A few months shy of his scheduled keynote appearance at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) annual conference, former President Bill Clinton has launched a health initiative through his foundation, aimed at tackling preventable health issues. The program, the Clinton Health Matters Initiative (CHMI), will see the creation of an online platform that allows people in underserved areas to discover “local, scalable” solutions to their health issues.
“Our nation’s rising tide of preventable health problems is alarming because it is ruining the quality and length of life for millions, and driving up health care costs in a way that can’t be sustained,” Clinton said in a statement. “The Clinton Health Matters Initiative builds on my Foundation’s work to address global health crises and the childhood obesity epidemic in the United States by engaging not only with individuals but also with the systems and places that affect individual health.”
A number of vendors, GE, Tenet Healthcare Corporation, and Verizon, are attached to the initiative, which will be a part of the William J. Clinton Foundation’s overall work in healthcare. Already, the aforementioned online platform has been launched. Health IT, according to Peter Tippett, M.D., chief medical officer and vice president of Verizon’s health IT practice will be a big part of how this initiative is deployed.
The press release lists a number of particular goals of the initiative including improvement in preventable disease measures, a reduction in healthcare costs, and health disparities.
