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K P & Ecommerce

K P & Ecommerce

Prepared for
Instructor
University

Prepared by
Student

March 18, 2009

Kaiser Permanente and E-Commerce 1

ABSTRACT
Today’s healthcare managers are faced with major challenges such as staffing shortages, rising health-care costs, and current market pressures for new and advanced technologies and delivery methods. These challenges, among others, have a significant impact on the quality, efficiency, and cost of providing health care and laboratory services. Given the current economic conditions and health care environments, decision-makers must seek innovative ways to improve quality patient care, while reducing the cost of services provided.
Kaiser Permanente is leading the medical industry in using ecommerce as a means of bettering healthcare. Founded in 1945, Kaiser Permanente is the nation's largest not-for-profit health plan, serving 8.6 million members (www.kaiserpermanente.org, 2009). The Permanente Medical Groups, which provide care for Kaiser Permanente members, are continuously developing and refining new medical practices to help ensure that care is delivered in the most efficient and effective manner possible. E-commerce has had a significant impact on the cost, efficiency, and quality of the overall management and delivery of Kaiser Permanente’s health-care services. Health and E-commerce (eHealth) is changing the way Kaiser Permanente’s providers search for and retrieve medical information, communicate with their patients, and manage acute and chronic conditions. Web-based disease management programs are also an important part of Kaiser Permanente’s eHealth revolution, and are designed to alter the delivery of care through the use of technology to monitor patients daily to determine their health status, remind them to take their medications, and handle problems before they become more serious. These programs collect data without patients having to come to the office or go to the hospital,
Kaiser...