Today’s Business News
Humana recently announced its partnership with Greenway Medical Technologies to provide integrated technology to primary care providers, which will help doctors and payers exchange clinical information. Humana’s EHR Rewards Program offers financial incentives to assist qualified physician practices in using EHR systems. Specifically, Humana will subsidize up to 85 percent of the cost of purchase of Greenway’s PrimeSUITE EHR solution for physicians practicing in the Humana network. Such incentives encourage the sharing of clinical information between Humana and physicians.
NexJ Systems Inc. a provider of cloud-based software, delivering enterprise solutions for the financial services, insurance, and healthcare industries announced the Massachusetts eHealth Institute (MeHI) at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative has awarded NexJ a grant to advance the value of the Commonwealth’s health information exchange (HIE), called the Massachusetts Health Information Highway (Mass HIway) through direct engagement by the patient. The primary goal of this competitive grant program, called the Mass HIway Vendor Interface Grant Program, is to accelerate connections to the HIE which will enable healthcare providers to more easily exchange information and therefore increase the impact of the HIway on health care delivery.
Qualifacts Systems, Inc., announced that the company has acquired Mitchell & McCormick’s behavioral health line of business. Mitchell & McCormick’s behavioral health customers will transition to Qualifacts’ certified complete electronic health record CareLogic Enterprise over the next few months. M&M has experienced significant growth in the public health vertical and, in this era of healthcare reform, has made a strategic decision to focus on that segment of the market. According to Qualifacts President and CEO David Klements, myriad product investment pressures from today’s rapidly changing healthcare environment are putting pressure on all EHR vendors and forcing executives at these companies to consider whether the best long-term path is to remain independent or not. “The investments in Meaningful Use certification, DSM-5, ICD-10 and ongoing state reporting are big commitments,” says Klements. “As a result, the behavioral health EHR market is consolidating, and Qualifacts is taking the opportunity to expand through acquisition in key markets like the State of Georgia where Mitchell & McCormick have a strong customer base.”
The Southeast Michigan Beacon Community (SEMBC) announced that it has named Quest Diagnostics its first provider of diagnostic information services for BeaconLink2Health, SEMBC’s Health Information Exchange (HIE). Under the agreement, clinical laboratory test results from Quest Diagnostics will now be accessible through the electronic health records of physicians and other health care providers participating in BeaconLink2Health. Quest Diagnostics is the world’s leading diagnostic information services company, and serves half of the physicians and patients in the United States. This new capability and relationship makes BeaconLink2Health the first HIE in the state of Michigan to integrate lab results from Quest Diagnostics.
EMR Direct, developer of software for the secure exchange of Protected Health Information (PHI) over the Internet, announced the integration of its phiMail Direct messaging platform with the latest production release of OpenEMR, enabling users of the open source electronic health record software to send and receive Direct messages through their EHR system. OpenEMR 4.1.2, released on August 17, is focused on enhanced interoperability, and the Direct messaging capabilities powered by phiMail are key to seamlessly exchanging clinical information with other healthcare providers for referrals and other transitions of care. The functionality can be activated through hosted service or customer deployment of the phiMail Direct messaging software developed by EMR Direct.
Community Health Information Collaborative (CHIC), Minnesota’s state-certified Health Information Organization, is pleased to announce a partnership with Orion Health. CHIC has selected Orion Health technology to power HIE-Bridge, Minnesota’s state-certified health information exchange (HIE) that allows providers to locate and access key clinical information that is vital when making medical decisions. Through HIE-Bridge, health providers across Minnesota have access to authorized patient information through a secure web-based information exchange platform. CHIC’s overall objective of partnering with Orion Health is to enhance clinical care coordination between all healthcare organizations and eligible providers to improve patient outcomes, save patient and provider time, and to conserve precious healthcare dollars.
Arcadia Solutions, a provider of data-driven quality improvement solutions for health systems and health plans, announced that it is partnering with Compuware to provide a comprehensive EHR Optimization program to its customers. As a partner in the Compuware APM Accelerate Program, Arcadia combines extensive EHR expertise with end-to-end application performance evaluation capabilities to address the systemic performance problems plaguing enterprise EHR systems. Clinician satisfaction, productivity, and adoption are improved by removing application performance as a barrier, allowing organizations to focus on driving quality improvement through their EHR systems.