Five critical access hospitals to implement NextGen EHR solution

NextGen Healthcare, a wholly owned subsidiary of Quality Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: QSII) and leading provider of healthcare information systems and connectivity solutions, today announced that five critical access hospitals have signed on to implement NextGen^® Inpatient Clinicals: Caro Community Hospital, Caro, MI; Cedar County Memorial Hospital, El Dorado Springs, MO; St. Croix Regional Medical Center, St. Croix Falls, WI; Salem Township Hospital, Salem, IL; and Washington County Hospital, Nashville, IL. Several of these clients already use NextGen^® Inpatient Financials and are now able to leverage NextGen Healthcare's complete clinical, financial, and administrative solution for the inpatient market.

“Critical access hospitals have historically been underserved by the healthcare IT market”

St. Croix Regional Medical Center aims to achieve a single, shared patient record with NextGen technology for use across its integrated inpatient and ambulatory organization. Already using NextGen Inpatient Financials for acute care billing, as well as NextGen^® Ambulatory EHR and NextGen^® Practice Management in its outpatient clinic, the decision to implement NextGen Inpatient Clinicals completes St. Croix's integration strategy.

"Our physicians chose to automate with NextGen EHR several years ago, so we were excited for the opportunity to partner with NextGen again and integrate the company's inpatient clinical and financial solutions with our existing systems," said Laura Jensen, Vice President, Patient Care, at St. Croix Regional Medical Center. "Features within the clinical product will help us generate just one record for patients that use our services across the continuum of care and improve patient safety. We're also pleased to see NextGen further along than other vendors in terms of being able to help clients meet Meaningful Use requirements."

A highly scalable, secure and mobile-enabled platform, NextGen Inpatient Clinicals leverages the full cloud computing capabilities of a web 2.0 platform. NextGen Inpatient Clinicals version 2.3 - a CCHIT Certified® 2008 Inpatient EHR - includes clinical decision support, order management, advanced reporting, a clinical data repository, clinical documentation, physician notes, ekardex, results trending, medication management and core measure reporting. NextGen Inpatient Clinicals is designed to initiate widespread work efficiency and communication, reduce errors and time-to-chart, and improve patient care.

NextGen Inpatient Financials is designed to improve operational management, efficiencies, and profitability for hospitals. A proven financial and administrative system, it includes a fully integrated collection of critical applications, including MPI, ADT, general ledger, and materials management.

Washington County Hospital and Salem Township Hospital purchased NextGen Inpatient Clinicals to complement their existing use of NextGen Inpatient Financials as well as NextGen^sm Health Information Exchange, which they worked together to purchase through a federal grant. Both organizations are expanding their partnership with NextGen Healthcare to become models for how critical access hospitals can deliver the same level of care, speed of information, and advanced use of technology as their larger counterparts.

"We went through an extensive evaluation process to choose NextGen Financials years ago. Now that we have Meaningful Use as a goal, we didn't want to replace anything we didn't have to. NextGen Healthcare was the most willing to work with our other vendors and integrate with our existing systems. It was the last piece we needed to complete the puzzle," said Kim Larkin, MBA, CPHIMS, Chief Information Officer at Washington County Hospital. "The company's Money Back Guarantee and commitment to maintaining the latest CCHIT® certification were also important factors in our decision. We are now ready to pursue an aggressive timeline toward capitalizing on ARRA incentives."

"Critical access hospitals have historically been underserved by the healthcare IT market," said Steve Puckett, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Inpatient Solutions, at NextGen Healthcare. "With advanced solutions for providers across the continuum care, NextGen Healthcare not only satisfies this unmet need though state-of-the-art systems, but delivers the technology and resources that can help bring providers to Meaningful Use."