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CareCloud EHR Raises $20 Million

MIAMI–(BUSINESS WIRE)– CareCloud, the fastest-growing provider of cloud-based practice management, electronic health records (EHR), and medical billing software and services, today announced it has secured $20 million in Series B financing. The funds will fuel the Company’s continued aggressive growth across all business functions, with a focus on product development while also bolstering sales and marketing capabilities. The funding round was led by Tenaya Capital and included existing investors Intel Capital and Norwest Venture Partners. This round brings CareCloud’s total funding to $44 million. Stewart Gollmer, Tenaya Capital’s Managing Partner, will join CareCloud’s Board of Directors.

“Most of the U.S. healthcare system is shackled with decades-old technology that will hinder us from improving patient care or delivering on cost containment efforts in a rapidly-changing environment of reform,” said Albert Santalo, CareCloud’s Chairman and CEO. “This investment validates CareCloud’s mission to aim at the heart of the challenge by leveraging the power of the cloud to foster innovation and ultimately replatform the industry. I am very pleased to welcome Tenaya Capital to our strong base of investors.”

CareCloud’s cloud-based platform now powers close to 3,000 providers in 45 states as medical groups look to improve their operational and clinical outcomes amidst a rapidly changing healthcare reimbursement environment. CareCloud manages more than $2 billion in annualized accounts receivables on behalf of its clients leveraging its cloud-based revenue cycle management service. The Company’s award-winning platform currently supports more than 5 million unique patients that will be increasingly engaged through the Company’s CareCloud Communityoffering that allows for greater care coordination and is the cornerstone of CareCloud’s vision to be the industry’s Single Log In for Healthcare.

“Technology will play an increasingly significant role in the transformation of how healthcare is delivered and paid for in this country. It’s clear that the current solutions are either decades old client-server technology or outdated web-based architecture,” said Gollmer. “CareCloud and its modern platform represent a tremendous opportunity to bridge the technology gap that plagues the healthcare ecosystem. We are excited to invest in CareCloud and feel that the company represents a powerful combination of industry-leading vision and exemplary execution, driven by a remarkable team.”

Physicians See Better Billing, Technology As Keys To Higher Performance

The May 2013 Practice Profitability Index (PPI), which serves as an annual barometer for the operational wellbeing of U.S. medical groups in the year ahead, surveyed more than 5,000 physicians across the nation and uncovered a downward trend in profitability for the year ahead, which is driving a growing “rip and replace” market for technology. It found that, of the 41% of practices with specific plans aimed at operational improvements in the coming year, the main interventions are: implementing a new EHR (41%), replacing their existing EHR (25%), outsourcing billing/collections (18%) and replacing their practice management system (16%). Furthermore, the majority of physicians (52%) are uncertain if their practice management systems will accommodate regulatory changes in the year ahead. The complete 2013 PPI findings can be accessed at www.poweryourpractice.com/PPI.

Tenaya Capital is a leading venture capital firm with a history of investing in disruptive and category-leading companies including HubSpot, Zuora, RightScale, and Zappos. Intel Capital and Norwest Venture Partners led CareCloud’s $20.1 million Series A funding in September of 2011.

About Tenaya Capital

Tenaya Capital is a leading venture capital firm with offices in Woodside, California, and Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1995 as Lehman Brothers Venture Partners, they became an independent company in 2009. Over the years they’ve raised five funds representing over $1 billion of committed capital, investing it in a wide range of high-growth technology companies including software, consumer Internet, communications, semiconductors, electronics, and cleantech. For more information visit www.tenayacapital.com

About CareCloud

CareCloud is a leading provider of cloud-based practice management, electronic health record (EHR) and medical billing software and services for medical groups. The company’s products are connecting providers to one another – and to their patients – through a fully integrated digital healthcare ecosystem that can be accessed on any browser or device.

CareCloud is helping thousands of physicians to increase collections, streamline operations and improve patient care in over 45 states and currently manages over $2 billion in annualized accounts receivables on behalf of its revenue cycle management clients. To learn more about CareCloud, please visit www.carecloud.com.

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June 18, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and Google Plus.

Filed Under: EHR  EHR Investment  EHR Vendors  Electronic Health Record  Electronic Medical Record  EMR  EMR Vendors  Healthcare IT Funding  Healthcare IT Investment  Healthcare IT Vendor
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Vitera Healthcare Solutions Announces Acquisition of SuccessEHS

Leading ambulatory EHR/PM provider accelerates growth strategy and further supports the needs of today’s medical providers

Tampa, Florida – June 17, 2013 – Vitera Healthcare Solutions, the nation’s premier provider of ambulatory electronic health records (EHR) and practice management software and services, today announced the acquisition of SuccessEHS. The acquisition results in an expanded suite of services that helps office-based physicians and Community Health Centers (CHC) improve operational efficiencies, generate revenue and enhance patient health outcomes.

Pending customary regulatory approval, the Birmingham, AL-based SuccessEHS will become a division of Vitera.

SuccessEHS provides EHR, practice management, electronic dental record, dental imaging and revenue cycle management solutions, and prides itself on providing exceptional implementation services, training and support to its physician practices and CHCs. Due to the strong demand for its services, the company has doubled in size over the last two years.

“Our acquisition of SuccessEHS supports our strategy for growth in the changing healthcare marketplace and is indicative of the tremendous progress Vitera has made over the past 18 months,” said Matthew Hawkins, CEO of Vitera. “The acquisition is a natural progression of Vitera’s strategic intent to be the leader in ambulatory healthcare information technology. We are committed to providing the solutions and services our customers need to succeed in this new era of healthcare.”

