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WebPT in Use at the Point of Care

WebPT, the leading Electronic Medical Record system for physical therapists has announced that have won the 2011 Spirit of Enterprise Award for Emerging Entrepreneurship. The award is among five presented to Arizona businesses to recognize their outstanding business achievements. Presented by the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, the 2011 Spirit of Enterprise awards represent 15 years of honoring business leaders and entrepreneurs in Arizona.

“Just to be a finalist among the extraordinary talent represented for this year’s awards is an honor, and we are so grateful to have won,” said Heidi Jannenga, founder and COO of WebPT. “We have worked hard to make WebPT a leader in the EMR industry and to improve physical therapy practices. Winning this award gives us even more motivation to continue down the path of providing the best product available to our customers.”

WebPT has made a huge impact in the world of physical therapy. As a Web-based platform designed specifically for the specific work flow of Physical Therapists, WebPT can increase efficiency, improve compliance and increase overall profitability for any physical therapy practice. WebPT has carved out a unique niche in the medical documentation market, as a fully integrated, software-as-a-service EMR system. In one year WebPT has added over 30 new employees, surpassed 7,500 users, and tripled its revenue.

Vista Equity Partners today announced it has completed its acquisition of the Sage Healthcare Division from The Sage Group plc in an agreement that was announced on September 22, 2011. The new company will be called Vitera Healthcare Solutions (Vitera), which will continue serving the ambulatory market with its current line of electronic health records, practice management and revenue cycle management products.

Vitera’s industry leading products include Intergy, Intergy EHR, Practice Analytics, Practice Portal, STS, as well as the ground breaking Medical Manager practice management product. As one of the largest healthcare solutions providers in the EHR and practice management markets, Vitera serves more than 400,000 healthcare professionals including 80,000 physicians. Vitera’s products are also used by approximately 20 percent of all community health centers in the United States, and process more than 33 million transactions and 1.8 million e-prescriptions monthly.

As part of the closing of the transaction Betty Otter-Nickerson, former President of Sage Healthcare Division, will be transitioning her leadership responsibilities to the newly appointed CEO of Vitera, Matthew Hawkins. Otter-Nickerson will remain a part of Vitera to support the transition for the remainder of the year. “I have enjoyed playing a role in growing Sage Healthcare and managing the company through this transition. Vitera is well positioned with a new owner and a new leader to make the strategic investments necessary to continue growing and providing industry leading solutions to healthcare professionals and physicians,” said Otter-Nickerson.

“I’m excited to join Vitera as we enter this next phase of growth. As a standalone company, we will be laser focused on our clients’ practices as we commit to improving our existing solutions and developing new innovative products to help them improve business and healthcare outcomes,” said Matthew Hawkins, Chief Executive Officer of Vitera Healthcare Solutions.

Hawkins held the role of Vice President and General Manager of Henry Schein Practice Solutions, a provider of healthcare software, revenue cycle management, electronic claims aggregation and value-added services to more than 65,000 oral health practices. He also served as a strategy consultant for McKinsey & Company. He received an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Science degree from Brigham Young University.

Most recently Hawkins was CEO at SirsiDynix, a global software company which brings the power of knowledge and information to nearly 150 million users affiliated with more than 23,000 library facilities in 70 countries. Prior to this he was COO at SirsiDynix, where he helped transform the sales and operations of the business to better serve its customers.

News of the transaction will be seen as a positive direction for the company and its clients, according to healthcare analyst Judy Hanover, Research Director at IDC Health Insights. “The changes to the business will help focus the company’s efforts and align technology to meet the strengths of its core,” Hanover said. “Vista’s approach should bring stability to the company and create more energy for the EHR and practice management portfolio. The new business creates an opportunity for the company to focus on the needs of its clients in the healthcare space.”

Vitera client Rohan D’Souza of D’Souza and Associates, Hockessin, DE, said he supports Vista’s decision to purchase the business and looks forward to the focus a Vitera partnership will bring him. “I am thrilled about the Vista acquisition for many reasons. In the current form, the product and services provide great models for success. Now Vista can take the healthcare business to even greater heights,” Rohan said. “With Vista’s backing, I am optimistic that Vitera will strive to deliver top-notch solutions to all current and prospective clients.”

More than 13.5 million patient interactions are recorded each year using Vitera’s solutions, which are a fit-to-need for more than 20 specialty concentrations representing more than 88 percent of the total ambulatory healthcare market, including primary care, OBGYN, pediatrics, cardiology, orthopedics, endocrinology, gastroenterology, geriatrics, multi-specialty, urology, general surgery, and neurology, among others, in all sized practices.

Vitera is committed to maintaining its current product line, including the popular Medical Manager and the robust Intergy PM and Intergy EHR. Additionally, all certifications will remain. For example, Vitera’s certified Intergy Meaningful Use Edition will continue to be the ideal solution for physicians looking to achieve federal Meaningful Use incentives.

According to Millennium Research Group (MRG) there will be two significant drivers helping to propel growth in the Electronic Medical Record Software market over the coming five years.  The first of these drivers is the continued “meaningful use” incentive payments, which incentive the purchase of new, certified EMR technology.  The second driver will be the  Medicare penalties for care delivery organizations that have not installed EMRs beginning in 2015.   Based primarily on those two factors MRG believes the EMR market will grow to over $8.3 billion by 2016.

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act was enacted as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to promote the use of EMRs to create a modernized and improved healthcare system. This act has allocated approximately $19 billion for EMR adoption incentives. Hospitals and physicians who meet meaningful use requirements will receive incentive payments. These payments will start to decrease in 2013 and 2014.

Hospitals and eligible providers who do not meet meaningful use requirements by 2015 will face a penalty in the form of a one percent reduction in Medicare reimbursement per year to a maximum of five percent. The decreasing incentive and the increasing penalty will be strong drivers for earlier adoption of EMRs. In addition, many hospitals are choosing to replace existing systems rather than upgrade to meet meaningful use certification requirements. As a result, the overall market will grow at an average rate of over 12 percent per year through 2016.

“These drivers have led a large number of new EMR vendors to enter the market,” said MRG Analyst Mickel Phung. “More than 750 companies offering some kind of EMR solution have entered in the span of two years. The long-term viability of these newer entrants is questionable. Customers want to make sure their systems meet complex and changing requirements. The best way to do that is to go with a larger company with long experience in the market. Most new purchasers rely on advice from a colleague who has extensive experience with a system in making a purchase decision, which will also favor companies with an established presence.”

Allscripts has the largest share of the ambulatory care EMR market, while Meditech has the largest installed base in the acute care EMR market. Other EMR competitors include Epic Systems, Cerner, McKesson, Siemens Healthcare, GE Healthcare, eClinicalWorks, NextGen Healthcare and Sage.

Millennium Research Group’s US Markets for Electronic Medical Records 2012 report includes average selling price and revenue information, along with market drivers and limiters and competitive landscape for acute care and ambulatory care EMRs in the United States.

me2me AG, the developers of the industry changing Frisbee Transcription Workflow & Dictation Solution with Speech Understanding announced today that they are participating and exhibiting in “Medica-2011”, a prestigious world renowned medical exhibition being held in Düsseldorf, Germany from November 16 through 19th.

me2me, AG is taking this great opportunity to announce and demonstrate Frisbee Enterprise transcription & dictation platform at this exhibition with a remarkable “Speech Understanding” solution powered by M*Modal. Speech Understanding™ is a solution that interfaces with both “back-end” as well as front-end speech recognition.

Frisbee Enterprise with M*Modal’s Speech Understanding™ provides functionality that goes beyond traditional speech recognition and enables Healthcare Organizations to efficiently create high quality, meaningful clinical  documentation at an affordable price. Where traditional speech recognition turns audio into flat text, M*Modal’s Speech Understanding automatically translates a physician’s dictation into a structured, meaningful and understandable document. When created and shared, it provides the most effective way to populate an EHR/EMR system or specialty information systems, such as radiology, pathology and emergency department, with structured, interoperable clinical documentation. This is all done to help our clients save time, money, and reduce stress.

“Our efforts are to help the healthcare community where Speech Recognition is a feature widely requested and needed by users” said Peter Hauser CEO of me2me AG. “The M*Modal’s cloud-based software is a technology that does not require the physicians to spend time “training” the software or that needs any special hardware, such as servers. This is just one of the many things that clearly set us apart from other solutions. We feel we are better equipped to help the “ever evolving” healthcare facilities while reducing their costs.

“We are very proud of the technological agreement signed with M*Modal whose solution is used by seven of the top ten medical transcription service organizations in the US”, continued Peter Hauser.  Thanks to M*Modal Speech Understanding solution, me2me will be able to offer its dictation and workflow management solution Frisbee to all size healthcare customers, including single providers. We will also be able to enhance our offerings to include the European markets by adding multiple languages such as German and French, to name a few.”

M*Modal’s solution is hosted in a secure and stable off-site data center where customers can connect from any secure connection. Frisbee Enterprise is also connected to the secure data center and manages all the clinical notes, reports, and documents in a secure manner.

As a result of this strategic partnership, me2me is now able to offer a very unique and stable solution to its current and future clients. This enables all clients to easily convert speech into their own customized structured clinical formats. The Speech Understanding technology feature powered by M*Modal is an optional feature with the Frisbee Enterprise solution.

SuiteMed™, a leader in ambulatory clinical systems, has been named a preferred vendor of electronic health records (EHRs) by the CalOptima Regional Extension Center (COREC). SuiteMed and COREC are pairing up to take part in the national effort to improve the quality, safety and efficiency of health care through EHRs. In partnership with eight leading Orange County medical groups, COREC is working to support providers in transitioning from paper to electronic medical records.

“California is our home market, and we are looking forward to working with COREC to serve doctors throughout Orange County,” said Kal Patel, CEO of SuiteMed. “We are very proud of our easy-to-use, certified integrated solution, as well as our professional training and support staff who make things easier for doctors and their medical teams.”

As a preferred vendor, SuiteMed had to meet COREC’s vendor requirements, which include integrating with COREC’s meaningful use dashboard to track physicians’ compliance so the physicians qualify for Medi-Cal and Medicare incentive payments.

“We are here to help Orange County providers adopt, implement and qualify for federal incentives to defray the cost of buying and transitioning to a certified EHR,” said Karynsue Frank, director of COREC. “COREC is vendor-neutral and will assist providers in selecting and implementing any EHR certified by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. However, our preferred vendors offer pre-negotiated bundled solutions to ensure enrolled physicians meet Stage 1 meaningful use and receive a suitable platform at preferred pricing.”

For a limited time, CalOptima-contracted physicians can receive $1,000 for enrolling in COREC’s program. Medicare providers can receive up to $44,000 over five years if they meet the federal requirements. Medi-Cal providers can receive up to $63,750.

The 2011–12 time frame is critical for doctors to start down the path to a certified EHR solution. Regulations allow medical professionals to qualify for a full year of federal grant payments if they demonstrate meaningful use of electronic health records for only three months. In future years, medical professionals must show meaningful use for a full year.

DocuLex, Inc. has announced today that it has achieved the ONC-ATCB Certification™ Seal for its Archive Studio WebSearch Document Management Software. The Seal represents that Archive Studio has been tested and certified for use by healthcare providers seeking to adopt and successfully demonstrate “Meaningful Use of certified EHR technology,” to qualify for incentive funds under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The Seal indicates that the DocuLex Software Suite has passed a series of tests to prove compliance with the EHR technical standard as required by the department of Health and Human Services Secretary.

Stated David Bailey, DocuLex President, “Adoption of better document management systems by healthcare providers for patient records has been an increasing trend over the last few years based on government incentives and compliance issues. This certification means that our software met the applicable criteria adopted by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. It is approved for use by healthcare providers for the secure management, storage and retrieval of valuable healthcare records. By implementing the Archive Studio Document Management Software Suite, healthcare organizations can easily integrate our software module with their existing practice management software for a complete EHR system. We are proud that our software solution passed all tests for certification without any adjustments necessary. This is testament to the quality document management we can provide healthcare organizations, and we have many successful implementations in place to date.”

