IBM Buys a Pleasant Surprise for Orlando Health

Orlando Health and Florida Hospital dominate central Florida with a combined market share of about 80 percent, and both are trying to recruit physicians and establish themselves as leaders of accountable care.


Orlando Health and Florida Hospital dominate central Florida with a combined market share of about 80 percent, and both are trying to recruit physicians and establish themselves as leaders of accountable care.

For instance, Orlando Health has been working with population health management vendor Phytel and just gained more technology firepower as IBM Corp. has bought not just Phytel but also predictive analytics firm Explorys, says Chris Jordan, chief applications officer at Orlando Health. While Phytel supports creation of accountable care networks—including “narrow networks” that treat the employees and dependents of large companies such as Lockheed and Disney—Explorys brings predictive analytics that as the acquisition settles will be integrated with Phytel applications that support clinical integration networks.

Better understanding specific populations and more able to identify specific patients needing deeper interventions will help convince physicians that Orlando Health has the network to provide the appropriate treatment that employers expect, as well as better ability to control costs, thus sharing in savings with physicians, Jordan says. He already envisions one major area where expanded analytics capabilities will prove very useful: How to divide shared savings with physicians.

Further, IBM’s decision to mesh Phytel and Explorys with the cognitive computing capabilities of its Watson Health supercomputer will further expand the analysis capabilities available down the road to Orlando Health, which also is heavily investing in telemedicine, home health and nursing facilities.

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