IBM and Apple are now partners, a deal that emerged not all that long after Big Blue joined forces with Epic to pursue the Defense Department’s mammoth IT modernization contract.
And shortly before that Apple aligned with Epic and the Mayo Clinic to build out its HealthKit platform.
Is anything going on behind the scenes here?
Government Health IT Editor Tom Sullivan spoke with Dan Pelino, the general manager of IBM’s global public sector unit, about potential overlap of the arrangements and whether IBM might roll Apple’s iPads and iPhones into the DoD contract pitch, or not.
Q: By the time Apple and IBM partnered, each company had already aligned with Epic. Is there any overlap between the arrangement you have with Epic and the one Apple does?
A: We are spending time closely with our client and with Apple — and we are doing our due diligence to see if there is any overlap or not. I can tell you so far I do not see the overlap. And the reason is because Apple does a super job approaching that system of engagement from the end-user perspective, the patient, the consumer. And we have worked to build the right kind of infrastructure with EMR vendors, other application providers to get cost, efficiency, and access driven from the enterprise down into the consumer, the patient.
Q: Yet, it’s tempting to envision an ‘everybody’s invited’ kind of party since IBM is reselling iPads and iPhones and that just might create an EHR, mobile platform and device triptych that no one else can really deliver to the DoD. Is that something you’ve considered?
A: I have responsibility for this. And we’re offering what we think the system of care looks like. Interestingly enough, 50 percent of military health is cared for in the commercial setting. And the fact that Epic covers 160 million lives in 250 systems you can see now that this decision the DoD is going to make — and it’s more than an EMR — that we have an opportunity to create a naturally integrated delivery system for our military and be able to show how we can institute common workflow and processes across these systems. And then create levels of engagement, whether it be through the portal like Epic’s MyChart, through devices by which we can deliver the type of care we believe our military is deserving of and allows physicians and caregivers to do just that. We can see how this can be connected to deliver tremendous benefit.
With Apple as a partner, we’ll see how those products can fit. As you can imagine, Epic’s myChart being accessible to personnel, whether in a commercial or military setting, could engage patients in a far different way than before.
Q: And the VA has been a leader, at least among federal agencies, when it comes to supporting mobile devices and BYOD beginning with iPhones and iPads. Granted it’s still pretty early there but one could imagine the DoD following that …
A: It is early and we’ll all learn a lot but I do believe there is an architecture and a framework that can be agreed to that will allow a high level of innovation to occur and enable best practices to be deployed.
Date: August 18, 2014