With the addition of SuccessEHS’s customer base, Vitera will now serve more than 10,500 medical organizations and over 415,000 medical professionals nationwide — including more than 85,000 physicians. The acquisition expands Vitera’s customer base of CHCs, including rural health centers, student health centers, HIV/AIDS clinics and Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC), as well as expands Vitera’s expertise in delivering solutions that meet the unique needs of these customers.

“This acquisition is going to bring out the best of both organizations,” said W. Sanders Pitman, CEO of SuccessEHS. “This is great news for our employees and for our customers. It allows us to build on Vitera’s longevity and growing strength in the industry, as well as the impressive infrastructure they’ve put in place to provide medical practices and CHCs with innovative EHR and practice management solutions. This helps us better realize our original mission — to make our customers successful.”

Leveraging its 30 years’ experience in a dynamic healthcare market and its large, loyal customer base, Vitera recently introduced new products — including Vitera Stat and Vitera Intergy Mobile — to help its customers decrease costs, increase reimbursements and revenue, save time and expense with regulatory reporting, and improve patient outcomes and population health.

Hawkins added, “We work every day to ensure our clients have the proven technology and quality support they need to better manage their practices, as well as access to the kind of industry insight that only comes from decades of dedicated service to practices like their own.”

Raymond James Health Care Investment Banking Group served as exclusive financial advisor to SuccessEHS in the transaction. Jefferies Finance LLC and BMO Capital Markets have agreed to provide the debt financing in connection with the transaction.

About Vitera Healthcare Solutions
Vitera Healthcare Solutions provides end-to-end clinical and financial technology solutions so physicians and medical professionals can work with patients instead of paperwork. Serving more than 400,000 healthcare professionals including 80,000 physicians, Vitera Healthcare Solutions provides electronic health records and practice management systems, processes 33 million transactions and 2 million e-prescriptions monthly, and serves several specialties including primary care, OB/GYN, pediatrics, cardiology and orthopedics in all sized practices and Community Health Centers. Physician focused and patient centric, Vitera Healthcare Solutions is based in Tampa, FL. For more information, visitwww.viterahealthcare.com or call (877) 932-6301. Follow Vitera Healthcare Solutions on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/ViteraHealthcare, and Twitter,http://twitter.com/#!/ViteraHealth.

 

About SuccessEHS
SuccessEHS is a nationally acclaimed vendor providing Electronic Health Record (EHR) and Practice Management solutions with Integrated Medical Billing Services. SuccessEHS also provides Electronic Dental Record (EDR) and Dental Imaging solutions. Founded in 1995, SuccessEHS established itself as a leader in the emerging practice management applications market by delivering an innovative blend of clinical, operational and financial software paired with a suite of specialized integrated success services.

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June 17, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and Google Plus.

Filed Under: EHR  EHR Vendors  Electronic Health Record  Electronic Medical Record  EMR  EMR Acquisitions  EMR Vendors  Healthcare IT Acquisitions
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PDR Network and OPTIMIZERx (SampleMD) Announce Partnership to Deliver Patient Financial Support Programs Within EHR Workflow

Montvale, NJ/rochester, mi: May 29, 2013 – PDR Network®, the leading distributor of FDA-approved patient drug safety and support services for electronic health record (EHR) and e-prescribing (e-Rx) platforms, today announced a strategic partnership with OptimizeRx Corp. (OTCBB: OPRX), the industry innovator in developing and delivering digital patient financial support technology within the e-prescribing workflow. Under the agreement PDR will bring to market OptimizeRx’s patent solution for e-Coupons in EHR workflow to the parties’ extensive combined EHR network.

“Today’s healthcare providers view the EHR as their ‘desktop’ – the center of their workflow – relying on them to provide convenient access to critical information throughout their day,” said Andrew Gelman, senior vice president, EHR vendor relations, PDR Network. “By partnering with OptimizeRx, we will become a hub for that information, offering the most comprehensive patient financial support solution to manufacturers and thus helping healthcare providers bring dramatic savings to their patients on their medications.”

OptimizERx’s SampleMD patented technology has been the leader in integrating electronic vouchers, co-pay and other targeted patient support directly within the e-prescribing workflow providing solutions for many of the top drug manufacturers.

“By integrating into the PDR Network platforms, we will open new opportunities for our bio/pharmaceutical clients to reach healthcare providers with product information and financial support programs that will help their patients begin and adhere to therapy, improving health outcomes,” said Shad Stastney, chief executive officer, OptimizeRx. “Through this relationship, our companies will lead the industry in delivering innovative services within EHR workflow to benefit healthcare professionals and their patients, while meeting the business needs of our bio/pharmaceutical clients and EHR partners.”

About OPTIMIZERx Corp.

OPTIMIZERx Corp. provides unique consumer and physician platforms to help patients better afford and comply with their medicines and healthcare products, while offering pharmaceutical and healthcare companies effective ways to expand patient awareness, access and adherence to their medications. For more information, please go to www.optimizerxcorp.com  or www.samplemd.com.

About PDR Network

PDR Network, LLC is the leading distributor of FDA-approved drug labeling, safety and REMS information, as well as medication adherence and product support programs, through the Physicians’ Desk Reference® suite of digital and print services. PDR Network’s innovative products deliver industry-leading content to prescribers and patients across channels, including via its growing “PDR Certified” EHR vendor network. PDR Network’s comprehensive offering of interactive drug information services are designed to be easily integrated with any EHR or ePrescribing system and enhancing the EHR, provider and patient experience.

