athenahealth Purchases BIDMC's Clinical Applications and EHR System
BIDMC to Roll Out athenahealth's EHR, Revenue Cycle Management, and Patient Engagement Services to its Beth Israel Deaconess Healthcare Network
WATERTOWN, Mass., Feb. 3, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- athenahealth, Inc. (Nasdaq:ATHN), a leading provider of cloud-based services and mobile applications for medical groups and health systems, today announced that it has purchased webOMR, the web-based clinical applications and electronic health record (EHR) platform developed by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston.
A video accompanying this release is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=30442.
In conjunction with the technology purchase, the two organizations have entered into an agreement to collaborate on the development of athenahealth's acute care service offering that will support the needs of large hospitals and health systems across the U.S. Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Needham, a 58-bed community hospital, will serve as the alpha development site for this new inpatient service. As part of this initiative, Needham health care providers will use newly developed athenahealth inpatient functionality alongside their existing software portfolio.
Additionally, Beth Israel Deaconess Healthcare (BIDHC), which is comprised of 185 providers across 38 Massachusetts locations, will begin a phased implementation of athenahealth's athenaOne® suite of EHR, revenue cycle management, and patient engagement services.
"The culture of Beth Israel Deaconess has always been to challenge the status quo, to be a first mover focused on value – the highest quality at the lowest cost," said John Halamka, MD, BIDMC's Chief Information Officer. "We know the days of self-built information systems will not last forever. We want to continue to innovate while also leveraging the scale of a commercial vendor."
athenahealth's access to the webOMR technology will accelerate athenahealth's ability to support the full spectrum of the hospital and health system market, an effort begun earlier this year when athenahealth announced its acquisition of RazorInsights and entered the 50-bed-and-under inpatient care space.
Developed over the past three decades, webOMR is recognized as one of the first hospital-built, inpatient and outpatient EHR systems, as well as the first self-built EHR system to achieve Meaningful Use Certification by the federal government. By leveraging webOMR's proven technology to gain insight into the complex modalities, rules, clinical content, algorithms, and workflows associated with a large, multi-site health system, athenahealth will speed its entry into the 100-bed-and-over hospital market, which accounts for approximately 48 percent of all hospitals in the United States.
"There's nothing more exciting than the union of clinical passion and expertise with that of innovation. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is the best at what they do; their accolades and reputation in care delivery and as an innovator are unmatched," said Jonathan Bush, chairman and CEO, athenahealth. "athenahealth's vision for a fully connected health care ecosystem, and our experience and expertise, puts us in an enviable position to build a new class of care coordination services to solve the shortcomings of legacy software platforms that are failing to advance the state of health care across our country."
About Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is a patient care, teaching and research affiliate of Harvard Medical School and consistently ranks as a national leader among independent hospitals in National Institutes of Health funding.
BIDMC is in the community with Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Milton, Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Needham, Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Plymouth, Anna Jaques Hospital, Cambridge Health Alliance, Lawrence General Hospital, Signature Healthcare, Beth Israel Deaconess HealthCare, Community Care Alliance and Atrius Health. BIDMC is also clinically affiliated with the Joslin Diabetes Center and Hebrew Senior Life and is a research partner of Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center and The Jackson Laboratory. BIDMC is the official hospital of the Boston Red Sox. For more information, visit www.bidmc.org.
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 59,000 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 statements regarding the anticipated benefits of access to the webOMR technology to accelerate our entry into the hospital and health system market, our progress towards connecting care, and statements regarding the health care industry and our positioning to lead such changes. The forward-looking statements in this release do not constitute guarantees of future performance. 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. In particular, the risks and uncertainties include, among other things: our fluctuating operating results; our variable sales and implementation cycles, which may result in fluctuations in our quarterly results; risks associated with the acquisition and integration of companies and new technologies to achieve expected synergies, including those related to our ability to successfully use the webOMR technology to accelerate the development of our service offerings and integrate RazorInsights' service offerings and realize the expected benefits; risks associated with our expectations regarding our ability to maintain profitability; the impact of increased sales and marketing expenditures, including whether increased expansion in revenues is attained and impacts on margins and profitability; changes in tax rates or exposure to additional tax liabilities; the highly competitive industry in which we operate and the relative immaturity of the market for our service offerings; and the evolving and complex governmental and regulatory compliance environment in which we and our clients operate. Forward-looking statements may often be identified with words such as "we expect," "we anticipate," "upcoming," "aim," or similar indications of future expectations. 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. We undertake 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 us, please see the disclosures contained in our public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, available on the Investors section of our website at www.athenahealth.com and on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov.