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St. Joseph Health System Selects Allscripts Electronic Health Record and Practice Management for Affiliated Physicians in California and Texas

Posted on: Thursday, 18 December 2008, 08:00 CST

CHICAGO and ORANGE, Calif., Dec. 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Allscripts announced today that St. Joseph Health System (SJHS) has selected the Allscripts Enterprise (formerly TouchWorks(R)) Electronic Health Record (EHR) and Practice Management (PM) solution to automate and connect clinical and business functions for 100 physicians affiliated with two of its hospitals. The agreement marks the first phase of an intended EHR-PM offering to physicians affiliated with SJHS's 14 hospitals in California and Texas.

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"To support the St. Joseph goal of delivering 'perfect care' for our communities, Allscripts will enable our physicians and hospitals to connect to each other and to vital patient information, when and where they need to," said Clyde E. Wesp, Jr., MD, Chief Medical Officer and Chief Medical Information Officer of SJHS. "Secondarily, Allscripts will help our physicians practice better medicine by providing immediate access to evidence-based best practices at the point of care, and by measuring their effectiveness against national care standards."

SJHS is a $3.9 billion not-for-profit Catholic healthcare system that provides a broad range of medical services in California, West Texas and Eastern New Mexico. In deploying the Allscripts Electronic Health Record and Practice Management solution for physicians affiliated with its hospitals, SJHS is leveraging recent changes to the federal Stark regulations, which allow hospitals to subsidize the purchase of healthcare information technology for non-employed physicians. The law is intended to improve the overall health of patients and reduce the cost of care by encouraging more physicians to adopt Electronic Health Records.

SJHS will offer the combined Allscripts solution initially to physicians affiliated with St. Joseph's Hospital in Orange, Calif. and Covenant Health System in Lubbock, Texas. SJHS's owned medical groups in Southern California and Texas have already successfully implemented the Allscripts Electronic Health Record for nearly 300 physicians.

In a related activity, SJHS will offer Allscripts ePrescribe, a stand-alone Web-based electronic prescribing solution, at no cost to physicians affiliated with the two hospitals who choose not to implement the Electronic Health Record at this time.

SJHS selected Allscripts after an exhaustive review process not only because its solutions are the most advanced available, but because "our relationship with Allscripts has been a positive partnership rather than just a client relationship, and we like the direction of the company," said Dr. Wesp. "We see Allscripts as a key component of our entire technology integration strategy."

The Allscripts Electronic Health Record automates everyday clinical tasks and connects physicians to critical information from other healthcare stakeholders including labs, pharmacies, payers and patients. Allscripts Practice Management combines sophisticated scheduling and Revenue Cycle Management tools to help physician practices become more productive while improving service to patients.

Allscripts ePrescribe, designed to appeal to physicians in solo practice or small groups, requires no download, no new hardware, and minimal training. All prescriptions are instantly checked for drug-to-drug, drug-allergy and other potentially harmful interactions, and users receive real-time notification of insurance formulary status from leading payers, plans and pharmacy benefit managers.

"St. Joseph has set itself apart as a leader among hospitals nationally by delivering on a strategy to not only automate their own physicians but connect to the communities in which they provide services, offering full electronic health records as well as electronic prescribing," said Glen Tullman, Chief Executive Officer of Allscripts. "By partnering with Allscripts, St. Joseph is taking advantage of the relaxation of the Stark regulations to do just what was intended -- encouraging more widespread and rapid adoption of technologies that will ultimately lead to better care for patients and more productive and informed interactions for physicians."

All of the Allscripts solutions will be provided via the Software as a Service (SaaS) model -- a simple, affordable means of delivering vital patient information to caregivers over the Internet, without the upfront costs of purchasing new equipment to host the solution themselves.

SJHS will use Microsoft Amalga, the unified intelligence system, to provide integrated views of information across its hospital information systems and Allscripts solutions. As a result, physicians using Allscripts outside the hospital will be able to view the charts, schedules, lab results and radiology results of their hospitalized patients, and physicians inside the hospital's Emergency Departments will have instant access to key components of a patient's ambulatory medical record.

About St. Joseph Health System

St. Joseph Health System (SJHS) is an integrated healthcare delivery organization that exists to extend the healing ministry of Jesus in the tradition of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange. SJHS provides a broad range of medical services within three geographic regions -- Northern California, Southern California and West Texas/Eastern New Mexico. With total revenues of $3.9 billion, the system family is enriched by the services of more than 24,000 employees and includes 14 hospitals and three home health agencies, as well as hospice care, outpatient services, skilled nursing facilities and physician organizations. In 2008, SJHS provided more than $267 million in community benefit and care for the poor services.

About Allscripts

Allscripts (Nasdaq: MDRX) uses innovation technology to bring health to healthcare. More than 150,000 physicians, 700 hospitals and nearly 7,000 post- acute and homecare organizations utilize Allscripts to improve the health of their patients and their bottom line. The company's award-winning solutions include electronic health records, electronic prescribing, revenue cycle management, practice management, document management, medication services, hospital care management, emergency department information systems and homecare automation. Allscripts is the brand name of Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions, Inc. To learn more, visit http://www.allscripts.com.

This news release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Statements regarding future events, developments, the Company's future performance, as well as management's expectations, beliefs, intentions, plans, estimates or projections relating to the future are forward-looking statements within the meaning of these laws. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, some of which are outlined below. As a result, actual results may vary materially from those anticipated by the forward-looking statements. Among the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements are: the volume and timing of systems sales and installations; length of sales cycles and the installation process; the possibility that products will not achieve or sustain market acceptance; the timing, cost and success or failure of new product and service introductions, development and product upgrade releases; competitive pressures including product offerings, pricing and promotional activities; our ability to establish and maintain strategic relationships; undetected errors or similar problems in our software products; compliance with existing laws, regulations and industry initiatives and future changes in laws or regulations in the healthcare industry; possible regulation of the Company's software by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; the possibility of product-related liabilities; our ability to attract and retain qualified personnel; our ability to identify and complete acquisitions, manage our growth and integrate acquisitions; the ability to recognize the benefits of the merger with Misys Healthcare Systems, LLC ("MHS"); the integration of MHS with the Company and the possible disruption of current plans and operations as a result thereof; maintaining our intellectual property rights and litigation involving intellectual property rights; risks related to third- party suppliers; our ability to obtain, use or successfully integrate third- party licensed technology; breach of our security by third parties; and the risk factors detailed from time to time in our reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our 2007 Annual Report on Form 10-K available through the Web site maintained by the Securities and Exchange Commission at http://www.sec.gov. The Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE Allscripts

Source: PR Newswire

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