Wolters Kluwer Health, a provider of information for healthcare professionals and students, announced today that it has signed an agreement with MEDITECH to offer integration between MEDITECH version 5.64 (Client/Server and MAGIC) and ProVation® Order Sets, powered by UpToDate® Decision Support. This integration enables hospitals to author order sets via the ProVation software, then make finished order sets available to physicians in MEDITECH’s Physician Care Manager application through an automated process.

ProVation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support, is an easily customizable order set authoring and management solution that provides flexible integration into clinical processes to streamline the delivery of standardized care for improved patient safety, outcomes, clinician performance and regulatory compliance. ProVation Order Sets is built upon ProVation Medical’s award-winning, clinician-designed technology platform. A key benefit is continuous updating of clinical content and medical evidence, including direct links to UpToDate, the resource of choice for more than 600,000 users worldwide.

MEDITECH provides integrated EHR solutions to meet the information needs of healthcare organizations around the world. A global leader in the electronic healthcare records industry, MEDITECH understands the complexities of healthcare organizations and develops the informatics tools needed to deliver patient care safely and efficiently. From large integrated delivery networks to community hospitals, MEDITECH EHR solutions support the entire continuum of healthcare, including physician practices, clinics, hospitals, home health agencies, long-term care and behavioral health facilities.

“The greatest benefits of the integration with our MEDITECH and ProVation Order Set systems are the direct linking to evidence from UpToDate and the timely updates to links and evidence,” said Pam Wetzel, M.D., CMIO, SwedishAmerican Hospital. “The overall effect is increased usability of both systems, and the assurance that our orders can be maintained based on a trusted and relevant source of evidence.”

MEDITECH and Wolters Kluwer Health completed integration work through a collaborative effort that utilized MEDITECH’s interface specifications.  Integration capability has been client tested, with users successfully exporting order sets from ProVation into MEDITECH Client/Server and MAGIC version 5.64.

“MEDITECH is a recognized leader in CPOE, and an integral part of the health IT plans of our many joint hospital clients,” said Mike Haldane, Vice President and General Manager, Clinical Documentation, Wolters Kluwer Health Clinical Solutions.  “We are very pleased to have completed this integration with MEDITECH’s Physician Care Manager.”

athenahealth, Inc. has announced the winners of Health 2.0′s Boston Big Data Code-a-thon event, which was hosted at athenahealth’s headquarters in Watertown, Massachusetts, on Saturday, May 12. More than 100 participants attended the event conducted in partnership with Health 2.0 and in conjunction with AT&T and MIT’s H@cking Medicine.

The Code-a-thon was the first of a number of events and initiatives supporting athenahealth’s More Disruption Please (MDP) program. The program’s goal is to get people in the high-tech community interested in the growing field of health care IT, and, more importantly, to get them to start companies in the Boston area. The Code-a-thon supports this initiative by helping find startups in health care IT that could be incubated at athenahealth. Fourteen groups competed with a total of seven winners named. Competing developers were given access to athenahealth’s API and de-identified data with the goal of using big data to build exciting new applications and tools to improve health care.

This year’s first place winner developed an application utilizing big data addressing how poor sleep health from conditions like sleep apnea leads to an increased risk of dangerous accidents such as car crashes. The winning developer team, “No Sleep Kills,” received $4,000 and an invitation to Health 2.0′s Spring Fling: Matchpoint Boston and athenahealth’s More Disruption Please conference–a conference for entrepreneurs, innovators, and investors to come together in Maine this September to share innovative and disruptive ideas in the health care and health care IT space. At the event, winners will have the opportunity to demo their applications in front of other executives, venture capitalists, and investors.

“Congratulations to the winners of the Big Data Code-a-thon, which was a perfect opportunity to showcase the role of data, because data is the fuel that is powering Health 2.0 companies today,” said Indu Subaiya, co-chairman and CEO of Health 2.0. “The Code-a-thon enabled rapid development of solutions that would not be possible without collaboration, and that is the essence of disruption.”

“Growing interest in and development of health care disruptive technology companies based in Boston is not only good for the region but also for the advancement of health care innovation,” said Jonathan Bush, athenahealth CEO and Chairman. “Congratulations to the Code-a-thon winners who, in a very short amount of time, wowed us with their ‘no sleep kills’ app that harnessed massive data sets into an impressive workflow. Health care needs more of their kind of smarts and entrepreneurship!”

