FEATURE REPORT:  Major Corporations, Exasperated About Health Care Costs and Inefficiencies, Take Matters Into Their Own Hands To Address One Cause of Inefficiencies and Duplication of Service: Lack of A Unified Electronic Patient Medical Record

   "Corporate America has gone from 'AWOL' to action with the creation of Dossia." Craig Barrett, Chairman, Intel

                                              "Wal-Mart and the other founding members are taking an important first step to bring efficiency and transparency to the health care system by empowering consumers to make smarter, informed decisions about their health care." 
                                                                                                                                                                     Linda Dillman, Wal-Mart Executive Vice President

              A 'founding group' of major corporations -- Intel, BP America, Pitney Bowes, Wal-Mart and Applied Materials -- have joined together in a groundbreaking collaboration known as 'Dossia' to address something that has been talked about for years, if not decades: a unified individual electronic medical record.  The 'record' is permitted by and controlled only by the affected individual who decides to voluntarily sign up, and there is no cost to individuals who do sign up.  It is the hope of this project that individuals can better inform various of their health care providers and, in this manner, promote greater safety, consistency and the elimination of duplicative medical services.  The founding companies have committed substantial resources to this project and, with the presence of Intel and other talented information technology partners, are intent upon establishing a state-of-the-art yet consumer-friendly medical record that is continually updatable.  
         See the Project's Web Site     

  Listen to the streamed interview with Colin Evans, the overall director of this project.  Running time: 19 minutes.

   Download an MP3 file of this interview
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