Practice Fusion and the American Urological Association Collaborate to Launch Overactive Bladder Population Health Management Initiative

NEW ORLEANS, May 19, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Practice Fusion, the nation's largest cloud-based electronic health record (EHR) platform, and the American Urological Association (AUA) with Astellas as the funding source, today announced the launch of a customized Overactive Bladder (OAB) population health management (PHM) initiative intended to help healthcare professionals deliver needed care to their OAB patients. Announced at the AUA 2015 Annual Meeting in New Orleans, this OAB PHM initiative will be available to healthcare professionals who use Practice Fusion's cloud-based EHR platform and who treat patients with OAB and has the potential to reach nearly 1.5 million patients whose health records are managed on the Practice Fusion platform.

Key Points about the Overactive Bladder Population Health Management Initiative:

• OAB is a highly prevalent condition; as many as 46 million Americans over the age of 40 report that they sometimes experience OAB symptoms, which translates to as many as one in three adults over 40 years-old.¹
• Providers will be notified through the Practice Fusion EHR platform if an overactive bladder assessment is recommended for a patient based on evidence-based AUA guidelines.
• This PHM initiative will help provide physicians with insights into their OAB patient population through featuring a dashboard that aggregates and compares their patients being treated for OAB with similar patient populations of other Practice Fusion clinicians.
• Providers will have the ability to actively track and quantify their clinical decisions for adult patients with OAB.
• Using this information, physicians will be in a position to help facilitate improved dialogue with their patients about OAB in cases where patients may not have yet been diagnosed.

"We believe this new initiative may help the millions of Americans living with OAB," said Deborah Lightner, MD, chair of the AUA Practice Guidelines Committee. "The Population Health Management program is particularly helpful with patient diagnosis and treatment for this common condition as patients often don't feel comfortable discussing their symptoms."

The PHM program helps support physician-patient engagement across the care continuum, including enabling providers to engage with their patients through outreach utilizing the Practice Fusion platform before and after medical office visits.  Patients being treated for OAB can also opt in to an AUA Treatment Outcomes Study, which will consist of two surveys.  De-identified aggregate findings will also be shared in the dashboard for providers.

"With this clinically challenging treatment condition affecting 46 million Americans, Practice Fusion is helping to improve physician-patient communication through the use of this unique collaboration," said Ryan Howard, founder and CEO, Practice Fusion.  "On a national scale, Practice Fusion is helping to arm healthcare professionals and patients with simple, effective management tools that follow trusted AUA guidelines while helping support meaningful use of EHR technology by providers."

About Practice Fusion
Practice Fusion is the #1 cloud-based electronic health record (EHR) platform for doctors and patients, with a mission of connecting doctors, patients and data to drive better health and save lives.  A driving force in modernizing American health care, Practice Fusion is used by a community of more than 112,000 monthly active health care professionals with over 100 million patient records under management.  In 2014, Practice Fusion's EHR facilitated over 56 million patient visits (approximately 6% of all ambulatory visits in the US) and is the largest and fastest growing EHR in the US.

About the American Urological Association
Founded in 1902 and headquartered near Baltimore, Maryland, the American Urological Association is a leading advocate for the specialty of urology, and has more than 21,000 members throughout the world.  The AUA is a premier urologic association, providing invaluable support to the urologic community as it pursues its mission of fostering the highest standards of urologic care through education, research and the formulation of health policy.

About Astellas
Astellas is a pharmaceutical company dedicated to improving the health of people around the world through provision of innovative and reliable pharmaceuticals. For more information on Astellas, please visit our website at www.astellas.us, follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AstellasUS or like our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/AstellasUS.

¹ Coyne KS, Sexton CC, Vasudha V, Thompson, C, Kopp, ZS, Milson, I. National community prevalence of overactive bladder in the united states stratified by sex and age. Urology. 2011; 77(5): 1081–1087.

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SOURCE Practice Fusion

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