For more information about PDR’s EHR partnership program, please visit http://www.PDRNetwork.com/PDR-in-EHR.

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June 10, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and Google Plus.

Filed Under: EHR
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NueMD Announces Partnership with Leading EHR Company to Provide Integrated Solution for Medical Practices

Nuesoft Technologies, Inc., the first healthcare IT company to offer cloud-based medical practice management software, today announces a strategic partnership between NueMD, the company’s flagship brand, and Practice Fusion, the country’s largest doctor-patient community.

Atlanta, GA May 29, 2013

Nuesoft Technologies, Inc., the first healthcare IT company to offer cloud-based medical practice management software, today announces a strategic partnership between NueMD, the company’s flagship brand, and Practice Fusion, the country’s largest doctor-patient community. Practice Fusion is based out of San Francisco, and offers a free web-based electronic health record (EHR) system to physicians.

The alliance between two leaders in their respective fields will provide medical practices with an affordable, fully integrated solution for managing scheduling, clinical information and billing. This step is part of NueMD’s long-term vision to provide cost- saving solutions for small- to medium-sized medical practices. This critical segment of physicians faces increased competition as more practices are purchased by hospitals and corporations. Nuesoft anticipates significant company growth as a result, and additional development and sales opportunities will be available at its corporate office, as well as throughout the United States.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with Practice Fusion, bringing together two of the most technologically advanced systems created for physicians,” said Massoud Alibakhsh, President and CEO of Nuesoft, makers of NueMD. “Since 1993, we have committed ourselves to providing the most flexible, affordable and user friendly solution for small- to medium-sized practices. This partnership affirms our commitment to meeting the needs of these physicians.”

According to Dan O’Neill, Senior Director of Business Development at Practice Fusion, “We are serious about building a platform that lets all of our physicians find the services they need to run a successful practice. In NueMD, we found an innovative partner who offers advanced Internet-based billing software and services. The end result of our partnership will be a simple, streamlined user experience for our medical practices.”

Beta testing on the system integration begins this month, with anticipated rollout later this summer. Kim Cannon, owner of Cannon Managerial Office Consulting Co. (CMOCC), is participating in the test phase. “From our preliminary review, I anticipate saving at least five hours each day. Streamlining the data entry process for all the practices I work with will save them and me immeasurable time and expenses. As a longtime client of NueMD, I find they are always quick to offer solutions that will benefit their users.”

Nuesoft Technologies began in 1993 at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s renowned Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) and became an immediate success by delivering the first platform independent medical software program to the medical community. Since then, the company has continued to develop groundbreaking technology, including producing the first wholly Internet-based medical practice management system in the form of NueMD. In addition to software development, Nuesoft offers medical billing services for small- to mid-sized medical practices.

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May 29, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and Google Plus.

Filed Under: EHR  EHR Vendors  Electronic Health Record  Electronic Medical Record  EMR  EMR Vendors  Healthcare IT
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CHIME Calls for Stage 2 Extension in Letter to Senators

CIO organization underscores progress of EHR adoption, highlights importance of standards in Stage 2 

ANN ARBOR, MI, May 6, 2013 – Following a request for feedback from Senators in Washington on the status of health IT adoption, the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) issued a response declaring that a one-year extension of Meaningful Use Stage 2 would “maximize the opportunity of program success.”

The organization of healthcare CIOs said the additional 12-months for meeting Stage 2 “will give providers the opportunity to optimize their EHR technology and achieve the benefits of Stage 1 and Stage 2; it will give vendors the time needed to prepare, develop and deliver needed technology to correspond with Stage 3; and it will give policymakers time to assess and evaluate programmatic trends needed to craft thoughtful Stage 3 rules.”

In calling for an extension to Stage 2, CHIME defended much of the federal incentive program’s progress to date, arguing that fundamental shifts in health IT adoption and EHR product capabilities have been made possible through the policy of Meaningful Use.

“While we share some of your concerns with the current state of interoperability, we strongly believe that EHR incentive payments under the policy of Meaningful Use have been essential in moving the nation’s healthcare system into the 21st Century,” the CHIME letter said.  “Through the EHR Incentive Payments program, CMS and ONC have begun to mitigate a fractured and incompatible state for EHRs.”

The response comes amid concerns levied by six Senators that the current direction of the HITECH program is flawed. The white paper released on April 16, “REBOOT: Re-examining the Strategies Needed to Successfully Adopt Health IT,” outlines several concerns including increased health care costs, lack of momentum toward interoperability, patient privacy, and long-term program sustainability.

“Your report highlights a number of fair and responsible criticisms of the program and it echoes many of the concerns CHIME has voiced over the last three years,” the letter said.  “But given the nation’s increased adoption of EHRs, the increased investments in interoperable solutions and the early-stage transformations encountered every day by our members, we remain convinced that the trajectory set by Meaningful Use is the correct one.

“CHIME believes the industry’s guiding principle should be to maximize the opportunity of program success and monitor the timelines needed to do that.  For this reason, we formally and strongly recommend a one-year extension to Stage 2 before progressing to Stage 3 of Meaningful Use,” the organization concluded.

CHIME also called upon Congress to request an update from ONC on what technologies, architectures and strategies exist to mitigate patient matching errors; seek feedback from the public via congressional hearing or other formal commenting mechanism; and determine how current work at the S&I Framework could be leveraged to address the foundational challenge of patient data-matching.

