Wal-Mart in Partnership to Improve Health Care Delivery

BENTONVILLE, Ark. -- Wal-Mart Stores here announced yesterday it will partner with the University of Arkansas and Blue Cross Blue Shield to create a research center to focus on improving the health care delivery system with the use of information technology. Called the Center for Innovation in Health Care Logistics, the center will be dedicated to conducting research aimed at identifying and addressing gaps and roadblocks in the application and delivery of health information technology, and highlighting and replicating proven applications that are working to benefit patients and providers. “The best example of this need was Hurricane Katrina,” said Wal-Mart Vice Chairman John Menzer, in a statement. “Medical records, property records, court records were lost. Entire family histories -- medical, cultural and otherwise -- were gone in an instant, and the entire region is still recovering from this massive loss of information.”