Allscripts Electronic Health Record chosen for PAL

Allscripts (Nasdaq: MDRX) announced today that Central Penn Management Group (CPMG), a management services organization (MSO) in Central Pennsylvania, has selected the Allscripts Electronic Health Record for Physicians Alliance Ltd. (PAL), a 120-provider, independent multispecialty group that CPMG manages.

CPMG will take advantage of the Allscripts READY package to accelerate implementation of the Electronic Health Record (EHR) and integration with their existing Allscripts Vision™ practice management system. The group also will implement Allscripts Analytics to generate quality reports needed to help the physician group earn pay-for-performance rewards from insurers and to demonstrate "meaningful use" of the EHR, a requirement for physicians to qualify for EHR incentive payments under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

"We selected Allscripts because the PAL physicians were very impressed with its usability and functionality," said Lee Meyers, President and Chief Executive Officer of CPMG. "In addition, our central billing office is already using the Allscripts practice management system, which connects directly to the Allscripts EHR, so we won't have to buy a new billing system."

Meyers added that the first priority of the practice is to ensure they qualify for ARRA dollars, so the idea of replacing the practice management system didn't make sense, at least before they had their Electronic Health Record up and operating to meet meaningful use standards.  In addition, with pay-for-performance becoming more critical, both nationally and locally, the ability to capture quality data, use it to deliver better care, and send it to pay-for-quality programs will enable the group to obtain performance payments.

Allscripts READY is a standardized implementation "tool kit" – a series of complete solution packages that provide best-in-class recommendations for products, certified workflows and implementation, along with automated processes for tracking and managing the implementation.  Using READY, CPMG expects to deploy the Allscripts EHR to all of the PAL providers within 12 months. That will fall within the window of time needed for the group to qualify for maximum federal incentives.

"This streamlined approach will help us get up and running much faster than would be possible if we had to customize the EHR ourselves out of the box," commented Meyers. "We'll use best practices from groups who have already implemented the product, while still being able to customize it later to individual provider preferences."

CPMG, which provides management services to a total of 350 providers, is in discussions with non-PAL practices about the possibility of providing access to the Allscripts EHR. CPMG will host the Allscripts EHR on its own servers, making it simple and cost-effective to add more practices, in addition to supporting the practices on an on-going basis.

"Management service organizations like CPMG will be instrumental in helping many practices rapidly and cost-effectively deploy electronic health records in time to demonstrate meaningful use in 2011," said Glen Tullman, Chief Executive Officer of Allscripts. "Our READY accelerated deployment package is also helping many physicians reduce the length of time and the cost of deploying their EHRs. The sooner they 'go live,' the sooner they will be able to demonstrate meaningful use and, more importantly, begin to enhance the quality of care that their patients receive."