Responding to a section of the white paper on audits and program integrity, CHIME said CIOs understand the desire to ensure that incentive payments are going to those who have qualified to receive them, but this intent must not result in unreasonable auditing efforts that are poorly structured, inconsistent or lack uniform criteria.  “We ask that Congress ensure CMS audits are efficient and effective without overburdening providers,” the letter stated.

To read the full Senate response, visit the Public Policy section of the CHIME website.

About CHIME
The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) is an executive organization dedicated to serving chief information officers and other senior healthcare IT leaders. With more than 1,400 CIO members and over 95 healthcare IT vendors and professional services firms, CHIME provides a highly interactive, trusted environment enabling senior professional and industry leaders to collaborate; exchange best practices; address professional development needs; and advocate the effective use of information management to improve the health and healthcare in the communities they serve. For more information, please visit www.cio-chime.org.

Contact:
Stephanie Fraser
Director of Communications
734-665-0000
sfraser@cio-chime.org

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May 6, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and Google Plus.

Filed Under: ARRA  EHR  Electronic Health Record  Electronic Medical Record  EMR  Healthcare IT  Hospital IT  Meaningful Use  Meaningful Use Stage 2
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ExtraHop Provides Insurance Policy for Healthcare Applications & IT Infrastructure with IT Operational Intelligence

Growing Number of Healthcare Organizations Rely on ExtraHop to Manage Major IT Initiatives such as Citrix VDI, EHR, and HIPAA

SEATTLE, WA, & NEW ORLEANS, LA — March 4, 2013 — ExtraHop announced today at the HIMSS13 Annual Conference and Exhibition that its real-time IT operational intelligence platform has been adopted by a growing number of healthcare organizations to ensure that vital technologies like desktop virtualization, picture archiving and communications systems (PACS), and electronic health records (EHR) are deployed and perform optimally. ExtraHop’s agentless, network-based platform provides correlated, cross-tier visibility to identify and solve problems quickly for organizations such as Practice Fusion, MedSolutions, and many more. ExtraHop delivers this deep visibility in a way that is compliant with HIPAA security and privacy standards.

In a 2012 survey of more than 500 IT decision makers, 44 percent of healthcare organizations indicated they plan to increase their adoption of server-hosted virtual desktops (SHVD) in 2013, a higher proportion than all other industries. However, while virtualization is a key healthcare initiative, patient care can suffer from latency or slow login times if organizations use legacy application performance monitoring tools, which cannot correlate issues across tiers.

The ExtraHop platform is verified as Citrix Ready® for Citrix XenDesktop®, Citrix XenApp™, and Citrix NetScaler® and provides essential IT operational intelligence through real-time analysis of the Citrix ICA wire protocol. John Smith, Netscaler/Citrix Architect at a major healthcare information technology company, and one of only 46 official Citrix Technology Professional Awardees, says of his experience: “ExtraHop is a great APM tool but it is also a great network monitoring tool and has value to every branch of my IT department. This is not a product whose value can be judged by finding its bubble in a scatter plot. I have not even scratched the surface of what this product can do.”

ExtraHop also offers healthcare organizations a way to monitor applications while complying with HIPAA security and privacy standards. Amidst 270 percent annual growth, Web-based EMR provider Practice Fusion found that only ExtraHop could provide real-time visibility across the network, web, database, and storage tiers without requiring any configuration and without risking privacy violations by storing packets. “We manage more than 50 million patient records,” says John Hluboky, VP of Technical Operations at Practice Fusion. “It’s incredibly important that ExtraHop can monitor all our traffic—even the encrypted traffic—and do it without any potential privacy violations.”

For healthcare cost-management services provider MedSolutions, ExtraHop equips every IT team member from application developers to the CIO with operational intelligence to continually improve everything from team collaboration to application rollouts to customer experience. Additionally, ExtraHop’s performance benchmarking abilities have enabled MedSolutions to migrate critical applications from physical to virtual environments—in one case saving $70,000 in hardware costs.

The ExtraHop platform meets the rigorous demands of modern healthcare applications and infrastructure by delivering key capabilities and supporting important initiatives, including the following:

·         Visibility and monitoring for all clients, applications and infrastructure communicating over the network, regardless of technology or software platform

·         Compliance and security insight that tracks logins by client as well as activity down to the file access level

·         Support for bring-your-own-device (BYOD) efforts by automatically discovering and tracking new devices and clients, and distinguishing between those client types, including doctors’ tablets

·         Plug-and-play deployment with no configuration required and no agents to install and maintain

·         Proactive early warning to fix issues before customers are impacted or SLAs are breached.

·         Automatic discovery and classification of all new applications and systems in the IT environment

·         Drill-down capabilities that provide for transaction-specific analysis of problems

“Hospitals and doctors are under pressure to modernize, and they cannot afford disruptions or slow performance that would negatively impact patient care,” says Jesse Rothstein, CEO, ExtraHop. “The rapid adoption of our platform among companies in the healthcare space arises from the safety net that we provide, making sure that these new systems do what they should while also making IT operations less burdensome and expensive.”

To see how the ExtraHop operational intelligence platform can transform your healthcare IT organization, try it for free for 60 days by downloading the ExtraHop Discovery Edition. Visit us in booth #5755 at the HIMSS13 Annual Conference and Exhibition to learn more.