RazorInsights, a provider of healthcare information technology solutions for Rural, Critical Access and Community hospitals, today announced its partnership with Stewart-Webster Hospital in Richland, Georgia. Stewart-Webster will deploy ONE-Electronic Health Record to provide cutting-edge technology and improved patient care to its rural Georgia community, while also achieving the Meaningful Use objectives outlined in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

“We’re thrilled to have Stewart-Webster Hospital adopt ONE-Electronic Health Record, and we are committed to providing them with the team and robust functionality needed for a successful implementation,” said Reed Liggin, R.Ph. MBA, president of RazorInsights.

“Our Full Measure Support service is alleviating much of the pain associated with EHR adoption and providing greater value for our hospital clients. We furnish a built-out, tailored solution based on each individual hospital’s needs and workflow. They’re not burdened with time-consuming data entry and can focus their valuable time on patient care.”

RazorInsights’ clients are finding a fast-track route to Meaningful Use success with ONE’s simple-user interface and single-database delivery system. Its intuitive design allows administrators and clinicians with limited technical skills the ability to quickly transition. Additionally, its innovative use of cloud technology renders seamless upgrades and a secure, HIPPA compliant connection that can be accessed from nearly any device. ONE is reducing training time and providing much quicker implementations.

RazorInsights’ “Meaningful Use” track record further validated Stewart-Webster’s EHR decision. Contrary to many other vendors placing its clients on a long waiting list, RazorInsights’ hospitals are “going live” in under 90 days and 100% of its live clients have achieved Stage 1 Meaningful Use.

Ransom Stigleman, president & CFO for Stewart-Webster Hospital, indicated that he and his staff had been working for a year trying to qualify for the EHR incentive programs, but could not find a realistically priced solution. “A Critical Access Hospital cannot afford many of the systems offered,” he said.

“RazorInsights has a system that is affordable and will work for all hospitals. We feel that RazorInsights understands the demand on the hospital’s time and money, and is working hard to solve the problems of our hospital in this ever expanding technology age.”

RazorInsights recently expanded its offerings with a fully-integrated financial management solution residing on the same database as its clinical system. With an ambulatory solution currently being developed, RazorInsights will soon unveil its single-database, ONE Enterprise Edition.

WebPT, a developer of Web-based solutions for Physical Therapists, has teamed with ActiveRx to support their nationwide rollout.  ActiveRx provides a proactive, wellness-oriented health care model centered on strength, time and care for the aging population.  The company uses physical therapists as “gatekeepers” within their patient-centric system. They needed a software solution that would enable their PTs to spend maximum quality time with each patient during evaluations and treatment, and less time on administrative tasks outside of the clinic. Through WebPT’s cloud-based electronic health record (EHR) system, ActiveRx has found a way to provide better patient care while also improving the efficiencies of documentation and billing.

“WebPT helps us keep the administrative and business side of healthcare from becoming so overwhelming that it interferes with the healthcare itself,” said Matt Essex founder of ActiveRx. “The efficiency we now have allows us to keep our concentration where it matters most – on the people who come to us to age in good health. We have had much success with the system already, and look forward to this continued partnership as we continue our expansion plans to all 50 states over the next three to five years.”

WebPT and ActiveRx are a natural fit for a collaborative alliance because of their joint commitment to quality patient care.  Both companies are growing rapidly with WebPT currently supporting nearly 2,500 clinics in all 50 states, Canada and the Virgin Islands.  ActiveRx will initially focus on implementing WebPT in the new facilities in Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Southern California, Michigan, and Florida. This partnership allows both companies to achieve their primary goal of delivering positive change to the healthcare industry.

“ActiveRx is a company we feel confident linking up with because of their people-focused approach to healthcare,” said Paul Winandy, CEO of WebPT. “Our system has helped ActiveRx give more time to their patients, and more efficiency overall. We are honored to be selected by ActiveRx and look forward to supporting them as they bring their innovative wellness platform to all areas of the US.”

Anoto and NextGen Healthcare Information Systems, have announced that Pacific Cataract and Laser Institute is capturing new patient registration information with their joint solution, resulting in more efficient operations and the added benefit of immediate access to patient health history.

Pacific Cataract and Laser Institute is a referral center that specializes in cataract surgery and laser vision correction. As a referral center, most of the people they treat are first-time patients. With cataracts being an age-related condition, a large proportion of patients treated are over the age of 65. Previously, when patients came into the office they were asked to fill out their information using traditional pen and paper forms. As the organization transitioned to EHR (electronic health records), administrators needed to get this information into the system. Scanning or typing in the information by hand resulted in a much too time-intensive process. Administrators also needed to make sure that patient health history records were incorporated along with signed consent forms.

