as nurse practitioners or physician extenders. Importantly, the solution is based on ActiveHealth’s CareEngine technology. This technology delivers insights based on evidence-based guidelines as well as detects gaps or omissions in care. It has proven to improve care while reducing costs. This “early warning system” not only helps identify patients in greatest need, it also provides a tool that permits the entire care team to engage to protect and improve the health of patients before they need a visit to the emergency room or hospital.