The Mayo Clinic, the Rochester, Minn.-based globally known non-profit medical group practice and research organization, has announced a partnership with health IT vendor, Optum (Cambridge, Mass.), to develop a collaborative research and development facility. The facility will combine the two organization’s experience, assets, technologies, and expertise as well as recourse from other healthcare, science, and academic organizations/institutions, to focus on better care for patients.

“Our strategic research alliance with Optum Labs will leverage what we believe to be the largest combined source of clinical and claims information, providing a more comprehensive picture of patients' diagnoses, progression of diseases, comparative treatments and outcomes,” John Noseworthy, M.D., president and chief executive officer of Mayo Clinic, said in a statement.

According to the Mayo Clinic, the lab will look to find optimal treatments for conditions in a given setting, understand variations in care, and examine the effectiveness of patient care programs and approaches. Mayo scientists will attempt to use the rich claims data from Optum Labs to improve treatment for diseases such as blood cancer chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), develop applications that measure the relative cost effectiveness of medical devices, and analyze how to improve the diagnosis of Hepatitis C.

"By combining the Mayo Clinic's robust clinical insight with Optum's extensive claims information, we will be able to better understand health care delivery over time, compare the effectiveness of care we provide today, and analyze the total cost of care for specific procedures or diseases," Veronique Roger, M.D., M.P.H., director of the Mayo Clinic Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery, said in a statement.