CHICAGO – Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions is looking to cement its position as one of the nation's largest healthcare IT vendors with the announcement Thursday of a phased rollout of electronic health record (EHR) and practice management (PM) software at the St. Joseph Health System.

The $3.9 billion not-for-profit, Catholic healthcare system, based in Orange, Calif., will implement Allscripts Enterprise (formerly TouchWorks) EHR and PM solutions for 100 physicians affiliated with St. Joseph's Hospital in Orange, Calif. and the Covenant Health System in Lubbock, Texas. The project is the first phase of an intended implementation of EHR-PM tools to physicians affiliated with the system's 14 hospitals in California and Texas.

The project was spurred by the recent relaxation of federal Stark regulations, allowing hospitals to subsidize the purchase of healthcare information technology for affiliated physicians who aren't employed by the healthcare provider. Allscripts and St. Joseph have already worked to implement the EHR product for roughly 300 physicians in SJHS-owned medical groups in Southern California and Texas.

"St. Joseph is the latest in a string of hospital systems that have partnered with Allscripts to take advantage of the Stark regulations and encourage the adoption of technologies that will ultimately lead to better care for all involved," said Glen Tullman, Allscripts' CEO, in a press release.

SJHS will use the Microsoft Amalga platform to integrate Allscripts solutions with each hospital's information systems. The implementation will allow affiliated physicians to access charts, schedules, lab results and radiology results of their patients at the hospital, while hospital physicians will have access to those patients' ambulatory medical records.