About ExtraHop Networks

ExtraHop provides the real-time operational intelligence required to make IT more agile and proactive. The world’s best-run IT organizations use ExtraHop to manage more than a quarter-million devices and monitor over a trillion transactions daily, including Adobe, Alaska Airlines, Concur, Expedia, and Microsoft. Winner of many innovation awards from Gartner, Interop, and others, the ExtraHop platform auto-discovers and auto-classifies all applications and systems out of the box, providing the correlated, real-time visibility essential for dynamic environments. The ExtraHop platform deploys without agents and delivers value in less than 15 minutes, making it the most cost-effective solution on the market. Follow us on Twitter @ExtraHop.

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March 4, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and Google Plus.

Filed Under: EHR
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Cerner, McKesson, Allscripts, athenahealth, Greenway and RelayHealth Announce Ground Breaking Alliance to Enable Integrated Health Care

First-of-its-kind effort to transform quality and cost effectiveness by enabling data liquidity across systems, settings and episodes of care

New Orleans, March 4, 2013 – Top health care information technology (HIT) companies Cerner, McKesson, Allscripts, athenahealth, Greenway Medical Technologies® and RelayHealth announced today the launch of the CommonWell Health Alliance™, planned to be an independent not-for-profit organization that will support universal, trusted access to health care data through seamless interoperability. This historic effort is aimed at improving the quality of care delivery while working to lower costs for care providers, patients and the industry as a whole.

The Alliance intends to be a collaborative effort of suppliers who are focused on achieving data liquidity between systems, in compliance with patient authorizations. The Alliance will define, promote and certify a national infrastructure with common platforms and policies. It also will ensure that HIT products displaying the Alliance seal are certified to work on the national infrastructure.

“Today’s announcement represents an inflection point in health care, with key industry leaders coming together to support the delivery of a national health information exchange,” said John Hammergren, chairman and CEO, McKesson Corp. “The formation of this alliance takes health care a step closer to broad industry interoperability. A national and trusted health information exchange will break down the information silos in health care and should dramatically improve the quality and cost effectiveness of care delivery. Creating data liquidity between all HIT developers is fundamental to improving patient care, enhancing the vitality of the health care industry, and strengthening the long-term health of our nation.”

“We believe the industry needs to step up to the challenges of interoperability,” noted Neal Patterson, co-founder, chairman, CEO and president, Cerner. “If we can rise to the challenge as an industry, we have a chance to deliver a golden era of health care. It is a system where consumers not only have a right to their data, but also have the ability to mobilize it in the pursuit of better health. This alliance is about setting aside the admittedly tough politics of this issue to do what is right for the health care consumer. We at Cerner are proud to play a leadership role in this exciting effort.”

Elements of the Alliance’s national infrastructure will be tested in a local pilot within the next year. Early components will include the following core services:

  • Cross-entity patient linking and matching services: Help developers and providers link and match patients as they transition through care facilities, regardless of the underlying software system
  • Patient consent and data access management: Foster HIPAA-compliant and simple patient-centered management of data sharing consents and authorizations
  • Patient record locator and directed query services: Help providers deliver a history of recent patient care encounters, and, with appropriate authorization, patient data across multiple providers and episodes of care

“The formation of the CommonWell Health Alliance will be a significant step forward toward the electronic exchange of health information to support clinicians and patients,” said Janet Marchibroda, director of the Health Innovation Initiative at the Bipartisan Policy Center. “The founding members of the Alliance are focused on exactly the right foundational areas, and it’s terrific to see industry leaders stepping up to solve the problem of interoperability on behalf of providers and patients everywhere.”

“Allscripts’ vision has been to create a true Connected Community of Health. We believe open platforms are required to realize that vision and make the improvements our health care delivery system needs to dramatically improve outcomes while reducing cost,” said Paul Black, president and CEO, Allscripts. “This alliance provides a framework that will enable patient identification and record-sharing for providers across the nation. This is good for care providers, for patients and for the country. We are proud to be a founding member and to help lead this important effort.”

“Greenway has anticipated this evolution to a smarter health care system based on open collaboration and data flow,” said Tee Green, president and CEO, Greenway. “We’ve been telling caregivers the marketplace can provide it and sustain it, and they are right to expect it. Consumers are no different, and a patient-enabled approach to data access will foster a deeper and more efficient patient-provider relationship. Allowing data to flow more freely fits the needs of a mobile society just as providers are taking on more financial risk in coordinating care. We are committed to the Alliance goals and our ongoing participation as this initiative grows.”

“We’ve built athenahealth on the vision that health care needs an information backbone that facilitates and incents true health information exchange. However, the promise of the free flow of health information and the reality of it today are worlds apart,” said Jonathan Bush, CEO and chairman, athenahealth, Inc. “We support the CommonWell Health Alliance because we believe that being open matters, especially when it comes to patient care. CommonWell’s efforts to bring major developers together to pilot patient linking and matching across IT systems and care settings is an important step in the right direction. We look forward to helping lead these efforts as a founding member of the Alliance.”

Members of the Alliance are committed to collaborating with all HIT developers to realize the vision of integrated health care and encourage other HIT companies to join the CommonWell Health Alliance by visiting www.commonwellalliance.org. The founding members of the Alliance will be holding a press conference on March 4, 2013 from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. CT at the HIMSS 2013 Annual Conference and Exhibition in New Orleans. The event will also be livestreamed atwww.webcasts.com/March4PressEvent. Please visit www.commonwellalliance.org for additional details.

About CommonWell Health Alliance

CommonWell Health Alliance is anticipated to be an independent not-for-profit trade association of HIT companies that will work together to create universal access to patient health care data. The Alliance will be open to all health information technology developers that are committed to making patient’s data available to themselves and providers regardless of where care occurs. Alliance members will support the belief that provider access to this data must be built-in to health information technologies at a reasonable cost for use by a broad range of health care providers and the patients they serve.

