Catholic Health Initiatives and Allscripts Expand Partnership to Connect Over 8,000 Physicians and 73 Hospitals Across 18 States

CHICAGO and DENVER, Oct. 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) has expanded its partnership with Allscripts (Nasdaq: MDRX) by selecting the company's ambulatory Electronic Health Record (EHR) as the exclusively endorsed EHR for its 7,200 affiliated physicians in 18 states. The agreement builds on CHI's implementation of the Allscripts EHR to all 1,050 of its employed physicians, an initiative that is already underway.

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CHI also will implement the Sunrise EPSi™ integrated suite of business Performance Management solutions in its 73 hospitals. And the health system has selected the Allscripts Practice Management and other business management solutions for its employed physicians.  

"CHI and Allscripts share a vision of a connected community of health in which all providers have access to the same patient information, enabling them to work in concert to provide superior care," said Michael O'Rourke, CHI's Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer. "We're pleased to partner with Allscripts to provide independent physicians affiliated with our hospitals a practical option for participating in that community.  At the same time, we will leverage Allscripts expertise in performance management and revenue cycle technology within CHI to improve our own financial health."

Allscripts Chief Executive Officer Glen Tullman commented, "Catholic Health Initiatives has again demonstrated its leadership by taking the critical steps necessary to build a truly connected community of health that will benefit providers and patients across the U.S.  By leveraging our client base of 180,000 physicians, who have a significant presence in every one of the communities CHI serves, CHI will serve as a magnet drawing independent physicians to connect to their hospitals and to each other. That's a win-win for independent physicians, for CHI and for patients."  

AEHR Community Program

Allscripts is the exclusive technology provider for CHI's new "AEHR (Ambulatory Electronic Health Record) Community Program," designed to help ensure the availability of high quality, consistent and convenient access to health information for independent physicians in communities served by CHI.  The program also is intended to help CHI-affiliated physicians qualify for the maximum government subsidies under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

Physicians affiliated with CHI facilities are free to choose another EHR but will benefit from unique pricing and connectivity options provided by Allscripts.  In particular, the Allscripts solution will let independent physicians connect to CHI facilities, as well as labs, pharmacies and other providers in their community, to access current patient information and the latest clinical content, encouraging a more effective team approach to patient care.

Physicians who participate in the AEHR Community Program also can select from a variety of CHI-negotiated pricing plans, including a monthly subscription. The Allscripts Electronic Health Record is available either as a SaaS (Software as a Service) solution, which eliminates the need to install and maintain the application, or as a traditional on-premise solution, giving physicians a choice of what works best for them whether they work in a solo practice or a large multi-specialty or academic medical group.  

"Independent physicians often are forced to practice without knowing everything they need to know about how their patients were treated by providers in local hospitals or other facilities, and it's a struggle to provide optimum care under those circumstances," said Stephen Moore, M.D., Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of CHI. "We expect the AEHR Community Program to change that and, as a result, to realize significant improvements in care delivery as well as satisfaction among both patients and providers."

The Allscripts EHR automates clinical workflow and gives physicians immediate access to critical data from hospitals, labs, pharmacies, payers and patients.  Whether it's delivered via SaaS or on-premise, healthcare providers can access the secure EHR at any time and any place – in the clinic, at the hospital, or from their homes. By automatically tracking key patient metrics and providing automated decision support, the web-based solution will help CHI's affiliated physicians advance their practices and deliver more-effective disease management, preventive care and long-range health maintenance.

As part of its EHR program, CHI will implement the Allscripts Community Exchange to efficiently connect and manage electronic transactions of all kinds between the health system and its affiliated physicians.  Using the Allscripts solution, CHI-employed physicians will be able to securely and confidentially view and share clinical information with affiliated physician practices and other care providers across the full continuum of care. As a result, CHI's providers will be able to connect and collaborate for a team approach to patient care, improving patient safety and care coordination, regardless of where they are located or which clinical technologies they use.  

Practice Management, Claims Management and Meaningful Use

Independent physicians in small and mid-sized groups who participate in the AEHR Community Program can also elect to implement the integrated Allscripts Practice Management solution, which automates billing, scheduling, and claims management while helping to manage the cost of care delivery.  CHI will begin deploying the solution to physicians employed by its 350 owned medical practices in the same time frame that it implements Allscripts EHR.

In tandem with the Practice Management solution, CHI also will deploy for its employed physicians the Allscripts Payerpath solution for claims management, and the company's Clinical Quality Solution (CQS) to automate the collection and reporting of data for Pay-for-Performance awards as well as metrics needed to demonstrate Meaningful Use of the EHR and qualify for funding under ARRA.  Payerpath delivers integrated claims, remittance and eligibility capabilities in a single package used by thousands of physician groups across the U.S. who process more than 300 million claims annually and 600 million revenue cycle management transactions.

