WellPoint unveils $40M plan to furnish doctors with free computers

Computerworld - WellPoint Health Networks Inc. has announced plans to jump-start digital health care with a $40 million initiative to provide 19,000 of its contracting doctors with either a handheld-based e-prescription package or a desktop paperwork reduction package. Dell Inc. will provide both the handheld and desktop hardware.
Microsoft Corp. will integrate e-prescription software into Dell Axim handheld computers for the WellPoint project. Steve Shihadeh general manager of Microsoft's health care and life sciences group, said he views the project as a "major leap" for e-prescriptions. If all 19,000 doctors opt for the e-prescription package it would nearly equal the number of e-prescription packages already in use, he said.
WellPoint, the second-largest health insurer in the country, will offer the packages free of charge to doctors in the states where it has the largest presence: California, Georgia, Missouri and Wisconsin, according to Ron Ponder, the company's CIO. WellPoint, which is based in Thousand Oaks, Calif., will also offer the packages to its other 150,000 contracting physicians -- at the same discount rate it negotiated with its hardware and software suppliers, Ponder said.
He put the value of the packages at roughly $2,100 per doctor but declined to say what discounted rate WellPoint is getting.
WellPoint envisions the project as a way to jump-start e-prescribing and help doctors reduce their ever-increasing paperwork burden, Ponder said. WellPoint doesn't view the project from a traditional bottom-line point of view, Ponder said, but believes it will help boost physician efficiency and in the case of the e-prescription package, help reduce medical errors.
In January 2001, General Motors Corp. took a similar approach when it launched a program to equip 5,000 doctors who treat its employees with handheld computers to help prevent medical errors (see story).
Dr. Woodrow Meyers, WellPoint's chief medical officer, said in a statement that an Institute of Medicine study in 2001 showed that 7,000 deaths a year -- and up to 7% of hospital admissions a year -- result from adverse drug effects. An e-prescribing system, which provides information on patient histories and previously prescribed drugs, could resolve "prescription conflicts" before a patient leaves the doctor's office, Meyers said.

Although WellPoint is providing the hardware to doctors, they will still need to purchase their own practice management application software, which is available from a wide range of vendors, Ponder said.
He said that the project could help other health insurers, since its network doctors routinely see patients insured by other carriers. Spokesmen for United Health Group, in Minnetonka, Minn., and Aetna Inc., in