Encourage Research on What Works - What the Blues are Doing
The Blue Cross and Blue Shield System is committed to ensuring that members have access to the right care at the right time, and that providers have access to the information necessary to assist them in providing this optiman level of care. BCBSA and our member Plans are leading efforts to promote evidence based medicine and give providers and consumers better tools to make more informed healthcare decisions.
Technology Evaluation Center: Putting Clinical Research into Practice
Founded in 1985 by BCBSA, the Technology Evaluation Center (TEC) pioneered the development of scientific criteria for assessing the effectiveness of medical technologies through comprehensive reviews of clinical evidence. TEC evaluates drugs, medical devices, procedures and biological products. It is one of 14 Evidence-based Practice Centers (EPCs) for the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. TEC and the other Centers produce evidence reports and technology assessments to inform coverage decisions, quality measures, educational materials and tools, guidelines, and research agendas.
TEC assessments are based on objective clinical and scientific evidence and evaluate whether a technology improves health outcomes, such as length of life, quality of life and ability to function. TEC publishes an average of 15 to 20 assessments per year, providing healthcare decision-makers with timely, rigorous and credible information on clinical effectiveness.
Key TEC advancements include:
- pharmacogenomics, where TEC has worked to identify which pharmacogenomic tests (e.g., how a person's genetic make-up interacts with a drug's effectiveness) might reliably steer patients toward the best drug; and
- imaging, where the latest TEC research is focused on the proliferation of CT scans and whether cumulative exposure to these types of tests could increase the risk of cancer.
Blue Health Intelligence: Using Information to Improve Care
Blue Health IntelligenceSM (BHI) will be the nation's largest, HIPAA compliant, multi-Plan database that will bring together the claims experience 
of 80 million Blue Cross and Blue Shield members nationwide. Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans will use BHI, which only houses de-identified data, as an analytical tool to assist in understanding healthcare trends, cost drivers and other important factors related to the delivery of healthcare. This data analysis allows the Plan and employer accounts to proactively design products to meet identified needs and provide higher quality care to their members. For example, high rates of cardiac disease could trigger targeted wellness initiatives.
As BHI expands, it will have the potential to provide policymakers and healthcare stakeholders with a steady flow of data, providing insights into healthcare trends by:
- providing physicians and hospitals with powerful insights into the appropriateness and/or effectiveness of emerging medical trends and treatment options
- profiling performance of physicians and hospitals to identify and implement best practices
- strengthening movement to greater healthcare transparency
- creating opportunities for health services research
- giving policymakers information on issues such as drug safety, drug efficacy, disease spread and the impact of new technologies and procedures
Next: What the Government Should Do
