Hospital Chain to Subsidize Technology for Community Physicians in Move to
Enhance Quality of Care, Improve Patient Safety
CHICAGO and ORANGE, Calif., Dec. 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Allscripts
announced today that St. Joseph Health System (SJHS) has selected the
Allscripts Enterprise (formerly TouchWorks(R)) Electronic Health Record (EHR)
and Practice Management (PM) solution to automate and connect clinical and
business functions for 100 physicians affiliated with two of its hospitals.
The agreement marks the first phase of an intended EHR-PM offering to
physicians affiliated with SJHS’s 14 hospitals in California and Texas.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081013/AQM041LOGO)
“To support the St. Joseph goal of delivering ‘perfect care’ for our
communities, Allscripts will enable our physicians and hospitals to connect to
each other and to vital patient information, when and where they need to,”
said Clyde E. Wesp, Jr., MD, Chief Medical Officer and Chief Medical
Information Officer of SJHS. “Secondarily, Allscripts will help our physicians
practice better medicine by providing immediate access to evidence-based best
practices at the point of care, and by measuring their effectiveness against
national care standards.”
SJHS is a $3.9 billion not-for-profit Catholic healthcare system that
provides a broad range of medical services in California, West Texas and
Eastern New Mexico. In deploying the Allscripts Electronic Health Record and
Practice Management solution for physicians affiliated with its hospitals,
SJHS is leveraging recent changes to the federal Stark regulations, which
allow hospitals to subsidize the purchase of healthcare information technology
for non-employed physicians. The law is intended to improve the overall health
of patients and reduce the cost of care by encouraging more physicians to
adopt Electronic Health Records.
SJHS will offer the combined Allscripts solution initially to physicians
affiliated with St. Joseph’s Hospital in Orange, Calif. and Covenant Health
System in Lubbock, Texas. SJHS’s owned medical groups in Southern California
and Texas have already successfully implemented the Allscripts Electronic
Health Record for nearly 300 physicians.
In a related activity, SJHS will offer Allscripts ePrescribe, a
stand-alone Web-based electronic prescribing solution, at no cost to
physicians affiliated with the two hospitals who choose not to implement the
Electronic Health Record at this time.
SJHS selected Allscripts after an exhaustive review process not only
because its solutions are the most advanced available, but because “our
relationship with Allscripts has been a positive partnership rather than just
a client relationship, and we like the direction of the company,” said Dr.
Wesp. “We see Allscripts as a key component of our entire technology
integration strategy.”
The Allscripts Electronic Health Record automates everyday clinical tasks
and connects physicians to critical information from other healthcare
stakeholders including labs, pharmacies, payers and patients. Allscripts
Practice Management combines sophisticated scheduling and Revenue Cycle
Management tools to help physician practices become more productive while
improving service to patients.
Allscripts ePrescribe, designed to appeal to physicians in solo practice
or small groups, requires no download, no new hardware, and minimal training.
All prescriptions are instantly checked for drug-to-drug, drug-allergy and
other potentially harmful interactions, and users receive real-time
notification of insurance formulary status from leading payers, plans and
pharmacy benefit managers.
“St. Joseph has set itself apart as a leader among hospitals nationally by
delivering on a strategy to not only automate their own physicians but connect
to the communities in which they provide services, offering full electronic
health records as well as electronic prescribing,” said Glen Tullman, Chief
Executive Officer of Allscripts. “By partnering with Allscripts, St. Joseph is
taking advantage of the relaxation of the Stark regulations to do just what
was intended — encouraging more widespread and rapid adoption of technologies
that will ultimately lead to better care for patients and more productive and
informed interactions for physicians.”
All of the Allscripts solutions will be provided via the Software as a
Service (SaaS) model — a simple, affordable means of delivering vital patient
information to caregivers over the Internet, without the upfront costs of
purchasing new equipment to host the solution themselves.
SJHS will use Microsoft Amalga, the unified intelligence system, to
provide integrated views of information across its hospital information
systems and Allscripts solutions. As a result, physicians using Allscripts
outside the hospital will be able to view the charts, schedules, lab results
and radiology results of their hospitalized patients, and physicians inside
the hospital’s Emergency Departments will have instant access to key
components of a patient’s ambulatory medical record.
About St. Joseph Health System
St. Joseph Health System (SJHS) is an integrated healthcare delivery
organization that exists to extend the healing ministry of Jesus in the
tradition of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange. SJHS provides a broad range
of medical services within three geographic regions — Northern California,
Southern California and West Texas/Eastern New Mexico. With total revenues of
$3.9 billion, the system family is enriched by the services of more than
24,000 employees and includes 14 hospitals and three home health agencies, as
well as hospice care, outpatient services, skilled nursing facilities and
physician organizations. In 2008, SJHS provided more than $267 million in
community benefit and care for the poor services.
About Allscripts
Allscripts (Nasdaq: MDRX) uses innovation technology to bring health to
healthcare. More than 150,000 physicians, 700 hospitals and nearly 7,000 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, medication services,
hospital care management, emergency department information systems and
homecare automation. Allscripts is the brand name of Allscripts-Misys
Healthcare Solutions, Inc. To learn more, visit https://www.allscripts.com.
This news release may contain forward-looking statements within the
meaning of the federal securities laws. Statements regarding future events,
developments, the Company’s future performance, as well as management’s
expectations, beliefs, intentions, plans, estimates or projections relating to
the future are forward-looking statements within the meaning of these laws.
These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and
uncertainties, some of which are outlined below. As a result, actual results
may vary materially from those anticipated by the forward-looking statements.
Among the important factors that could cause actual results to differ
materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements are: the
volume and timing of systems sales and installations; length of sales cycles
and the installation process; the possibility that products will not achieve
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Company’s software by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; the possibility
of product-related liabilities; our ability to attract and retain qualified
personnel; our ability to identify and complete acquisitions, manage our
growth and integrate acquisitions; the ability to recognize the benefits of
the merger with Misys Healthcare Systems, LLC (“MHS”); the integration of MHS
with the Company and the possible disruption of current plans and operations
as a result thereof; maintaining our intellectual property rights and
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Securities and Exchange Commission, including our 2007 Annual Report on Form
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update publicly any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new
information, future events or otherwise.
Available Topic Expert(s): For information on the listed expert(s), click
appropriate link.
Douglas Gentile, MD, MBA
https://profnet.prnewswire.com/Subscriber/ExpertProfile.aspx?ei=80795
Glen Tullman
https://profnet.prnewswire.com/Subscriber/ExpertProfile.aspx?ei=80768
SOURCE: Allscripts 12/18/2008
CONTACT:
Dan Michelson, Chief Marketing Officer, +1-312-506-1217,
dan.michelson@allscripts.com, or
Todd Stein, Senior Manager | Public
Relations, +1-312-506-1216,
todd.stein@allscripts.com,
both of Allscripts; or
Clyde Wesp, MD, MAOM, Chief Medical Officer and Chief Medical Information
Officer of St. Joseph Health System, +1-714-347-7810, clyde.wesp@stjoe.org
(MDRX)