Why Healthways deal is important

Healthways' ability to create a customer portal is important for technology reasons, but also for business reasons.

Healthways is in the business of getting specific wellness information to patients, on behalf of insurance carriers. Until this portal was developed all that was done on paper.

"We're the fastest growing disease management company in the world, and own the market," said David Jarmoluk, Director of Enterprise Architecture for Healthways. "There's always places you can improve. By putting this online we can add margin."

Just as important Healthways can add services, not only making it more valuable to its insurance company partners, but to patients as well.

This is highly-credible information, much of it exclusive to Healthways. Healthways also gains the ability to help patients build their own electronic medical records (EMRs), in consultation with carriers, and that can also be a valuable asset.

In essence, the insurance industry now has a player in the EMR space, alongside hospitals and third parties like Microsoft or Revolution Health.

Integrating all that will be a challenge, but Healthways' deal with Mainsoft and IBM also helped in that area.

All in all a real win-win for patients, Healthways and its clients.