Direct Solutions provider MedAllies adds Hickman, Hall to its board

FISHKILL, N.Y., July 17, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- MedAllies, a leading provider of Direct services and a founding member of the Direct Project, has tapped two industry leaders to join its board of directors: Leslie Kelly Hall, senior vice president for policy for Healthwise, and George Hickman, executive vice president and chief information officer for Albany Medical Center.

The appointments come at a pivotal time for the company. "MedAllies is experiencing unprecedented growth, both internally and in terms of market share," says MedAllies CEO A. John Blair, III, MD. "Leslie and George bring decades of industry experience and leadership that will serve MedAllies well in the weeks and months to come. By bringing them on board, we advance our commitment to interoperability for all."

• Leslie Kelly Hall is senior vice president for policy for Healthwise, where she achieved the integration of Healthwise solutions within electronic medical record and personal health record systems. She serves on the DirectTrust board, and as chair of the Consumer Technology Workgroup for the Health Information Technology Standards Committee of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT. Hall also sits on several subcommittees, including Meaningful Use and security.
• George Hickman is executive vice president and chief information officer for Albany Medical Center in New York. He oversees information technology activities throughout the organization's hospitals and its physician faculty practice and medical college. Hickman is a fellow, board member and a charter member of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives and recipient of the HIMSS Life Member Award

"We've been involved with MedAllies Direct since the pilot stage. I've been particularly impressed with the focus on physician workflow and functionality. MedAllies Direct Solutions™ takes a workflow-centric approach which, by supporting physicians, ultimately supports improved care," Hickman says.

"Direct is an effort close to my heart as a patient advocate: If consumers are to get the care and information they need, clinicians must be able to share patient information with each other," Hall says.

MedAllies has emerged as an industry leader. The MedAllies National Direct Network includes nearly 2,000 health care organizations and 30,000 Direct users. It reaches more than 6,000 organizations and 200,000 users.

In addition to running a leading national Direct network, MedAllies offers a suite of services: MedAllies Direct Solutions provides a secure, scalable, standards-based way for participants to send authenticated, encrypted personal health information to other providers, whether they are across the street or across the continent.

MedAllies Direct Solutions ensures clinically relevant data can be exchanged between providers--using disparate EHR systems--seamlessly and in a manner completely consistent with existing EHR workflows. This approach supports Stage 2 Meaningful Use and the patient-centered medical neighborhood.

To learn more, visit http://www.MedAllies.com.

About MedAllies
MedAllies, founded in 2001, has extensive experience with EHR implementation and workflow redesign to improve clinical care. It provides unmatched expertise in interoperability, Meaningful Use 2 compliance and Direct services. As one of the ONC Direct Reference Implementation vendors, MedAllies has provided Direct services since the Direct Project's inception; it now runs a leading national Direct network. MedAllies' product suite, MedAllies Direct Solutions™ builds on existing technology to achieve interoperability. Physicians use their current EHR systems, allowing information to flow across disparate EHR systems in a manner consistent with provider workflows. MedAllies Direct Solutions is a tool to advance primary care models that emphasize care coordination and improved care transitions, and support patient-centered care.

SOURCE MedAllies