Leading Health Systems Select Allscripts for Care Management and Paperless Patient Referrals

ATLANTA, March 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- From the floor of the HIMSS10 Conference and Exhibition, Allscripts (Nasdaq: MDRX) today announced two of America's leading integrated health systems – Covenant Health and Sharp HealthCare – have selected the Allscripts Care Management and Post Acute solutions to automate administrative processes in their hospitals and post-acute care facilities, improving efficiency, streamlining and enhancing the quality of patient care, and generating cost savings.

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Both health systems ranked among the Top 10 health networks in their respective regions on the nation's list of the most integrated healthcare networks, the "2010 SDI IHN 100." The ranking, published in Modern Healthcare, recognizes the 100 most integrated networks out of 570 health systems, graded annually on operations, quality, scope of services and efficiency.

"We are proud that two of the nation's most innovative and forward-looking health systems have selected our care management and post-acute solutions to provide accurate, real-time information in helping to deliver high quality care while more effectively managing costs," said Glen Tullman, Chief Executive Officer of Allscripts. "We are committed to working together with our clients to provide a seamless, interconnected healthcare experience for patients that also enhances the quality of patient care."

A fully-integrated, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application, the Allscripts Care Management solution automates and consolidates everyday tasks for hospital case managers including utilization management, discharge planning, documentation integrity, audit management and quality management. Allscripts Post Acute solutions including Referral Management enable nursing home, home care, hospice and other post-acute facilities to automatically receive and respond to patient referrals from hospitals, enter referrals from non-electronic sources, and manage tasks involved in the intake process.

Allscripts Care Management and Post Acute solutions are deployed in more than 700 hospitals and more than 10,000 post-acute, hospice and home care agencies nationwide.

Covenant Health System

Covenant Health is a comprehensive community-owned health system based in Knoxville, Tenn. that includes six acute care hospitals and one psychiatric hospital in Eastern Tennessee, as well as more than 1,000 affiliated physicians.  

Covenant will implement Allscripts Care Management in all six hospitals, including the Discharge Planning module to help Covenant's case managers quickly find the appropriate post-acute facility for patients who need continuing care, and the Referral Management solution to help Covenant's Rehab Centers quickly capture appropriate patient referrals from hospitals.  

Sandra Marshall, Senior Vice President of Clinical Effectiveness for Covenant, said the health system was attracted to the Allscripts solutions in part because, as SaaS applications, they can be installed quickly – in as little as 90 days – and efficiently with minimal IT support.  Additionally, Allscripts Care Management's integrated communication tools streamline the exchange of patient data with most other software systems, payers and post-acute care facilities, without the need for third party tools, systems or fax servers. 

"Allscripts not only will assist us with standardization of case management processes across the organization, it will assist us in working to improve transitions of care for all of our patients," said Marshall.  "This implementation will also be the catalyst for potential integration of post-acute care appointments and communication with the largest physician network in our area."

Sharp HealthCare

Sharp HealthCare, recipient of the 2007 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation's highest Presidential honor for quality and organizational performance excellence, is a not-for-profit integrated healthcare delivery system based in San Diego with more than 14,000 employees and 2,600 affiliated physicians.  The Sharp system includes four acute-care hospitals, three specialty hospitals, two affiliated medical groups and a health plan.  To learn more about Sharp, visit www.sharp.com.

Sharp HealthCare will implement the Allscripts Care Management solution in two hospitals (Sharp Coronado and Sharp Chula Vista) and update its existing Allscripts deployments at the Sharp Metropolitan Medical Center Campus and Sharp Grossmont Hospital. In all of the hospitals, Allscripts will be tightly integrated with Sharp's inpatient health information system from Cerner.

"Sharp HealthCare is expanding our deployment of Allscripts Care Management to all of our hospitals and post-acute facilities because we believe the solution helps us ensure that our patients receive great care from the moment they are admitted to the hospital until after they are discharged," said William Spooner, Chief Information Officer of Sharp HealthCare and the HIMSS CIO of the Year. "By improving the case management and referral management process, Allscripts will help us to deliver on our core mission – providing superior patient care at lower cost."

Sharp's own network of five post-acute facilities also will implement the Allscripts Referral Management solution.  

"Our commitment to our patients continues long after they leave one of our facilities, and Allscripts allows us to connect electronically with nursing homes and home care agencies to find the best fit for discharged patients who need further care," said Nancy G. Pratt, RN, Senior Vice President of Clinical Effectiveness for Sharp HealthCare.  "This technology lets the patient make a faster, more informed choice while enabling us to electronically exchange critical medical information with post-acute facilities to ensure the patient continues to receive high quality care."

Pratt added, "Our overall goal is to standardize case management practice across the organization while improving patient throughput, reducing denials, and improving productivity, and Allscripts has proven its ability to help."  

Demos Available at HIMSS

Demonstrations of Allscripts Care Management and Post Acute solutions are available at the Georgia World Congress Center during the HIMSS10 Conference & Exhibition, March 2-3, by visiting the Allscripts booth (#6714).

About Allscripts

Allscripts uses innovation technology to bring health to healthcare. More than 160,000 physicians, 800 hospitals and more than 10,000 post-acute and homecare organizations utilize Allscripts to improve the health of their patients and their bottom line.  The company's award-winning solutions include electronic health records, electronic prescribing, revenue cycle management, practice management, document management, care management, emergency department information systems and homecare automation. Allscripts is the brand name of AllscriptsMisys Healthcare Solutions, Inc. To learn more, visit www.allscripts.com.

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SOURCE Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions, Inc.