CHI selects Allscripts' EHR solution to enhance patient care

Allscripts (Nasdaq: MDRX) announced today that Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) has selected the Allscripts Electronic Health Record (EHR) solution for its 1050 employed physicians to enhance the quality of patient care, improve communications, and deliver more cost-effective care. The agreement also provides the opportunity for Allscripts to address the information-technology needs of the more than 7,200 non-employed physicians affiliated with CHI's 75 facilities nationwide. CHI and Allscripts expect to announce the details of a comprehensive, cost-effective solution for non-employed physicians in the next several months.

With annual revenues of $8.6 billion, CHI ranks as the nation's second-largest Catholic health care system, serving communities in 19 states. The system includes over 350 medical practices, 75 hospitals, 40 long-term care, assisted-living and residential-living facilities and two community health-services organizations.

"As CHI moves towards an integrated clinical IT strategy, it is vital that we have a single high-quality electronic health record to serve our patients," said Michael O'Rourke, CHI's Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer. "Allscripts is an excellent partner with a strong vision and investment in their Enterprise EHR to support a national implementation of CHI's size and scope."

The Allscripts EHR will be integrated with CHI's hospitals and other facilities to enable health care professionals to access current patient information and the latest clinical content for real-time decision-making across the care continuum.

"An integrated clinical document is essential to achieving our patient safety, quality and physician enterprise growth strategies," said Stephen Moore, M.D., Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of CHI. "We expect to realize significant improvements in care delivery, as well as patient-and provider-satisfaction."

Allscripts Chief Executive Officer Glen Tullman added, "CHI has set itself apart as a leader among health systems nationally by delivering on a strategy to share clinical information securely across its enterprise for improved coordination of patient care. We will work with CHI to quickly deploy our Enterprise EHR across all of its regions. CHI also plans to leverage our relationship with over 160,000 physicians nationwide by connecting and exchanging information with those referring physicians."

The Allscripts Electronic Health Record automates clinical workflow and gives physicians immediate access to critical data from hospitals, labs, pharmacies, payers and patients. Health care providers can access the EHR at any time, whether they are in the clinic, at the hospital or on-call at home. By automatically tracking key patient metrics and providing automated decision support, the web-based solution will help CHI's physicians advance their practices and deliver more-effective disease management, preventive care and long-range health maintenance.

Beginning immediately, all CHI-employed physicians and other licensed caregivers will be provided the Allscripts ePrescribe solution as the first step to full EHR deployment. The stand-alone, Web-based solution, which requires no new hardware and minimal training, can quickly generate secure electronic prescriptions and deliver them to the patient's pharmacy of choice. Allscripts will then begin to implement CHI practices on full EHR use.