On Wednesday, Duke University and Verizon announced that they will jointly work on health IT initiatives aimed at improving patient outcomes, lowering costs and supporting medical research capacity, InformationWeek reports (Kolbasuk McGee, InformationWeek, 10/5).
As part of the agreement, Verizon's health care practice group -- Verizon Connected Healthcare Solutions -- and Duke will fuse their resources to focus on health IT projects using advanced communications technologies (Monegain, Healthcare IT News, 10/5).
Details of Partnership
Some of the initiatives under the partnership will include:
- Determining which health IT products and services are viable for commercial use;
- An internship program for Duke students to collaborate with Verizon teams on developing and implementing business strategies (InformationWeek, 10/5); and
- A scientific advisory board with representatives from both organizations that will review the progress of work and weigh in on program goals (Healthcare IT News, 10/5).
Looking Ahead
Kevin Schulman -- professor of medicine and business administration, and director of the health management sector program at Duke -- said the partnership will allow the school's researchers to tap into Verizon's computing and communications infrastructure to create health IT innovations that can be implemented on a mass scale.
According to Schulman, work undertaken in the partnership could produce mobile health and telehealth applications, as well as home medical devices and sensors (InformationWeek, 10/5).