The founding members of CommonWell Health Alliance invite all HIT suppliers to join us in working together to provide seamless, trusted access to health information, in support of better, more cost-effective care for our patients and communities.

To learn more about the CommonWell Health Alliance, please visit www.commonwellalliance.org.

About Cerner

Cerner Corp. (NASDAQ: CERN) is contributing to the systemic change of health and care delivery. For more than 30 years Cerner has been executing its vision to make health care safer and more efficient. We started with the foundation of digitizing paper processes and now offer the most comprehensive array of information software, professional services, medical device integration, remote hosting and employer health and wellness services. Cerner systems are used by everyone from individual consumers, to single-doctor practices, hospitals, employers and entire countries. Taking what we’ve learned over more than three decades, Cerner is building on the knowledge that is in the system to support evidence-based clinical decisions, prevent medical errors and empower patients in their care.

Cerner® solutions are licensed by approximately 10,000 facilities around the world, including more than 2,700 hospitals; 4,150 physician practices; 45,000 physicians; 550 ambulatory facilities, such as laboratories, ambulatory centers, behavioral health centers, cardiac facilities, radiology clinics and surgery centers; 800 home health facilities; 40 employer sites and 1,750 retail pharmacies.

About McKesson

McKesson Corporation (NYSE: MCK), currently ranked 14th on the FORTUNE 500, is a healthcare services and information technology company dedicated to making the business of healthcare run better. We partner with payers, hospitals, physician offices, pharmacies, pharmaceutical companies and others across the spectrum of care to build healthier organizations that deliver better care to patients in every setting. McKesson helps its customers improve their financial, operational, and clinical performance with solutions that include pharmaceutical and medical-surgical supply management, healthcare information technology, and business and clinical services. For more information, visit us at www.mckesson.com.

About Allscripts
Allscripts (NASDAQ: MDRX) delivers the insights that healthcare providers require to generate world-class outcomes. The company’s Electronic Health Record, practice management and other clinical, revenue cycle, connectivity and information solutions create a Connected Community of Health™ for physicians, hospitals and post-acute organizations.  To learn more about Allscripts, please visit www.allscripts.com, Twitter, YouTube and It Takes A Community: The Allscripts Blog.

About athenahealth
athenahealth, Inc. is a leading provider of cloud-based Best in KLAS electronic health record (EHR), practice management, and care coordination services to medical groups and health systems. athenahealth’s mission is to be the most trusted service to medical care givers, helping them do well by doing the right thing. For more information, please visit www.athenahealth.com or call 888-652-8200.

About Greenway Medical Technologies

Greenway Medical Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: GWAY) delivers innovative software and business service solutions for healthcare providers through its PrimeSUITE® platform. As a certified and fully integrated electronic health record, practice management and interoperability solution, Greenway PrimeSUITE helps improve care coordination, quality and cost-efficiency as part of a smarter, sustainable healthcare system. Thousands of care providers across primary care and more than 30 specialties and sub-specialties use cloud-based or on-premise Greenway® solutions in healthcare enterprises, physician practices and clinics nationwide. www.greenwaymedical.com

About RelayHealth

RelayHealth, McKesson’s connectivity business, enables the trusted exchange of clinical, financial and administrative information between patients, providers, payers, pharmacies, pharmaceutical manufacturers and government agencies. RelayHealth processes nearly 16 billion healthcare transactions annually by integrating the delivery of high-quality care and improving the financial outcomes for its customers. For more information, call 888.743.8735, or visit our Web site atwww.RelayHealth.com. Follow us on Twitter (@RelayHealth) or visit the RelayHealth Facebook page.

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I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and Google Plus.

Filed Under: EHR  Electronic Health Record  Electronic Medical Record  EMR  Healthcare  Healthcare Interoperability  Healthcare IT  HIE  Hospital IT
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80 Percent of US Physicians Believe Virtual Assistants Will Drastically Change Healthcare by 2018, Nuance Survey Finds

Nuance Enhances the IQ of Intelligent Systems, Offering a Glimpse of Tomorrow’s Healthcare
 
BURLINGTON, Mass., – February 27, 2013 – Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN), the first to bring the power of the virtual assistant directly to consumers through mobile phones and customer service attendants, recently surveyed US doctors about the effect virtual assistants will have on healthcare. Overwhelmingly, 80 percent believe that within five years, virtual assistants will drastically change how they interact and use electronic health records (EHRs) and other healthcare apps, making them more efficient and freeing up time to spend on patients.
 
Doctors stated that mobile virtual assistants could impact healthcare most by helping them access information in EHRs, and navigate through the process using conversational commands. One out of three doctors spends 30 percent or more of their day on administrative duties — activities that could be redirected or removed using voice-enabled virtual assistants.
 
How will virtual assistants put the care back in healthcare?
  • 65 percent say the top role for a virtual assistant: more accurate, timely information to support care or alert them to missing information in records.
  • 73 percent expect virtual assistants could improve healthcare and patient engagement by helping to coordinate care between multiple caregivers.
  • 80 percent believe virtual assistants will benefit patients most by engaging them in the process, prompting them to adhere to health advice and modifying behaviors.
“Mobile virtual assistants have the potential to reinvent the way we deliver patient care,” says Dr. Alireza Shafaie, Palo Alto Medical Foundation. “As a consumer, I already experience the value of mobile assistants, and would love to bring that natural, intelligence-based dialogue to my work as a primary care physician. For every one patient I see I have to communicate my recommendations in three different places. A mobile advisor that could do that on my behalf in one shot would give me back more time in what truly matters – time with my patients.”
 
