A big insurance company and several major healthcare corporations are teaming to use big data to measure the comparative effectiveness of implanted medical devices, believed to be the first effort of its kind. UnitedHealthcare, one of the largest U.S. health insurers, and three big healthcare systems -- Baylor Health Care System in Dallas, Dignity Health in San Francisco, and Advocate Health Care in Illinois -- have formed a new company, SharedClarity that will combine United's claims data with clinical data to find out which devices perform the best and produce the best patient outcomes. The company will study artificial hips and knees, pacemakers, heart valves, defibrillators and stents, among other devices.
