LAS VEGAS – Merging the American Medical Association’s physician community portal with that of AT&T should provide physicians with a broader array of health information technology solutions, particularly for the physician on the go.
"[Physicians] will have access to tools such as electronic prescribing, registries, electronic medical records, and also sophisticated analytic and population-health tools that will come from the AT&T side," Dr. Steven Stack, chair-elect of the AMA board of trustees, said in an interview at this meeting after the announcement was made.
The AMA’s AMAGINE physician community portal has focused on providing small- and mid-sized physician groups with access to affordable IT technology, while the AT&T Healthcare Community Online portal focused on integrated and larger health care systems. The decision to have AT&T own and operate the combined platform was a natural progression for both groups as they sought to provide a broader suite of services, and should appear seamless to users since both portals are hosted by Covisint, Dr. Stack said.
Dr. Steven J. Stack
Smartphone usage among physicians is thought to be about 84%, while tablet usage is thought to be about 50%.
Keeping the mobile physician securely connected will be a large part of the new platform, but patients should also benefit through AT&T’s mobile patient care applications, Randall Porter, assistant vice president of AT&T ForHealth, said in an interview. For example, AT&T has an application specifically for diabetes patients that uses a smartphone in combination with the patient’s glucometer to provide real-time feedback about how to manage their disease.
Mr. Randall Porter
"The physician would be brought into the loop through the integration of the data into the [electronic medical record] through the portal capability," Mr. Porter said.
Neither AMA nor AT&T would discuss the financial terms of the deal, but Mr. Porter said that existing contractual obligations and bundles will be honored for the roughly 6,000 physician/physician groups using the AMA AMAGINE portal. Future pricing should remain competitive, given the evolving nature of the market, he added.
Dr. Stack said the AMA will remain involved in the platform to provide expertise from the physician and patient point of view.