World-class supercomputing at Oak Ridge National Laboratory could be unleashed to save as much as $50 billion per year in fraud, waste and abuse in the nation's health care system.

Under a proposal by Andy Loebl of the Computational Sciences and Engineering Division, ORNL would collect and analyze government data to target cost savings, quality and care management vulnerabilities. In just hours, Jaguar, recently identified in the Top500 list as the world's fastest computer, could process all of the health care data generated in the United States. Consequently, instead of taking nine months to determine the validity of a claim, it would take just minutes and would eliminate the current system of paying claims and chasing recipients who received unjustifiable payments.

Under the current system, the government spends $600 million to recover $1 billion annually. Loebl also envisions the system leading to improved health care because available diagnosis and outcome data would be analyzed without compromising patient privacy.

Funding for this work was provided by ORNL's Laboratory Directed Research and Development program.