NextGen Healthcare executes agreements for its NextGen CHS with five organizations

NextGen Healthcare Information Systems, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Quality Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: QSII) and a leading provider of ambulatory healthcare and connectivity solutions, today announced the company executed agreements for its NextGen CHS (Community Health Solution) product with five organizations during the last few months. Dozens of healthcare organizations – representing millions of patients currently covered – have now licensed NextGen CHS, a central data repository that enables users to exchange patient data and referrals – using state-of-the-art information security measures – with other community-based healthcare organizations, including hospitals, labs, pharmacies, payers and health information exchanges.

One such organization is Elmhurst Memorial Healthcare (EMHC), an Illinois-based vertically integrated community health system. Elmhurst Clinic, EMHC’s affiliated multi-specialty physician office practice, has utilized NextGen technology since 2004 and will actively participate in the implementation of NextGen CHS across the enterprise.

“With discussions around the stimulus and meaningful use, NextGen CHS can be a key component in not only connecting physicians across our enterprise but across our area,” said Charles Colander, CIO for Elmhurst Memorial Healthcare. “We believe the platform will help facilitate better physician-to-hospital and physician-to-physician communications, and will also streamline and enhance patient care across facilities in our network. Over the long term, this can help us meet meaningful use criteria and qualify for program reimbursements.”

Offering a single-point connection for each participant in a community “hub,” NextGen CHS eliminates the need for organizations to invest in the development of multiple point-to-point interfaces to share discrete clinical data, including lab or test results, ER visits, referrals, medications and allergies. The product enables organizations to exchange this data even if they don’t have an electronic health record (EHR) system, resulting in truer continuity of care and advanced adoption of the “medical home” model.

The referral process is likewise streamlined, making critical data available to all participating community providers – including physicians in the emergency department (ED) – through a single patient record. Specialists, for example, have direct access to current medical records, resulting in faster and better medical decision-making, and the elimination of time spent tracking down information. Reporting and analytic tools help organizations foster disease and wellness management monitoring, as well as quality improvement efforts like P4P.

“Interoperability will continue to play a critical role as the government pushes healthcare organizations toward automation,” said Patrick Cline, president of NextGen Healthcare. “We applaud these market leading organizations for selecting NextGen CHS as their interoperability platform, and look forward to helping them achieve the many operational and clinical benefits associated with data exchange.”