WATERTOWN, Mass., Oct. 11, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- athenahealth, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATHN), a leading provider of cloud-based services and mobile applications for medical groups and health systems, today announced its leadership position in the 2016 KLAS Interoperability Report. The report draws on input from over 500 clinicians and evaluates vendors on four “bases” of interoperability: availability, location, workflow and impact.
Findings from the KLAS 2016 Interoperability Report rate athenahealth highest among eleven other vendors for the company’s ability to share data with other electronic medical records (EMRs). Supporting the fact that 79 percent of physicians reported last year that the majority of patients they treat also receive care from providers who are outside of their network, athenahealth has strategically prioritized increasing connectivity across all of healthcare to universally advance information access and usability regardless of care settings or healthcare IT system in place. Today, the company’s network supports more than 80,000 providers across the U.S. and surfaces 57,478 external-facing, electronic connection points. These connection points represent globally-available, information-sharing channels from athenahealth’s network to the rest of the healthcare ecosystem. Some of the company’s progress in making information accessible and usable is highlighted throughout the KLAS report:
- Interoperability satisfaction – athenahealth is positioned as a leading performer in interoperability satisfaction both inside-and-outside of its customer base. 65 percent of athenahealth customers surveyed noted that the information they receive from other organizations often or nearly always impacts care.
- CommonWell and Carequality integration – athenahealth leads the industry in fostering meaningful data exchange as part of both the CommonWell and Carequality record sharing initiatives.
- Same EMR-EMR exchange – the company is also seen as a leader in exchanging data amongst organizations leveraging the athenahealth network.
“According to a 2015 national survey, 95 percent of physicians felt near unanimous frustration over their inability to share and access electronic health information across the care continuum. Beyond frustration, physicians cited experiencing delay and difficulty delivering medical care because patients' health records were not accessible,” said Jonathan Bush, CEO and president, athenahealth. “While we’re thrilled to be recognized as the vendor that is chipping away at interoperability, we believe that our industry’s work has only just begun. CommonWell and Carequality continue to bring otherwise competing market players together, which is necessary for data sharing, but not sufficient for creating a fully-connected, integrated healthcare workflow. Only when information can fully follow the patient in an unencumbered way will providers be truly prepared to thrive under value and risk-based reimbursement contracts, and will healthcare serve patients as it should from both an outcomes and experience perspective.”
Bush continued, “Reports such as KLAS’ are incredibly important, as they bring some level of transparency to the state of vendors’ performance against what they promise. However, it is our deep belief that to truly advance information-sharing across healthcare that government must relax both the Anti-Kickback Statute and Stark laws. Both inhibit provider organizations and physicians from fully innovating around how they organize, share costs and exchange information. We believe these laws are inadvertently working against the very intention of the Department of Health and Human Services related to tying payments to value versus volume, and they must be reformed.”
To learn more about athenahealth’s policy point-of-view related to the Anti-Kickback Statute and Stark laws, please visit the CloudView Blog. To explore data as it flows across the athenahealth network, please visit the athenaInsight interactive look at interoperability.
About athenahealth, Inc.
athenahealth is a leading provider of cloud-based services for electronic health records (EHR), revenue cycle management and medical billing, patient engagement, care coordination, and population health management, as well as Epocrates and other point-of-care mobile apps. We connect care and drive meaningful, measurable results for more than 80,000 health care providers in medical practices and health systems nationwide. For more information, please visit www.athenahealth.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements, which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, for example, statements regarding the ability of the company to grow its network, and the company’s beliefs on the changes necessary to advance information-sharing across healthcare. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in these forward-looking statements. Existing and prospective investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. athenahealth undertakes no obligation to update or revise the information contained in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or circumstances, or otherwise. For additional disclosure regarding these and other risks faced by athenahealth, please see the disclosure contained in our public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), available on the Investors section of our website at http://www.athenahealth.com and on the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov.