Baptist Memorial Health Care implements Allscripts Electronic Health Record solution

Sep 30 2009

Allscripts (Nasdaq: MDRX) announced today that Baptist Memorial Health Care has selected the Allscripts Electronic Health Record (EHR) and Practice Management (PM) solution to automate and connect clinical and business functions for their 65 employed physicians and the more than 3,100 independent physicians affiliated with the health system's 15 hospitals in Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi.

Consistently ranked among the top hospitals and health systems in the nation, not-for-profit Baptist includes, in addition to its affiliate hospitals, an array of home care and hospice agencies, urgent care clinics, behavioral health programs and a network of surgery, rehabilitation and other outpatient centers.

"To support Baptist's goal of providing compassionate, safe, high-quality care for patients, Allscripts will enable our physicians to utilize a state of the art clinical documentation and practice management system." said Richard Drewry, M.D., Chief Medical Officer of Baptist Memorial Health Care Corp. "We believe Allscripts will help us practice better medicine and more efficient care by providing immediate access to evidence-based best practices at the point of care."

Allscripts will implement the solution first for the 65 physicians employed in Baptist's Minor Medical Centers, or urgent care centers. Non-employed community physicians will be offered the Allscripts solution later 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.

Baptist and Allscripts expect to announce details of the comprehensive and cost-effective solution for community physicians in the next few months. Physicians will pay one fixed monthly fee for the Electronic Health Record and Practice Management solution, including all implementation, Web hosting, support and other costs.

"Baptist 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 practice management," said Glen Tullman, Chief Executive Officer of Allscripts. "By partnering with Allscripts, Baptist is 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."

Baptist selected Allscripts following an exhaustive, year-long review of other products on the market for the company's reputation, market-leading technology and commitment to continued innovation.

"We know that Allscripts is the right choice for our organization first and foremost because the electronic health record is clearly the best solution available today, and Allscripts has demonstrated, year after year, their ability to make the solution ever more powerful yet easier for physicians to use," said Doug Reiselt, Chief Information Officer of Baptist.

The Allscripts Electronic Health Record automates clinical workflow and gives physicians immediate access to critical data from hospitals, labs, pharmacies, payers and patients. Healthcare providers can access the Electronic Health Record at any time, whether they are in the clinic, at the hospital or on-call at home. By automatically tracking key patient metrics and providing automated decision support, the web-based solution helps physicians evaluate and improve their practices and enables them to deliver more effective disease management, preventive care, and long-range health maintenance.

Allscripts Practice Management combines sophisticated scheduling and Revenue Cycle Management tools to help physician practices become more efficient and more productive while improving service to patients.