One area of interest with physicians is intelligent, voice-driven, computerized physician order entry (CPOE) that uses more sophisticated reasoning for ordering medications, labs and radiology exams beyond mere speech. Healthcare developers can embed virtual assistants — ones that conduct meaningful conversations, interpret physician requests, ask for clarification and seamlessly manage changes in course of action much like their human equivalents — directly into any clinical app to enhance a variety of new and existing workflows, including CPOE.
 
Nuance is deeply invested in a new generation of sophisticated and powerful applications underpinned by voice and clinical language understanding (CLU) that reinvents the way doctors and patients experience healthcare, providing direct access to the healthcare information that matters most.
 
“The technology exists today in Nuance to create a more intuitive way for doctors and patients to coordinate care and improve efficiency through dialogue-driven intelligent systems that hear, understand and respond,” reports Joe Petro, senior vice president healthcare engineering and R&D, Nuance. 
 
More than 500 global developers are already utilizing Nuance technology to humanize healthcare and fulfill the promise of virtual assistants in medicine. For a first glimpse of Nuance’s new healthcare virtual assistant project, codenamed “Florence,” visit booth #4025 at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Conference & Exhibits in New Orleans March 3 – 7, 2013.  
 
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February 28, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and Google Plus.

Filed Under: EHR  Electronic Health Record  Healthcare  Mobile Health
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DataMotion Developers Toolkit Facilitates Quick Integration with Direct Messaging, Enabling Providers to Qualify for Meaningful Use Stage 2 Incentives

Toolkit Offers Lucrative Market Opportunities to EHR, HIE and IDN Vendors by Helping
Healthcare Providers Overcome Complexities and Qualify for Potential Subsidies

MORRISTOWN, N.J. – February 27, 2013 – DataMotion (www.datamotion.com), a health information service provider (HISP) offering secure data delivery services, today introduced the DataMotion Direct Toolkit. The Toolkit enables Health Information Systems (HIS) vendors who develop electronic health record (EHR), health information exchange (HIE) and integrated delivery network (IDN) solutions to qualify their systems’ interoperability capabilities as required for Meaningful Use Stage 2 incentive payments.

Often times, secure messaging and PKI encryption are not core competencies of HIS vendors. Rather than build a solution in-house, vendors can now quickly add required Direct functionality by leveraging the DataMotion Direct Toolkit. This shortens time to market for HIS vendors and helps them quickly seize lucrative new market opportunities.

“As we were looking for an expert in the development of Direct messaging functionality, DataMotion came out as the clear choice,” said Mark Pilarski, vice president, product generation for T-System, Inc., the industry leader in clinical, financial and operational solutions for emergency medicine. “After researching prospective HISPs it was clear that DataMotion had the most robust offering. Since engaging their team, we’ve been impressed with the strength and simplicity of the application programming interface (API) and their knowledgeable and responsive tech support. Best of all, we’ve found them to be flexible and easy to do business with. We look forward to offering an integrated Direct solution to our user base.”

Through the Toolkit, HIS vendors’ customers can take advantage of DataMotion Direct, a cloud-based secure data transfer service that enables healthcare organizations of all sizes to meet compliance demands and real-world communications needs. The Toolkit’s ease-of-use allows rapid integration -  usually in less than a month. The turnkey solution is regularly updated to meet new industry requirements. Designed to interoperate with disparate systems, provider organizations can also avoid vendor lock-in to ensure the greatest return on technology investments and the ability to take advantage of new developments in the future.

The DataMotion Direct Toolkit includes:

  • ·         A robust suite of APIs to facilitate integration of Direct messaging into any EHR/EMR, HIE or IDN application
  • ·         An easy-to-follow implementation guide
  • ·         Pre-integration consulting
  • ·         Integration engineering support
  • ·         Tier-1 technical support during third-party certification testing
  • ·         One year membership in the DataMotion Direct Developers Consortium

“Our Toolkit offers vendors a tremendous opportunity to quickly meet Meaningful Use Stage 2 requirements,” said Bob Janacek, co-founder and chief technology officer for DataMotion. “Whether you want DataMotion to provide the entire messaging interface inside of your solution, or simply need your existing messaging interface to communicate through Direct protocols, the DataMotion Direct Toolkit provides a rapid and easy way to accomplish this.”

The DataMotion Direct Toolkit is available immediately. For more information, vendors should visit http://www.datamotion.com/DirectProject/HealthcareDirectvendor.aspx, email sales@datamotion.com or call (800) 672-7233.

About DataMotion

DataMotion enables organizations to dramatically reduce the cost and complexity of delivering electronic information to employees, customers and partners in a secure and compliant way. The company’s core DataMotion Platform solves a broad range of business issues by providing a secure data delivery hub. DataMotion’s easy-to-use solutions for secure email, file transfer, forms processing and customer contact leverage the DataMotion Platform for unified data delivery. Millions of users worldwide rely on DataMotion to transparently improve business processes and reduce costs, while mitigating security and compliance risk. DataMotion is privately held and based in Morristown, N.J.

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February 27, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and Google Plus.