Pacific Cataract and Laser Institute needed to find a data capture solution that would speed up the processing and sharing of patient data, while preserving the ease and simplicity of information collection using pen and paper. They turned to digital pen and paper technology, since it required minimal training for staff and virtually no change in the current process being used by patients to fill out registration forms. The solution interprets the handwriting with high accuracy and provides the added benefit of verifying health history information quickly.

“I’ve been in information technology for more than 18 years and the idea of using a pen to digitize patient data made me a bit skeptical,” said Robert Jasa, director of healthcare informatics at Pacific Cataract and Laser Institute. “But this solution truly provides the efficiency of electronic data capture using pen and paper while at the same time requires only a small amount of user training—which is a big benefit for us as we continue roll this out to each of our 17 locations.”

The Pacific Cataract and Laser Institute solution is comprised of:

• NextPen® solution based on Anoto Digital Pen and Paper technology
• Health history forms which automatically load key fields directly into the database
• Medical image forms that translate provider drawings into the patient’s chart
• Medical consent forms that are ‘scanned’ into the system just by docking NextPen®

The paper forms are imprinted with the Anoto dot pattern transforming them into a temporary, yet very intuitive, data entry device. The information is stored in the digital pen, until it is uploaded to the patient’s record in the NextGen® Ambulatory EHR via USB docking station or Bluetooth transmission. Data is reviewed and approved by the user before being loaded into the EHR.

“Digital pen technology is ideal for patient registration and consent forms since patients can just fill out the forms the way they always have,” said Pietro Parravicini, senior vice president area manager Americas for Anoto. “There are no extra steps required by the staff to make sure the information is digitized and the result is information that is captured quickly and easily, leaving staff more time to focus on patient care.”

NextGen Healthcare Information Systems, LLC has announced a new agreement with Norton Sound Health Corporation (NSHC) to deploy NextGen® Ambulatory EHR, NextGen® Practice Management, NextGen® Inpatient Solutions, and other NextGen® solutions throughout the organization.

Headquartered in Nome, Alaska, NSHC serves the Bering Strait region in the northwestern part of the state. The network has a health center in each of the 15 remote villages throughout the region, and implementation of NextGen Healthcare technologies will further ensure consistent care across the region.

Currently, providers at the village health centers rely on the Alaska Community Health Aid Practitioner Manual (CHAM) to aid in diagnoses, which is not integrated with any electronic health records system. The implementation of NextGen Ambulatory EHR allows NSHC to use customized templates for the top 20 diagnoses and procedures outlined in the CHAM.

Additionally, NSHC is slated to expand its patient services by opening a 18-bed hospital in November that will provide the region with increased out-patient services in dental, audiology, behavioral health and ophthalmology care. When the facility opens, it will use NextGen Healthcare’s inpatient product line, including NextGen® Inpatient Clinicals and NextGen® Inpatient Financials, to create a seamless care continuum across the enterprise. This solution, combined with the technology NSHC is currently implementing, lays the groundwork for physicians to easily communicate and work with the new facility to improve patient care.

“Our organization sought a high level of customization and flexibility in an EHR and practice management system, and we had a short timeframe to find and implement a system — especially as we prepare to open the new hospital later this year,” said Dave Hodges, chief information officer at NSHC. “NextGen Healthcare understood and met our challenge by working closely with us to address our specific needs and deadlines. We are confident that implementing NextGen’s leading solutions will not only help us attest for Meaningful Use, but also improve the connectivity and communications between physicians, patients and our entire health system.”

NextGen Practice Management will further aid in increasing productivity by eliminating the current paper-based record keeping systems. Providers will use mobile devices to remotely access patient records, which will improve connectivity and real-time response rates, especially in emergency situations.

“Our health system covers a very large area with many remote villages that are hard to reach, so having accessible technology that makes it easier for doctors to respond quickly to patients is imperative,” said Deven Parlikar, president and CEO of NSHC. “Our patients have always been our top priority, so being able to provide the latest technology will help us to provide the highest level of care.”

“NSHC has had the distinct, ongoing challenge of serving patients throughout northern Alaska, which requires solutions that will help optimize the delivery of patient care and better communicate across the organization,” said Scott Decker, president of NextGen Healthcare. “We remain committed to serving tribal and urban groups throughout the nation, and providing tools to customize our broad technology platform to fit each organization’s specific needs so they can successfully serve their respective communities. This flexibility within our solutions portfolio is among the key advantages of the diverse NextGen platform.”

