athenahealth expands strategic agreement with Henry Schein

athenahealth, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATHN), a leading provider of cloud-based services for electronic health record (EHR), practice management, and care coordination, and Henry Schein, Inc. (NASDAQ: HSIC), the world's largest provider of health care products and services to office-based dental, animal health, and medical practitioners, today announced an expansion of their strategic agreement announced on May 21, 2014. Under the expanded agreement, athenahealth's athenaNet® platform and Henry Schein's Dentrix® Enterprise, the leading Electronic Dental Record (EDR) solution installed in Community Health Centers (CHCs) across the United States, will integrate to facilitate Uniform Data System (UDS) reporting, which is a requirement for CHCs, including Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs).

The collaboration is expected to strengthen athenahealth's and Henry Schein's efforts to serve CHCs and FQHCs by bringing the two companies' best-of-breed products and services together with increased integration, creating new value and efficiencies. The advanced integration of the athenaNet and Dentrix Enterprise platforms will automate the UDS reporting process, ensuring accurate, complete UDS reports, without the need for manual and time-consuming reconciliation between separate systems.

"Value-based care models, like the FQHC model, require substantial documentation and reporting; our goal is to automate these processes wherever possible to save valuable time and reduce cost for our clients," said Jonathan Bush, chairman and CEO, athenahealth. "By teaming up with Dentrix Enterprise, we are enabling our CHC and FQHC clients to work smarter and more efficiently as they pursue quality care, better health, and lower costs for their patients."

"Staff time is a limited, critical resource in CHCs and FQHCs, and finding ways to increase efficiency through system integration are essential," said Kevin Bunker, President, Henry Schein North America Dental Practice Solutions. "Dentrix Enterprise already integrates with many medical EHR vendors through HL7 Interface. Our integration with athenahealth will provide CHC and FQHC customers with significant value through a more seamless exchange of information for customers that use both systems."

Family First Health of Pennsylvania and Three Lower Counties Community Services, Inc. of Maryland will participate in a pilot program to create standard documentation and efficient processes. The companies plan to roll out the integrated offering to their broader client bases in 2015.

"Managing the reporting demands as an FQHC can be a complex and time-consuming process, so we are thrilled that athenahealth and Henry Schein have partnered to simplify UDS reporting," said Jenni Black, chief information officer, Family First Health. "This effort is not only going to result in a substantial cost savings for our practice, but also will enable us to put more of our valuable resources toward patient care, where we can truly make a difference in our community."

"The pairing of athenaNet and Dentrix Enterprise is a positive step for FQHCs like ours, that are looking to find ways to streamline processes and reduce unnecessary work," said Susanne Gray, RN, MSN, CEO and chief operations officer, Three Lower Countries Community Services. "We are pleased that athenahealth and Henry Schein have identified this important opportunity to deliver value to their clients, and we look forward to working alongside their talented teams to make this integration a success."