Accenture has announced that it will work with Stanford Hospital & Clinics on a seven-year, connected health technology initiative to improve patient care and operational efficiency. The effort will continue to advance Stanford’s patient care platform, which connects the hospital and outpatient clinics to create a near-paperless electronic medical record. Under the agreement, Accenture will work with Stanford to enhance clinical processes and deploy new capabilities, including business intelligence, health analytic tools and patient-centered technology. Accenture will assume certain operational and administrative responsibilities for Stanford Hospital’s information technology environment.
Berkheimer Outsourcing, Healthcare Management Group and New Century Healthcare Solutions, have announced the formation of ONE Source Healthcare Solutions (ONE Source), which bills itself as a new concept in serving the Information Technology needs of healthcare providers in today’s fast-changing healthcare industry. ONE Source offers physicians, hospitals and community clinics a “one-stop shopping” opportunity for acquiring, upgrading and maintaining their technology needs with a full range of IT system and practice management solutions. ONE Source combines more than 25 years of experience of Berkheimer Outsourcing’s IT systems set-up and maintenance and document management services, Healthcare Management Group’s physician billing and coding services, and New Century Healthcare Solution’s healthcare and IT Systems professional consulting services.
GE Healthcare has announced that it is donating its latest platform to the University of Texas at Austin for educational use. The University’s Health Information Technology Summer Certificate Program just graduated its first class of 54 students at the end of July. These students used GE Centricity Advance software in the University’s newly created Health Information Technology Learning Laboratory in the Clinical Education Center University Medical Center Brackenridge. This innovative interdisciplinary medical education center is a member of the Seton Family of Hospitals. The donation is one way GE is simultaneously demonstrating its commitment to the primary care physician market and to nationally-recognized Workforce Development Programs aimed at teaching those that will work in this emerging field for years to come. GE is one of six vendors that chose to donate software to the program.
Quest Diagnostics has announced that its Care360 EHR, Version 2010.1, has been inspected by the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) and is a certified EHR Module, IFR Stage 1, achieving all 14 of the requirements applied for of the 24 requirements for Eligible Providers published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the Interim Final Rule of January 2010. The Care360 suite of services is developed by MedPlus, Quest Diagnostics' health information technology subsidiary. The preliminary program is designed to demonstrate that a vendor's product is well prepared to be certified once Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) accredited testing and certification becomes available. Interim requirements were revised with the publication of the final rules on July 13, 2010.
Sage North America has announced that its Sage Healthcare Division has released Sage Intergy version 6.10 and the new Sage Intergy Meaningful Use Edition. This edition features the components required for physicians to be eligible for federal electronic health records (EHR) incentives, a key provision of the 2009 American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 (ARRA). Sage Intergy is a synergistic clinical, financial and administrative solution that helps physicians to improve the quality and efficiency of care they deliver. Sage Intergy Version 6.10 includes enhancements designed to meet key industry certifications, such as the CCHIT 2011 Ambulatory EHR certification and upcoming meaningful use certification. The Meaningful Use Edition expands on the core functionality in v6.10 by providing physicians with additional tools for patient engagement and meaningful use reporting.
Philips has announced new three-year contracts with FirstHealth of the Carolinas in Pinehurst, N.C. and Mountain States Health Alliance (MSHA) in Johnson City, Tenn. To offer in-home monitoring options for their patients, FirstHealth and MSHA signed multi-year contracts with Philips Telehealth Solutions. Costs for the programs were offset by more than $700,000 in Telehealth Network Grants awarded to each of the organizations by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The program is designed to help communities build the human, technical and financial capacity to develop sustainable telehealth programs and networks. Philips Telehealth Solutions’ at-home devices include TeleStation, which collects and transmits patient vital sign data and enables communication between clinicians and patients, and wireless devices that measure vital signs.
Greenway Medical Technologies has announced that four additional Health Information Exchange (HIE) programs, Independent Physician Associations (IPA) and regional medical centers have selected PrimeSuite, the company’s integrated electronic health record (EHR) practice management and interoperability solution, to connect group practices and streamline clinical, financial and administrative functions. The endorsements include: Marion County Medical Society/Healthy Ocala HIE, in Marion County, Fla.; Central Jersey Health Information Exchange Project in Middlesex County, N.J.; Highlands Physicians, Inc. IPA, in Kingsport, Tenn.; and Southern Ohio Medical Center/SOMC Medical Care Foundation, in Portsmouth, Ohio.
Portico Systems has contracted with Healthfirst, a New York-based health plan with more than 550,000 members and a network of more than 20,000 providers. Healthfirst will leverage Portico’s Contract Manager, Courier, and Negotiator solutions to transform its paper and spreadsheet-based contracting processes into a systematic process enabling automation, ease of use, and a reduction of contract cycle times. Inherent in the Portico Contract Manager Solution are the capabilities to manage the entire provider life cycle from a central location. The contracting solution supports Healthfirst’s focus on process automation, reducing reliance on paper and providing information management visibility for provider contract operations.
Availity, maker of health information exchange solutions, has announced its acquisition of RealMed, a provider of revenue cycle management services. The acquisition positions the combined enterprise to deliver advanced health information solutions to a nationally growing network that currently includes more than 200,000 physicians and providers of care, 1,000 hospitals, 1,300 health plans and 500 industry partners. Availity offers business and clinical information exchange among physicians, health plans, hospitals, and the health care technology partners that serve them. The RealMed solutions focus specifically on improving provider revenue cycles through features including advanced claims editing, real-time tracking, online claim correction, and remittance posting. These capabilities complement Availity’s suite of tools that reduce costs and simplify administrative workflows.
athenahealth has announced that Southwest Kidney Institute, PLC, one of the nation’s leading kidney disease management groups, has selected its full suite of web-based services to help its 50 medical providers streamline operational procedures and to support improved communications with patients that will enable the delivery of better, more coordinated patient care. Southwest Kidney Institute’s dialysis centers and programs are designed to deliver dialysis services and education to patients with chronic kidney failure and end-stage renal disease.
