Mercy Hospital of Portland Selects Allscripts Electronic Health Record for Physicians

CHICAGO and PORTLAND, Maine, April 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Allscripts (Nasdaq: MDRX) announced today that Mercy Hospital of Portland (Mercy) has selected the Allscripts Electronic Health Record (EHR) solution for their 58 employed providers to enhance the quality of patient care, improve patient communications, and better manage the cost of care delivery.  

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The EHR will be integrated with the Allscripts Practice Management solution, which the physicians of Mercy Medical Associates have been using since 2008 to automate billing, scheduling, and claims management.  Mercy Medical Associates consists of 15 multi-specialty physician practices that are owned and operated by Mercy.

"Allscripts has proven to be a great partner on the practice management side, leading to greater efficiency, and we expect this expansion of our partnership into the clinical side of our physician practices will drive similar results," said Jonathan Roderick, Chief Information Officer of Mercy, which is a member of Catholic Health East, a multi-institutional Catholic health system serving communities through regional healthcare systems in 11 eastern states from Maine to Florida. "The electronic health record gives our providers the ability to connect to one another and to other providers throughout the region, including at the hospital, leading to better coordination of care and ultimately improved outcomes for our patients inside and outside the hospital."

The Electronic Health Record enables Mercy Medical Associates physicians to automate everyday clinical functions such as writing prescriptions, documenting patient visits and sending notes and tasks to their clinical support team. The Web-based Allscripts solution also incorporates data from a wide variety of sources to ensure Mercy's caregivers have all the information they need to provide the highest quality care – whether they are working in the clinic, at the hospital, or remotely.  

Advanced functions of the EHR include disease management alerts that tell physicians when key indicators such as a patient's cholesterol or blood glucose levels fall out of range. Mercy's leaders also will have more complete information to guide decisions with a dashboard view of key performance indicators from across the network, including care planning statistics, health maintenance and provider productivity.

"The Allscripts system surpassed every other system we looked at in terms of its capabilities and the friendliness of the user interface, which is very intuitive for physicians," said Jeffrey J. Heckert, MD, FAAFP, Medical Director for Primary Care at Mercy Medical Associates.  "And by enabling connectivity between our providers and caregivers in the hospital, we expect that Allscripts will help us deliver a safer, higher quality environment for patient care, no matter where they're seen."

Allscripts will connect Mercy Medical Associates physicians electronically to ancillary services such as laboratories and radiology and to Mercy's Meditech hospital information system to share patient information securely with caregivers at Mercy Hospital.

"Mercy is at the forefront of a national trend and joins an increasing number of hospitals who have provided our electronic health record to help their ambulatory physicians create a connected system of health," said Glen Tullman, Chief Executive Officer of Allscripts. "Whether integrating with our practice management solution, as at Mercy, or with another vendor's system, our goal is the same – helping our clients deliver an experience that's richer in content, higher in care quality, and safer for patients."  

About Mercy Hospital of Portland

Mercy Hospital is a not-for-profit community hospital sponsored by the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, Regional Community of Portland.  Established in 1918 by the Catholic Diocese of Portland and the Sisters of Mercy, Mercy Hospital's mission is to provide compassionate, clinically excellent health care, especially to the poor and disadvantaged.  Mercy Hospital is a member of Catholic Health East, a multi-institutional Catholic health system serving communities through regional healthcare systems in 11 eastern states from Maine to Florida.  For more information, visit www.mercyhospital.com.

About Allscripts

Allscripts uses innovation technology to bring health to healthcare. More than 160,000 physicians, 800 hospitals and nearly 8,000 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 Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions, Inc. To learn more, visit www.allscripts.com.

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SOURCE Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions, Inc.