Greenway Medical Technologies, Inc. today announced that Associated Purchasing (APS) has selected the company’s single-database electronic health record, practice management and interoperability solution PrimeSUITE® 2011 as a preferred solution for physicians seeking EHR implementation through the Kansas and Missouri REC programs, following an 18-month selection process with the Extension Center program agencies.

The Kansas Foundation for Medical Care, Inc. (KFMC) is the federally designated Health Information Technology Regional Extension Center (HITREC) for the state of Kansas. Missouri Health Information Assistance Center (MO HIT) is the federally designated HITREC for the state of Missouri.

APS is a group purchasing organization owned by the Kansas Hospital Association and the Missouri Hospital Association, which, as the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) designee, collaborated with KFMC and the MO HIT Assistance Center to select health information technology and EHR providers as part of its Preferred HIT Vendor Portfolio.

A sampling of Regional Extension Centers also selecting PrimeSUITE include:

• The California Health Information Partnership (CalHIPSO) for its $33 million grant connecting 6,187 providers.
• The New Mexico Health Information Technology Regional Extension Center (NM HITREC) for its $7.7 million grant connecting 1,217 providers.
• The South Florida Health Information Technology Regional Extension Center (SFREC) for its $13 million grant connecting 2,500 providers.
• The Colorado Regional Extension Center (CO-REC) for its $12.5 million grant connecting 2.295 providers.
• Vermont Information Technology Leaders, Inc. (VITL) for its $6.7 million grant connecting 1,100 providers.
• Pennsylvania’s two Regional Extension Centers, PA REACH East and PA REACH West for a combined $44 million grant targeting 8,700 providers.
• The Georgia Health Information Technology Regional Extension Center (GA-HITREC) for its $19.5 million grant program targeting 5,200 providers.
• The Massachusetts eHealth Institute for its $13.4 million grant program targeting 2,500 providers.
• The New York City Regional Electronic Adoption Center for Health (NYC REACH) for its $21.7 million grant program.
• The New York eHealth Collaborative’s (NYeC) $26.5 million REC grant program to implement EHRs within state borders outside of New York City’s five boroughs.

Overall, the federal Department of Health and Human Services’ REC program has granted $677 million to establish 62 centers, linking group practices, critical access hospitals, community health centers and related healthcare organizations through sustainable two-year grants to deploy EHRs in those settings and to connect healthcare organizations and establish meaningful use functionality.

Robin Hallquist, M.D., the first individual physician to work with the Regional Extension Center of New Hampshire, recently completed attestation for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services Stage One Meaningful Use Certification for Electronic Health Records (EHR), making Dr. Hallquist the first solo practitioner in New Hampshire to achieve this milestone. The Regional Extension Center of New Hampshire (RECNH) provided Dr. Hallquist with support and advisory services throughout Dr. Hallquist’s EHR implementation process to help improve the quality of care for patients in the region.

While many small practices have raised concerns regarding the feasibility and practicality of adopting EHRs, citing cost constraints and implementation difficulties compounded by the challenging economic environment, Dr. Hallquist found the implementation process simple and has seen immediate and significant benefits.

“Converting from paper to electronic health records was never a question, even before Meaningful Use incentives.  I saw the benefits EHRs could have on patient care and workflow in my prior experience, so when I opened my own practice, it was just a matter of when I would move to electronic health records and what resources would be available to help me make the transition,” said Dr. Hallquist.  ”With the assistance from Littleton Regional Hospital and RECNH, EHR implementation was seamless and has already had a significant impact on the overall efficiency of my practice, allowing me to provide the quality care to my patients that all physicians strive for.”

In addition to improving the overall efficiency of the practice, the EHR implementation also offered increased flexibility in terms of Dr. Hallquist’s ability to interact with patients remotely. The EHR allows Dr. Hallquist to connect with patients through an online patient portal accessible from a smart phone to review and fill prescriptions, order tests and engage with patients directly, which will be a core component of future meaningful use requirements.
As the first physician to enroll in the support and advisory services of RECNH, Dr. Hallquist illustrates the feasibility and rewards of adopting EHRs for all practices throughout the state, irrespective of size.  The REC of NH has worked with multiple provider organizations across the state of New Hampshire to quickly and successfully attest to MU through training and consulting services.

