WATERTOWN, Mass., March 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- athenahealth, Inc., a leading provider of network-enabled software and services for ambulatory and enterprise customers nationwide, is helping the healthcare sector track nationwide clinician activity around COVID-19 testing and prepare for future cases across the United States. The data will be used by the COVID-19 Healthcare Coalition and athenahealth’s customers to augment current information on testing and inform decisions on healthcare delivery systems and people at risk of severe illness from COVID-19 who need diagnostic testing.
As part of the initiative, athenahealth is launching two interactive COVID-19 dashboards that will also inform the healthcare community and the public at large. They are:
- Clinician-Ordered Lab Tests: Leveraging athenahealth’s open and connected network, the athenahealth COVID-19 lab test dashboard provides a visual representation via an interactive map that shows the number of lab tests ordered over time by clinicians using the athenahealth network nationwide. It allows viewers to look at the data locally by state and across the nation. The dashboard is updated on a regular basis to show near real-time trends in test orders. For example, lab tests on the athenahealth network increased almost 8X between the weeks of March 9 and March 24. While the absolute numbers of lab tests ordered by athenahealth customers are a portion of the total number of actual lab tests performed across the country, the data provides insight into where testing capabilities are growing the fastest.
- High-Risk Patients: The athenahealth COVID-19 high-risk populations dashboard utilizes data from athenahealth providers to detect concentrations of patients on a county-by-county basis that are over 65 years of age and/or have one or more of the CDC-defined co-morbidities that put them at a high risk of serious illness if they acquire COVID-19. The map shows relative hot spots of these high-risk patients throughout the U.S. and allows viewers to look at how much of the population is over 65 years of age has relevant health conditions, or both risk factors together. These insights will enable the healthcare community to see which states and counties have the most high-risk patients and allow them to prepare for the potential case volume in specific areas.
“As COVID-19 cases continue to grow across the country, it is critically important that our nation’s leaders have current information to inform decisions on where to deploy hospital resources and bolster clinical infrastructure,” said Bob Segert, Chairman and CEO of athenahealth. “Our COVID-19 dashboards enable users to track and predict which area hospitals may need more support based on the number of tests being performed and the number of people at risk of developing severe illness from COVID-19. By providing this data from our connected network, we aim to help providers on the frontlines battling the coronavirus and potentially slow the number of fatalities from this pandemic.”
The new COVID-19 Healthcare Coalition is an industry group of healthcare organizations, technology firms, nonprofits, academia and startups that are joining forces to flatten the pandemic’s curve and protect populations. The coalition will coordinate resources, capabilities and data to inform decisions around healthy populations, people at risk of COVID-19 exposure and healthcare delivery systems. Additionally, athenahealth recently announced it is helping providers on the front lines by converting the CDC’s COVID-19 guidance into an interactive decision-tool in its free epocrates® mobile app, facilitating connectivity to telehealth partners, and ensuring COVID-19 commercial lab tests are available within ordering workflows, among other actions.
For more on athenahealth’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, please visit https://www.athenahealth.com/knowledge-hub/covid.
COVID-19 Dashboard Methodology
Using deidentified EHR data at the state and national level, the COVID-19 lab tests dashboard reports on COVID-19 lab tests ordered by clinicians around the country through the athenaClinicals EHR. The COVID-19 high-risk populations dashboard leverages deidentified data from patients who have seen an athenahealth primary care provider within the last three years and notes whether they have risk factors based on information from the CDC, including age and comorbidities, for severe illness with COVID-19.
The data is analyzed by athenahealth’s Research and Insights team, led by Jessica Sweeney-Platt, Executive Director, which is comprised of healthcare researchers and data scientists on a mission to help athenahealth’s customers and to use its unique data asset to improve the healthcare system with data-backed insights. The team tackles some of the biggest challenges in healthcare, from provider burnout to patient engagement, using a variety of statistical techniques combined with surveys, observations, and interviews.
About athenahealth, Inc.
athenahealth partners with medical organizations across the country to drive clinical and financial results. Our vision is to create a thriving ecosystem that delivers accessible, high-quality, and sustainable healthcare for all, and we are pursuing this through our medical record, revenue cycle, patient engagement, and care coordination service offerings. Our expert teams build modern technology on an open, connected ecosystem, yielding insights that make a difference for our customers and their patients. For more information, please visit www.athenahealth.com.
Contact:
Jean Borgman
media@athenahealth.com
617-402-1031