Medsphere Systems Corporation and Meadowlands Hospital Medical Center (MHMC) today announced that MHMC has met Stage One Meaningful Use requirements using Medsphere’s OpenVista electronic health record. The Secaucus, New Jersey, hospital has received an initial reimbursement from the federal government that covers the five-year total cost of ownership for OpenVista.

For MHMC, a 230-bed facility with contrasting views of both the Manhattan skyline and New Jersey’s Meadowlands open space, the stimulus reimbursement comes in the midst of a significant transition. The hospital was recently purchased by MHA, a private equity group that has injected millions of dollars into an ongoing renaissance that is improving the physical facility, bringing in preeminent clinical specialists and transforming MHMC into one of the most technologically advanced healthcare organizations on the East Coast.

“The transition and ongoing enhancements at Meadowlands Hospital speak to owners, administrators and staff working collaboratively to maximize quality of care with the patient as the ultimate beneficiary. Medsphere is very pleased to play a part in that transformation,” said Medsphere President and CEO Irv Lichtenwald. “Congratulations to President and CEO Lynn McVey and her clinicians and staff on meeting Stage One Meaningful Use. We look forward to future developments at MHMC and to working with the hospital to meet all federal funding requirements.”

Importantly, MHMC administrators and clinical leadership are building on a sound platform of quality care. The hospital follows a concierge-style policy where all patient rooms are private, resulting in a zero percent infection rate. Thanks to a primary focus on cleanliness, MHMC is ranked among the cleanest hospitals in the U.S. according to patient feedback compiled by the Department of Health and Human Services for the Hospital Compare Web site.

“OpenVista was critical to MHMC improving both care and economic performance. We saved millions on OpenVista compared with other available EHR systems, and we were also able to rapidly meet Meaningful Use requirements,” said McVey. “The funds we saved on a comprehensive EHR have been freed up for other improvements we’re making, which makes OpenVista a fiscally responsible choice that facilitates benefits for both clinicians and patients.”

Meadowlands Hospital Medical Center joins other Medsphere hospital partners who have received federal stimulus funds. Most recently, California’s Kern Medical Center received more than $5 million from the federal government, with in excess of $11 million expected in total. Earlier, Texas’s Midland Memorial Hospital received $3.3 million of more than $7 million expected over the life of the Meaningful Use program. In late 2011, Hoboken University Medical Center, an MHMC neighbor, received about $3 million of an estimated $8 million in total federal reimbursement.

According to statistics provided by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), slightly less than 16 percent of all U.S. hospitals have met Meaningful Use requirements and received stimulus funds. As one of a select group of hospitals that have received federal reimbursement, Meadowlands Hospital Medical Center has demonstrated what a community hospital can accomplish with the right system, partners and commitment.

eClinicalWorks has announced that College Park Family Care Center, the largest non-hospital owned multi-specialty group in the Kansas City-area, has chosen eClinicalWorks comprehensive electronic health records solution for its 91 providers across 12 locations. Designed to improve communication with access to real-time information, this initiative will aid the group in pursuing quality of care initiatives, including Meaningful Use and Patient-Centered Medical Home™ (PCMH) recognition.

“College Park Family Care Center is focused on providing quality and compassionate care to all of our patients,” said Chuck Chambers, administrator for College Park Family Care Center. “We chose to change our system to eClinicalWorks due to its successful track record with multi-specialty health centers and the great support it provides. Using this system, we believe we will be able to improve care for our patients and meet our goals of accomplishing meaningful use and in being recognized as a Patient-Centered Medical Home.”

eClinicalWorks includes features and templates customized for more than 50 specialties and sub-specialties to aid multi-specialty groups, including College Park Family Care Center, in standardizing on an EHR that is beneficial to all those represented. The system also helps providers take advantage of provisions in the HITECH Act, which authorizes the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to impart a reimbursement incentive for physician and hospital providers who demonstrate the “meaningful use” of an EHR.

“The comprehensive nature of eClinicalWorks and breadth of our customers makes us a great fit for multi-specialty practices,” said Girish Kumar Navani, CEO and co-founder of eClinicalWorks. “We look forward to working with College Park Family Care Center to improve patient care and assist in reaching its goals of becoming meaningful users and gaining PCMH status.”

