OREANDA-NEWS. September 06, 2013. McKesson has released the latest version of its care management workflow software technology, the McKesson VITAL Platform, featuring enhanced functionality that helps payers better support the health of their members.

Based on over 10 years of experience in delivering case and disease management services on behalf of payer customers, McKesson has added new enhancements to the VITAL Platform.

Advancements in version 7.2 help payers analyze and work with their populations, identify at-risk and high-risk members, understand member gaps in care, and prioritize members for outreach. The latest version of the VITAL Platform also allows payers to dynamically generate comprehensive assessments covering 41 different conditions or disease states. With these enhancements, the VITAL Platform 7.2 helps improve the ability of payers to deliver holistic, member-centered programs that are the foundation of unified care management.

"In this era of healthcare reform, payers are looking for robust solutions that help them coordinate care and put their members on the road to better health," said Naoise Colgan, Vice President of Care Management Solutions for McKesson Care Management. "The VITAL Platform supports that need by integrating utilization, disease and case management into a single workflow. No longer do payers have to move records or work in multiple systems to compile a member's complete healthcare profile. With the VITAL Platform and its single member record and care plan, payers get a 360-degree view of a member's health information and needs, and can optimally target their care management resources. Doing so will help improve member health and lower medical and administrative costs."

Version 7.2 of the VITAL Platform includes the latest version of InterQual® Coordinated Care Content, which uses evidence-based clinical content to develop an integrated care plan specific to each member to support whole-person health management. InterQual Coordinated Care Content version 4 helps manage the care of patients with high-risk conditions and complex cases as well as mitigate readmissions, enabling payers prioritize their members for outreach and objectively measure care management program performance over time.

Integrated with the VITAL Platform 7.2 is the data output from the VITAL Identification & Stratification service, which identifies and stratifies those high risk members who will benefit most from a care management program. The service, which is customizable and specific to each payer or health plan, uses a proprietary predictive model to give payers the business intelligence they need to leverage their care management resources more effectively. The VITAL Platform also offers flexibility to easily connect with other identification and stratification software.

Further key enhancements in the new version of the VITAL Platform include:

Bi-directional information exchange between the member and their care manager through integration with the McKesson VITAL Consumer Portal

Expanded letter-based communications, with the ability to associate correspondence with a case or assessment