Four Firms to Design Health Data Systems

IBM Corp., Northrop Grumman Corp., Computer Sciences Corp. and Accenture Ltd. have won contracts to develop models for a national system of electronic health information.

Each will work with healthcare providers in different areas of the U.S. during the next year, the Department of Health and Human Services said Thursday.

IBM will operate in New York and North Carolina. Northrop Grumman will work in California and Ohio. Computer Sciences will operate in Indiana, Massachusetts and California. Accenture will work in Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee.

The contracts, worth a total of $18.6 million, call on the companies to create ways for hospitals, laboratories and doctors to share information about patients’ treatment without violating patients’ privacy.

The U.S. might save more than $81 billion a year on its $1.7 trillion in public and private spending for healthcare through wider use of computerized records, according to a study in the journal Health Affairs.

“This is part of a larger effort to develop electronic health records and enable the exchange of electronic health information between institutions in each of these areas,” said Robert Cothren, chief scientist for Northrop Grumman’s Information Technology sector.