WATERTOWN, Mass., June 25, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- athenahealth, Inc. (Nasdaq:ATHN), a leading provider of cloud-based services for electronic health record (EHR), practice management, and care coordination, today announced that athenaClinicals® (13.6), its cloud-based EHR service, is compliant with the ONC 2014 Edition Standards & Certification Criteria and was certified as a Complete EHR on June 21^st, 2013 by the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT®), an ONC-ACB, in accordance with the applicable eligible provider certification criteria adopted by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The ONC 2014 Edition criteria support both Stage 1 and 2 Meaningful Use measures required to qualify eligible providers and hospitals for funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

Jonathan Bush, CEO and Chairman of athenahealth, said: "Being certified is huge for us because every single provider using athenaClinicals is now on a 2014-certified Complete EHR. Since we're a cloud-based service, all of our providers are on the same instance of software and don't have to worry about upgrading to a new version to be ready for 2014. Earlier this year we announced that 96 percent of participating providers on athenaClinicals successfully attested to Meaningful Use Stage 1 in Year 1; this bucks industry average. Our clients are winning because they're focused on care delivery, while we take ownership of making sure their EHR platform is what they need it to be."

The ONC HIT Certification Program certifies that Complete EHRs meet all of the 2014 Edition criteria and EHR Modules meet one or more—but not all—of the criteria approved by the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) for either eligible provider or hospital technology.

"CCHIT congratulates companies successfully achieving EHR technology certification," said Alisa Ray, executive director, CCHIT. "These companies are now able to make their products available to providers wishing to adopt health IT to demonstrate meaningful use and earn Stage 1 or Stage 2 incentives."

"Our approach to Meaningful Use is inherently different than other EHR vendors, many of whom are solely focused on releasing functionality—sometimes at extra cost—and expect caregivers to knock it out of the park, on their own and without the necessary domain expertise," said Jasmine Gee, director, product marketing, athenaClinicals. "As a true partner, vendors need to evaluate caregiver workflows and think about how Meaningful Use measures can be met in the most efficient way. This puts a lot of the onus on the vendor, sure, and we're willing to do the work to make sure our clients successfully attest, collect their payments, and keep moving forward, because if there's anything we've learned about Meaningful Use, it's that there are more stages with more stringent requirements to come."

athenaClinicals, 13.6's certification number is CC-2014-360400-3. ONC HIT certification conferred by CCHIT does not represent an endorsement of the certified EHR technology by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

athenaClinicals has been certified on 63 of the 64 Clinical Quality Measures (CQM). A full list of the CQMs to which athenaClinicals has been certified can be found here.

athenahealth's online implementation service is free for practices with one to six physicians. The on-site implementation fee for larger practices and organizations is based on the number of providers who will be using the athenaClinicals service. All athenaClinicals clients pay a monthly service fee, which covers all features, functionality, and services required to meet Meaningful Use objectives and measures.

athenahealth does not charge additional fees for the development or configuration of interfaces or health information exchange integration that are required to meet Meaningful Use requirements. Other health care trading partners and vendors may charge athenahealth clients for the creation, development, and maintenance of interface or health information exchange integration. athenaClinicals clients that elect to use services above and beyond requirements to meet Meaningful Use may pay additional fees.

For more information on athenaClinicals and athenahealth's full suite of cloud-based services for EHR, practice management, care coordination, and more, please visit www.athenahealth.com.

About athenahealth, Inc.

athenahealth is a leading provider of cloud-based services for EHR, practice management, and care coordination. athenahealth's mission is to be caregivers' most trusted service, helping them do well doing the right thing. For more information, please visit www.athenahealth.com or call 888-652-8200.

About CCHIT

The Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT®) is an independent, 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with the public mission of accelerating the adoption of robust, interoperable health information technology. The Commission has been certifying electronic health record technology since 2006 and is authorized by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as a certification body (ONC-ACB). CCHIT is accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) as a certification body for the ONC HIT Certification Program for electronic health record (EHR) technology and accredited by the National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program (NVLAP) of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as an Accredited Testing Laboratory (ATL) to test EHRs. More information on CCHIT and its programs is available at http://cchit.org.

About the ONC HIT Certification Program

The ONC HIT Certification Program, provided by the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT®), as an Office of the National Coordinator – Authorized Certification Body (ONC-ACB), evaluates EHR technology that has been tested against criteria and standards adopted by the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). This certification qualifies EHRs as capable of supporting achievement of meaningful use for the Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive programs authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). ONC HIT certification conferred by the Certification Commission does not represent an endorsement of the certified EHR technology by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.