Hospitals Are Mining Patients' Credit Card Data to Predict Who Will Get Sick [View all]

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(Bloomberg Businessweek) University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, which operates more than 20 hospitals in Pennsylvania and a health insurance plan, is using demographic and household data to try to improve patients’ health as well as its bottom line. It says it doesn’t obtain details on individual credit card transactions, but more general data such as whether a patient owns her home, shops online, or lives with an elderly relative.

The UPMC Insurance Services Division, the health system’s insurance provider, bought data on more than 2 million of its members to make predictions about which individuals are most likely to use the emergency room or an urgent care center, says Pamela Peele, the system’s chief analytics officer.

Studies show that people with no children in the home who make less than $50,000 a year are more likely to use the ER rather than a private doctor, Peele says. UPMC wants to make sure those patients have access to a primary care physician or nurse practitioner they can contact before heading to the ER, she says. UPMC is also interested in knowing which patients don’t own a car, which could indicate they’ll have trouble getting routine, preventative care. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-07-03/hospitals-are-mining-patients-credit-card-data-to-predict-who-will-get-sick#p2