Chicago, IL and Lynchburg, VA — July 20, 2010

Allscripts (NASDAQ: MDRX) announced last week that Centra, a three-hospital system in Central Virginia, has selected the Allscripts Electronic Health Record (EHR) for its staff physicians and the Allscripts Community Exchange as the platform for electronically connecting the medical community in its region, including Centra’s home health agency.

Centra will initially provide Allscripts’ EHR to over 70 physicians and midlevel practitioners, both employed and affiliated private-practitioners, then extend it to over 250 providers in its service area.

“Our goal is to achieve true community physician integration,” said Ben Clark, Centra’s Chief Information Officer, “to connect the community and extend our electronic health record across our whole sphere of service.”

Allscripts Community Exchange can exchange key clinical data among disparate EHRs, a benefit in a community with at least nine different deployed EHRs.
In addition, Clark pointed out, it will allow Centra to use an Enterprise Master Patient Index, or EMPI, helping ensure that every piece of medical information is associated with the correct patient across the continuum of care.

Allscripts’ Homecare application will enable clinicians to access more information and share that data with other caregivers via an enterprise physician portal.

“Centra has a history of treating the patient for the whole continuum of care, from birth to end of life,” Clark said. “Allscripts Homecare is the perfect fit. We have Allscripts in our emergency department already, and now we are about to deploy their EHR in the ambulatory environment. When we add the Homecare product, we will be using the same platform across a large part of the care continuum. As we continue to expand our connectivity, the Allscripts suite of products will continue to improve the quality of care and show our community the value of a truly integrated health system.”

A custom interface will link Allscripts Homecare to Centra’s enterprise information system, noted Clark. By posting the home health data on the physician portal, he explained, Centra hopes to keep physicians better informed about their patients’ progress, which should lead to reduced readmissions.

“Similarly, the use of Allscripts Community Exchange will ensure proper medication reconciliation during care transitions and will prevent duplication of orders as patients move from one care setting to another,” he continued. “Should a patient present in the ED, the ED physicians will have instant access to all of his or her records, speeding medical decision-making.”

“A connected community enables clinicians to get the maximum value out of health information technology,” said Allscripts CEO Glen Tullman. “By having the right information on the right patient at the right time, physicians and other providers can make better decisions and deliver the appropriate care when it will make the most difference in outcomes. We commend Centra for taking this visionary approach to the deployment of Electronic Health Records and connectivity across the community.”

A Lynchburg-based not-for-profit health system, Centra operates two main hospitals, Lynchburg General and Virginia Baptist. In January 2006, Southside Community Hospital in Farmville joined Centra as an affiliate.

www.allscripts.com

The American Telemedicine Association invites telemedicine and home telehealth practitioners to submit an abstract to be considered for inclusion in the association’s 16th Annual International Meeting and Exposition educational program. Peer-reviewed presentations typically discuss real-world successes achieved through the use of remote patient monitoring.

Proposals will be accepted through September 15, 2010.

The ATA sannual meeting is the largest international meeting and exposition focusing exclusively on telemedicine, telehealth & remote medical technologies. It is the primary opportunity for home telehealth users and those considering remote patient monitoring technologies to listen to and interact with international experts and virtually all of the segment’s vendors.

ATA CEO Jonathan Linkous describes the meeting’s peer-reviewed educational program as one that “sets the standard for continuing medical education on the topics of telemedicine and telehealth.” The 2011 meeting is set for Tampa, Florida, May 1-3. Visit the ATA web site at www.atmeda.org or click here to go directly to the page to submit an abstract.