As part of eClinicalWorks’ comprehensive EHR solution, College Park Family Care Center will implement the following:

• eClinicalWorks EMR/PM enables clinicians to manage patient flow, immediately access patient records in-house or remotely, electronically communicate with the referring physicians and securely send consult notes and clinical data;

• eClinicalWorks Patient Portal allows patients and doctors to communicate securely via the Internet;

• eBO® performs clinical and financial analytics;

• eClinicalMobile® permits College Park Family Care Center physicians to access the system at any time through their smart phone;

• eClinicalMessenger® acts as a messaging service that utilizes Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) to enable physician practices to send messages, in batches or singularly, to patients for aspects of care. This includes appointment reminders, lab results, diagnostic imaging and statements; and

• eClinicalWorks P2P™ provides practice-to-practice, provider-to-provider communications in a peer-to-peer environment.

Mosaica Partners, a nationally recognized health information consulting and advisory firm, has been selected to assist the State of Arizona in updating its health information exchange (HIE) strategic and operations plans.

Arizona selected Mosaica Partners for the firm’s HIE expertise, knowledge of the State HIE Collaborative Agreement Program (SHIECAP) and prior experience in working with the state. Previously, Mosaica Partners assisted Arizona in developing a state grant program to support the planning of regional health information organizations (RHIOs) and assisted each of the six grant awardees during their planning process. The firm also wrote the State of Arizona’s RHIO Formation Guide.

“Arizona is making significant progress in enabling statewide exchange of health information, and it’s important that the strategic and operational plans accurately reflect that activity,” said Laura Kolkman, RN, MS, FHIMSS, president of Mosaica Partners. “We’re honored that Arizona has chosen us to help with this important step, and it’s a pleasure to be working with the state once again.”

The state’s initial plans, which outlined Arizona’s approach to utilizing $9.3 million in federal funds to enable the exchange of health information within the state, were submitted to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and subsequently approved in March 2011 by the Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology (ONC). Under the terms of SHIECAP, Arizona and other participants must submit annual HIE plan updates to HHS for approval.

The updated plans will form the basis for coordinating and communicating Arizona’s progress in adopting health information technology and facilitating information exchange with the federal government, various state agencies, healthcare providers throughout the state and consumers.

In addition to having deep experience in HIE planning, formation and operations, Kolkman and Bob Brown, Mosaica’s vice president of professional services, co-authored The Health Information Exchange Formation Guide: The Authoritative Guide for Planning and Forming an HIE in Your State, Region, or Community. The book, considered by many to be the essential guide to HIE planning, was named 2011 Book of the Year by the Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS).

NextGen Healthcare Information Systems has announced that it has entered into an agreement with Barrington Orthopedic Specialists to deploy NextGen® Ambulatory EHR, NextGen® Practice Management, NextGen® Patient Portal, NextPen® and other NextGen® product offerings across its four locations throughout the Northwest suburbs of Chicago. Barrington Orthopedic Specialists is a multi-specialty orthopedic group with 15 physicians and 35 ancillary provider staff members, offering hand and upper extremity, spine, foot and ankle, major joints trauma and general adult and pediatric orthopedic services.

Under the agreement, Barrington will utilize NextGen Ambulatory EHR and NextGen Practice Management to assist in streamlining processes, increasing practice efficiency and, with the seamless integration of NextGen Patient Portal, expediting administrative tasks to ultimately deliver better patient care. Additionally, this agreement will provide Barrington Orthopedic Specialists the tools necessary to meet its specialty-specific needs while delivering enhanced access to patient data, streamlining workflow and improving flexibility to handle high patient volumes. The advanced reporting capabilities of NextGen® solutions will also be leveraged to accurately track quality improvement measures – a key requirement toward achieving Meaningful Use.

Leveraging “Smart Pen” technology within NextPen to collect patient history, demographics and signatures directly from the waiting room without interviewing, scanning or transcription, will reduce utilization of high cost staff, thereby improving outcomes through proactive patient engagement.

“In NextGen’s broad portfolio of solutions and services, we found several that our physicians would easily adopt, utilize and champion. The NextGen platform offers enough templates catering to our specialty and an opportunity for customization that we can modify specifically for our orthopedic practices,” said Thomas Flood, executive director of operations for Barrington Orthopedic Specialists. “We believe NextGen Healthcare affords us the opportunity to enhance productivity, help lead us to meaningful use and allow us to capture the discrete quality measures for outcomes reporting in the future.”

“This collaboration with Barrington Orthopedic Specialists reflects NextGen Healthcare’s breadth of solutions exclusively targeted toward orthopedic specialty providers that enables these types of practices to leverage technology to enhance the efficiency of their practice while improving patient care,” said Scott Decker, president of NextGen Healthcare. “Currently, our emphasis on and expertise within the orthopedic marketplace is growing, based on our ability to optimize the patient experience and more effectively coordinate care, which results in improved outcomes.”