CHICAGO and TOLEDO, OH – The Heritage Valley Health System, a progressive community-based health system in southwestern Pennsylvania, has selected the Allscripts Enterprise Electronic Health Record to automate and enhance the care provided by 150 of its employed physicians.
The rapidly growing Heritage Valley Health System is a $450 million integrated delivery network consisting of two hospital campuses, two surgery centers, two cancer treatment centers, a number of community based diagnostic & treatment facilities rehabilitation and behavioral health centers, with more than 70 community based patient care locations. Heritage Valley Health System's selection of the Allscripts EHR will further the system's efforts to improve patient care and reduce costs through greater access to critical information at the point of care.
"As an integrated delivery network, we're relying on the Allscripts solution to help us create a single electronic patient record that will drive greater integration and improvement in care delivery, better coordination of care, less duplication of effort, and better documentation," said Norm Mitry, President & CEO of Heritage Valley Health System. "Whether it's the government's electronic prescribing mandate, quality based pay for performance programs from insurers and government or the increasing demand from patients for web-based access to information, it's clear that physicians need an electronic solution to provide state-of-the-art care today. It's also becoming a competitive necessity, because if you don't give patients what they want, they'll go elsewhere."
The Electronic Health Record builds upon Heritage Valley Health System's successful electronic prescribing program, which was developed in partnership with Allscripts in 2006 and enables physicians to use their computer, smart phone, or wireless handheld PDA to prescribe or renew medications and securely transmit them to the patient's pharmacy of choice. Today, 150 providers at Heritage Valley use Allscripts e-prescribing every day to create more than 50,000 prescriptions every month.
In recognition of its success with e-prescribing, earlier this year Heritage Valley Health System was awarded a $661,500 grant from the Highmark Health Information Technology Grant Program, an affiliate of Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield. The Highmark grants are designed to help physicians acquire electronic prescribing technology, part of the payer's larger campaign to encourage adoption of Electronic Health Records.
"Heritage Valley Health System is a model for healthcare organizations across the country who want to leverage the power of real-time information to transform the care process and improve their performance," said Glen Tullman, Chief Executive Officer of Allscripts. "Heritage Valley has developed a strong record of success using technology to provide tools that their physicians can use to deliver care and their successful e-prescribing program is proof that payers will reward physician behaviors that improve care and quality. We are excited that Heritage Valley has elected to build on their e-prescribing success by implementing our comprehensive electronic health record for their employed physicians."
The Allscripts Electronic Health Record automates clinical workflow and gives physicians instant 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.
