A relatively new term in the health care industry, ACO (accountable care organization) is commonly defined as an association of health care providers that assumes accountability for the quality, cost, and overall care of Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in the traditional fee-for-service program assigned to it. In addition, ACOs employ a payment and care delivery model that seeks to tie provider reimbursements to quality metrics and reductions in the total cost of care for an assigned population of patients. An ACO can use a range of payment models (e.g.‚ capitation, fee-for-service with asymmetric or symmetric shared savings). ACOs are accountable to the patients and the third-party payer for the quality, appropriateness and efficiency of the services provided.

To enable ACOs to access and edit the health records of their patients, IQware provides the IT backbone and required system interoperability—enabling other healthcare professionals in the value chain to access the records as well. With IQware solutions, healthcare providers enjoy seamless interoperability between disparate system that requires no human involvement. By ensuring that the right data is delivered to the right people at the right time, IQware enables healthcare professionals to make timely and accurate diagnosis, while also improving overall efficiency.

Meeting rapidly changing industry standards requires healthcare organizations to create new and/or enhance existing healthcare applications that deliver more useful clinical capability. IQware helps ACOs meet this challenge by designing solutions that monitor data for a predefined period of time, assess the outcomes, and report data to CMS for analysis. Based on the outcomes for a patient and a population, savings are realized and shared among the ACO members.

To drive the greatest savings for ACOs, IQware solutions offer: 

• Interoperability – the ability to access and share data from multiple disparate systems
• Reduced development time – by following a rules-based methodology
• Audit-ability – track access, monitor every action down to a mouse click, and provide and send reports
• Flexibility – by changing programming on the fly IQware can respond to regulatory changes immediately
• Security – by protecting data in motion and at rest; unlike traditional software, IQware is desktop-virus-immune and does not require a "band-aid" or "magic software" to be secure
• Today, IQware is the only vendor that offers all these required capabilities in one solution. At a time of continually shrinking budgets coupled with growing demands, IQware enables ACOs to transform their current IT spend from the common 70 percent maintenance and 30 percent innovation to 30 percent maintenance and 70 percent innovation.