Trizetto Launches Electronic Personal Health Record

The TriZetto Group (Newport, Calif.) has announced the general availability of its payer-based Personal Health Record. Offered to consumers and physicians through health plans, TriZetto's PHR will be available to as much as a third of all Americans with private health insurance, a vendor news release claims.

The general availability of TriZetto's PHR extends to payer customers of its Facets enterprise administration software, covering 90 million licensed members, according to the vendor. Health plans using TriZetto's QNXT administration system will be able to deploy the PHR to an additional 16 million people by the summer of 2010, while benefits administrators that use TriZetto's QicLink administration system will be able to make the PHR available to another 7 million individuals sometime during the first half of 2011.

"While there's much discussion on Capitol Hill and in the healthcare community about the promise of electronic health records (EHRs) and electronic medical records (EMRs), these provider-based tools are years away from broad adoption," comments Dave Pinkert, senior vice president, product management , TriZetto. "TriZetto's PHR is available now to improve the efficiency and coordination of healthcare in our country, and it will bridge the gap to EHRs and EMRs."

TriZetto expects its PHR to "vault ahead" of EHRs and EMRs and benefit the healthcare system sooner because the PHR taps what the vendor calls the already digital, very rich healthcare records of procedures and diagnoses in the information systems of health plans to give providers a historical summary, or "health resume," of patients. Unlike an EHR or EMR, which captures a patient's medical record at just one hospital or medical practice, TriZetto's PHR captures the patient's record of care from all the providers that file claims. It therefore provides each treating clinician with a more complete view of the patient's health history, enhancing the coordination of care, TriZetto argues.

Anthony O'Donnell has covered technology in the insurance industry since 2000, when he joined the editorial staff of Insurance & Technology. As an editor and reporter for I&T and the InformationWeek Financial Services of TechWeb he has written on all areas of information ... View Full Bio