Netsmart's Focus on Innovation to Help Health and Human Service Providers Span the Spectrum of Care in the Healthcare 3.0 Environment

OVERLAND PARK, Kan., April 20, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- In a time of rapid evolution of processes and advancements, healthcare providers are rethinking their use of technology, applications and workflow. Netsmart Technologies, the leading provider of clinical solutions for health and human services organizations nationwide, today announced a series of innovative solutions designed to help providers deliver accountable, recovery-based care in the increasingly integrated healthcare ecosystem. The announcement was made in conjunction with the National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare's 42nd Mental Health and Addictions Conference in Chicago and the CONNECTIONS2012 Netsmart Client Conference in New Orleans April 23-26, 2012.

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"We're living and working in a speed of thought environment," said Tom Herzog, Netsmart executive vice president, Solutions and Operations. "Our focus on innovation is driven by our clients' desire to drive down costs, but more importantly, provide high quality care. It's no longer about agile development, but also agile design -- delivering today what our clients need tomorrow."

Netsmart announced the availability of a series of innovative solutions and capabilities for health and human services in several emerging areas Herzog described as "critical to the goal of supporting a holistic model of care." These solutions target the organizations Netsmart serves in the health and human services sectors, including behavioral health and addiction services providers, psychiatric hospitals, local health departments, social services and child and family health agencies, I/DD organizations, managed care organizations and vital records offices.

It's All Related and Must Be Integrated: Physical Care Integration
The National Council describes a bi-directional approach to care that advocates for primary care services to be integrated into health and human service settings and also offering behavioral health services in primary care settings. The Netsmart Primary Care Module for Health and Human Services enables providers to deliver medical care services, capture the associated data and integrate it directly into the consumer's electronic health record (EHR), supporting this holistic approach to care.

Health Homes Support Comprehensive Approach to Care
Health Homes help assure that care is coordinated for behavioral health clients across the treatment spectrum. Netsmart supports Health Homes and other care integration initiatives with Netsmart CareManager™, a first-in-the-nation system where the EHR is integrated with the care coordination system. Netsmart is partnering with several of its clients to develop Health Homes for seriously mentally ill populations at both a major metropolitan area scale and a state scale as providers coordinate care to improve outcomes while reducing the cost to the state Medicaid systems.

Netsmart Perspectives™ Mobility Suite Provides Points of View Critical for Clinicians
Mobility is really about providing the "points of view" of clinicians to support their workflows and optimize their effectiveness so they can spend more time with clients. The adoption and use of mobile technologies is accelerating for both caregivers and consumers, providing an opportunity to rethink how they work with systems today.

"Our new Netsmart Perspectives suite of tablet and smart phone solutions provides a framework designed to support specific workflows for specific points of view, optimizing both use and outcomes," said Herzog. "Our focus is on design -- leveraging touch and voice technologies while ensuring intuitive workflows." The Netsmart Perspectives suite provides apps to facilitate clinical workflows, e-prescribing, kiosk check in/out, patient mHealth, learning management tools, observation recording, health device monitoring, medication adherence, IT system monitoring and dashboards.

Interoperability is Key to Holistic Care
Connecting and exchanging information with various networks and systems is critical when making decisions on the optimal treatment of care.

"True interoperability isn't selective; you either are or you're not, and it's a relationship that must extend beyond traditional interfaces," said Herzog. "We are witnessing the rapid integration of the physical, mental and behavioral aspects of health and healthcare delivery. Netsmart's innovations provide an expanding platform for healthcare coordination and integration via Netsmart CareConnect™, which ensures that clinical information is integrated and available across all points of care to help achieve the highest quality of care."

Expansion of Cloud Services
Today's fast-evolving environment requires rapid delivery of technology with an infrastructure that supports both immediate deployment and future systems growth in a utility fashion. Core to Netsmart's approach to Healthcare 3.0 is building these solutions to be cloud-ready.

"By the middle of the year we will be managing over 500 facilities with our Netsmart Plexus Cloud™ secure hosting environment," said Herzog. "We have tripled our investment in our hosting services, opened another data center and continue to expand our services to host most any application."

"The National Council conference and our own client conference provide great forums to introduce our innovations and collaborate on the possibilities before us. We're committed to innovation not for its own sake, but because it can be a powerful catalyst for care coordination. Our approach is person-centric, focused on efficiency, optimal outcomes and recovery," said Herzog.

About Netsmart
Netsmart Technologies helps health and human services organizations transform care through the collaborative, coordinated management and exchange of clinical data across the care spectrum and through effective practice management that improves revenue cycle management. More than 18,000 client organizations, including 350,000 care providers and more than 40 state systems, use Netsmart products to help improve the quality of life for tens of millions of people each year. Netsmart's products are full-featured information systems that operate on a variety of operating systems, hardware platforms, and mobile devices, and offer unlimited scalability.

Netsmart provides the solutions and expertise that help its clients meet all the criteria for Meaningful Use of an Electronic Health Record (EHR) under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009.

Building upon Netsmart's Complete ARRA-Certified EHRs, Netsmart clients can also create a complete connected care environment encompassing e-prescribing and order entry, sharing clinical information and lab results, and using Web portals to provide secure and private consumer access to care information.

For information about Netsmart's full range of solutions for health and human services organizations, visit www.ntst.com or call 1-800-472-5509. Also follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook and visit us on YouTube.

Netsmart CareManager, Netsmart Perspectives, Netsmart CareConnect and Netsmart Plexus Cloud are trademarks of Netsmart Technologies, Inc.

SOURCE Netsmart