Business Performance Management

CHI's selection of the Sunrise EPSi™ Performance Management solution for all 73 of its hospitals will help the health system become more efficient and improve productivity without sacrificing quality. 

In the face of declining medical reimbursements, hospitals and specialty care organizations increasingly are seeking to automate and streamline their business processes with Sunrise EPSi™. The advanced business decision support solution provides integrated analytics, budgeting and knowledge-based decision support designed to bring together all the major components of financial management — strategic planning, product line budgeting, cost accounting, and operational and capital budgeting — to more effectively address the financial challenges facing hospitals and health systems. 

CHI plans to begin deploying the system to its hospitals this month.

Additional Information on ARRA and Meaningful Use

Allscripts has deployed a number of resources to help physician practices demonstrate "meaningful use" and take advantage of the ARRA incentives:

The Allscripts Stimulus Program provides physicians with a guarantee that the Allscripts ambulatory Electronic Health Record they select will meet the EHR certification criteria provided by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Physicians can also benefit from an Allscripts financing program requiring no payments for software for six months, as well as programs focused on faster implementation to ensure physicians can access the Federal Stimulus incentives.

The Allscripts Stimulus Center provides the latest information on ARRA, including frequently asked questions on Meaningful Use and Certification.

The Allscripts Legislative & Regulatory Action Center is a place to learn about and take action on issues that are critical to the provider community, providing a simple, 'one touch' connection to elected officials.

'Go' is a website designed for physicians and other providers who are considering deploying Electronic Health Records and other healthcare information technologies.  Available at www.allscripts.com/go, the site provides easy access to best practices and success stories from the Allscripts client community of more than 180,000 physicians, 1,500 hospitals, and 10,000 post-acute care facilities.  

About Catholic Health Initiatives

CHI is a national nonprofit health organization with headquarters in Denver. The faith-based system operates in 18 states and includes 73 hospitals; 40 long-term care, assisted-living and residential-living facilities; and two community health-services organizations. Together, those facilities provided $553 million during the 2009 fiscal year in charity care and community benefit, including services for the poor, free clinics, education and research. With annual revenues of $8.6 billion, CHI ranks as the nation's second-largest Catholic health care system. For more information, visit www.CatholicHealthInitiatives.org.

About Allscripts

Allscripts (NASDAQ: MDRX) provides innovative solutions that empower all stakeholders across the healthcare continuum to deliver world-class outcomes. The company's clinical, financial, connectivity and information solutions for hospitals, physicians and post-acute organizations are the essential technologies that enable a connected healthcare community. To learn more about Allscripts, please visit www.allscripts.com, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Statements regarding future events or developments, our future performance, as well as management's expectations, beliefs, intentions, plans, estimates or projections relating to the future are forward-looking statements with the meaning of these laws. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, some of which are outlined below. As a result, no assurances can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur, or if any of them do so, what impact they will have on our results of operations or financial condition.

Such risks, uncertainties and other factors include, among other things: the possibility that the expected synergies, efficiencies and cost savings of the merger with Eclipsys Corporation ("Eclipsys") will not be realized, or will not be realized within the expected time period; potential difficulties or delays in achieving platform and product integration and the connection and movement of data among hospitals, physicians, patients and others; the risk that the Allscripts and Eclipsys businesses will not be integrated successfully; competition within the industries in which we operate; failure to achieve certification under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act could result in increased development costs, a breach of some customer obligations and could put us at a competitive disadvantage in the marketplace; the volume and timing of systems sales and installations, the length of sales cycles and the installation process and the possibility that our products will not achieve or sustain market acceptance; the timing, cost and success or failure of new product and service introductions, development and product upgrade releases; competitive pressures including product offerings, pricing and promotional activities; our ability to establish and maintain strategic relationships; undetected errors or similar problems in our software products; the outcome of any legal proceeding that has been or may be instituted against us; compliance with existing laws, regulations and industry initiatives and future changes in laws or regulations in the healthcare industry, including possible regulation of our software by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; the possibility of product-related liabilities; our ability to attract and retain qualified personnel; the implementation and speed of acceptance of the electronic record provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; maintaining our intellectual property rights and litigation involving intellectual property rights; risks related to third-party suppliers and our ability to obtain, use or successfully integrate third-party licensed technology; and breach of ours security by third parties. See our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended May 31, 2010 and other public filings with the SEC for a further discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties applicable to our business. The statements herein speak only as of their date and we undertake no duty to update any forward-looking statement whether as a result of new information, future events or changes in expectations.

SOURCE Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, Inc.