Filed Under: EHR
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ENCORE HEALTH RESOURCES LAUNCHES VALUE-BASED PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT™ SOLUTIONS SUITE POWERED BY CoreANALYTICS™

New lifecycle of services and software tools developed in partnership with CHI

HOUSTON – February 26, 2013 – Encore Health Resources, an award-winning health-information technology (HIT) services company, announced today the launch of its new Value-based Performance Improvement™ (VPI) suite of services and software. VPI features CoreANALYTICS™, a set of integrated analytical tools that helps drive continuous health-system performance improvement. In an industry moving rapidly from volume- to value-based reimbursement, VPI and CoreANALYTICS comprise a uniquely comprehensive solution that transforms data generated by electronic health record (EHR), financial, and operational systems into actionable intelligence for proactive management of patient populations, quality, and costs.

Encore’s Value-based Performance Improvement with CoreANALYTICS is poised to assist health systems meet and exceed thresholds for the quality and performance measures required to qualify for U.S. Government EHR Meaningful-Use incentive payments and avoid associated penalties—as well as manage emerging, at-risk government and commercial payment models.  This new solution suite converts relevant data into intelligent, practical ways to help key stakeholders – including hospitals, physicians, and their patients – successfully navigate through and beyond challenges posed by the healthcare industry’s rapid shift from fee-for-service to fee-for-value.

Key VPI and CoreANALYTICS differentiators include a unique blend of Encore’s seasoned consultants with in-depth understanding of clinical data, proven methodologies and vendor-neutral analytical tools. These new tools help healthcare organizations focus on relevant quality and performance data while leveraging existing business-intelligence investments. This new, focused approach accelerates a client’s reimbursement transformation at a competitively low cost of entry through all stages of EHR Meaningful Use and also prepares them for evolving reimbursement models. VPI supports Value-Based Purchasing, Patient Centered Medical Homes, Clinical Integration Networking, and Accountable Care Organizations.

Another key differentiator is that CoreANALYTICS’ architecture allows for full or modular deployment.  A full deployment includes the Data Acquisition Engine (extract, translate, and load); the Integrated Information Platform, including our Analytics Engine (creates a “smart, skinny” data warehouse); and the Quality and Performance Modules (building dynamic dashboards), which together provide a comprehensive data-to-information transformation solution.   At the heart of the suite is Encore’s exclusive Analytics Engine, which enriches information through proven data derivation and measure calculations. These modular components can also be layered with an organization’s established data warehouse or reporting capability for a comprehensive, cost-effective solution.

Encore built its new solutions suite with development partner Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI).  Today, CHI is successfully testing VPI and CoreANALYTICS to optimize its OneCare Program, a $2 billion, enterprise-wide initiative to advance patient care through the power of information. Using VPI and CoreANALYTICS, CHI’s goals are to leverage OneCare to create a powerful, information-based system that will drive significant improvements in patient care throughout its 70 hospitals across the U.S.

“Our partnership with Encore has significantly extended the power of OneCare to provide ‘in-time’ information that will help CHI understand how we are performing against our goals,” said Evon Holladay, MGA, Vice President, Enterprise Intelligence, Catholic Health Initiatives.

As the centerpiece of the VPI lifecycle of performance improvement services, CoreANALYTICS is focused on measures targeted at specific quality and performance data from source systems. It dynamically updates measures calculations to meet the demands of a rapidly transforming industry. Encore’s CoreGPS® Data Tool informs the Analytics Engine and eliminates the need for custom coding for new measures and calculations, thereby creating a lower-cost analytics solution.

The CoreANALYTICS Quality and Reporting Modules provide integrated views of actionable information and insight into quality and performance across patient populations.  These modules include:

  • Meaningful Use Compliance and Reporting Module: Focused on analysis and reporting for successful participation in the CMS EHR Incentive Program and subsequent stages. 
  • At-Risk Population Module:  Analysis and reporting focused on high-cost, at-risk populations including analysis for care processes and utilization and performance against specific measures. 
  • Clinical Analytics for Care Coordination Module: Provides physicians “in time” information using dashboards and reports to manage patients with preventive guidelines stratified by disease state.
  • Financial Analytics: Analyzes cost savings achieved through clinical integration efforts and new care processes calculated within specific treatment patterns, clinical focus areas, populations, or globally.

“Encore’s partnership with CHI created a demanding laboratory that presented real-world challenges in dozens of hospitals with multiple EHR systems and a unified goal for improved care delivery in an unprecedented environment of change,” said Dana Sellers, CEO, Encore Health Resources. “The result is our Value-based Performance Improvement lifecycle of services, featuring the CoreANALYTICS road-tested software tools, which are now ready to help clients across our industry gain new insights that drive increasing value throughout their organizations and a future of intelligent health performance.”

About Catholic Health Initiatives

Catholic Health Initiatives is a national nonprofit health system with headquarters in Englewood, Colo.  The faith-based system operates in 19 states and includes 81 hospitals; 40 long-term care, assisted- and residential-living facilities; two community health-services organizations; two accredited nursing colleges; and home health agencies.  In fiscal year 2012, CHI provided more than $715 million in charity care and community benefit, including services for the poor, free clinics, education and research. With total annual revenues of more than $10.7 billion and approximately 86,000 employees, CHI ranks as the nation’s second-largest faith-based health system.

About Encore Health Resources (Encore)

Founded by healthcare veterans Ivo Nelson and Dana Sellers, Encore provides information technology consulting services and solutions to assist healthcare organizations with a wide range of strategy, advisory, implementation, process-redesign, and optimization activities.  Encore focuses on capturing data and establishing the analytical capabilities to meet the evolving information and reporting needs for health care providers to improve and document clinical and operational performance.

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February 26, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and Google Plus.

Filed Under: EHR  Electronic Health Record  Healthcare
Tags:                                    


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