“We congratulate Dr. Hallquist for being an early innovator in the state and on this landmark achievement,” said Jeff Loughlin, Executive Director, Regional Extension Center of New Hampshire. “As the first physician to enroll in RECNH’s services, Dr. Hallquist’s attestation also marks a momentous occasion for the RECNH.  The RECNH is proud to continue supporting Dr. Hallquist’s efforts to ensure her patients experience the highest quality of care.”

In an effort to bring higher quality and safer care to patients through broader adoption of EHRs, the ARRA HITECH Act of 2009 provided financial incentives to hospitals and providers who become “meaningful users” of EHRs.

The rush to qualify for electronic health records adoption funds makes following the crowd a tempting choice but not necessarily the right one. Instead of implementing the same system that other providers in rural Colorado are using, Sedgwick County Health Center extensively evaluated other options and chose to go with an electronic health record solution from Prognosis Health Information Systems.

“There is a lot of pressure around here to do what everyone else does. But we decided that we needed to really do our homework and pick the system that would ultimately best fit our hospital,” said David Garnas, CEO at Sedgwick, a 12-bed hospital located in Julesburg, a Colorado town with a population of about 1500. “So, we evaluated systems based on workflow, ease of use and incentive fund reimbursement criteria.”

A steering committee that included representatives from across the hospital compared proposals from seven EHR vendors that serve the rural and community hospital market. From there, two vendors were invited to provide demonstrations to the executives and clinical users at Sedgwick.

The ease of use and intuitiveness of the ChartAccess® Comprehensive EHR from Prognosis HIS piqued the selection committee’s interest. Built as a “disruptive innovation,” the solution provides a viable alternative to other options by providing a platform that helps community hospitals overcome the cost, speed of implementation, and usability obstacles commonly cited as impediments to electronic records success.

A shared web-native EHR system delivered via a cloud computing model, ChartAccess software applications are made available as a service over an encrypted health information network. The system’s built in analytics and health information exchange (HIE) capabilities help hospitals provide consistent, high-quality patient care.

The fact that Prognosis has implemented many of these systems in less than 120 days – and has already helped 14 healthcare providers meet meaningful use sealed the deal, according to Garnas.

“The ability to utilize an online dashboard to track and direct progress toward meaningful use is something that is really important to us because we are looking to quickly qualify for the government’s incentive funds. We realize that Prognosis really excels at helping hospitals leverage this tool to bring about meaningful use,” Garnas said.

Sedgwick is planning to go-live on the system in February, completing implementation within 120 days and then attest to meaningful use to qualify for its share of the government’s $27 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act incentive monies.

“Our success is proving that we are offering a true innovation that the market really needs. Our EHR is making it possible for hospitals that might have previously been left on the sidelines to not only join the digital revolution but to become leaders in healthcare IT,” said Ramsey Evans, CEO of Prognosis Health Information Systems. “Our powerful solution provides advanced functionality along with an implementation approach that is enabling rural and community hospitals to fully leverage the power of technology, and, more importantly, to improve the care and service that they deliver to their communities.”

MacMall, a leading authorized reseller of Apple products and a brand of a PC Mall, Inc. subsidiary, today announced the launch of its Medical Office Makeover Contest. Targeted towards doctor’s offices and small medical practices, the contest features more than $23,000 in total prizes and runs until January 16, 2012. Entry information and complete contest rules can be found at www.macmall.com/medicalmakeover.

The Medical Office Makeover Contest features a prize for larger offices with 11 or more employees valued at nearly $17,000, and a prize for offices with 1-10 employees valued at over $6,000. The highly sought after products featured in the contest include Ergotron carts; HP workstations, monitors and digital signs; Fujitsu scanners; Wasp time and attendance tracking; Nuance medical dictation, and other high-value hardware and software from Xerox, Plantronics, Fellowes, ioSafe, Meraki, and Dymo.

“We are excited to offer this makeover contest for medical practitioners,” said Dan DeVries, president of MacMall. “With over two decades serving the healthcare community, we enjoy the opportunity to help bring a medical office up to speed with the latest professional-grade, high-quality products.”

Further information on MacMall healthcare resources is available at www.macmall.com/healthcare.

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