CARROLLTON, Ga.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Managing health services and the chronic conditions of a growing, mobile and aging U.S. population has become increasingly complex, requiring secure sharing of confidential information across providers, payers and patients no matter their location. To continue to foster seamless and secure data sharing that better connects care and leads to improved outcomes, Greenway Health™ today announced that its Greenway Prime Suite® customers around the country can now use CommonWell Health Alliance services to exchange clinical information with other participants at no cost.
Greenway Health CEO Tee Green reported that CommonWell functionality is accessible directly from Prime Suite, enabling providers to easily utilize the capabilities within their existing workflows.
“At Greenway Health, we don’t believe in barriers to clinical data,” Green said. “Innovative partnerships like CommonWell are one way we enable the secure data flow that leads to connected care and, ultimately, better health outcomes. The Alliance gives our customers and other participants a more secure way to gain a more comprehensive view of the patient’s health history, regardless of the point of care or what information system was used. This will enable clinicians to make the most informed decisions possible.”
Addressing four key needs for clinical connectivity
Greenway Health is one of the seven founding members of CommonWell, a non-profit trade association dedicated to establishing a standard way to easily and safely exchanging patient information across healthcare organizations, no matter where they are, what kind of care they deliver or what information system they use. Along with leading health information technology companies that cover 70 percent of the acute care EHR market1 and 24 percent of the ambulatory EHR market2, the growing Alliance also includes EHR market leaders in imaging, perinatal, laboratory, retail pharmacy, oncology, population health and post-acute care.
CommonWell services address four key needs to facilitate clinical connectivity that leads to more efficient, effective care — patient identification and linking, record location, patient consent management, and trusted data access. This helps ensure that the information being gathered and securely shared across providers is for the same person — that data gathered for a John W. Doe is the right John W. Doe, for example. Participating providers can easily query the systems of participating healthcare organizations to determine if they’ve treated a patient, and access the patient’s electronic health record. This reduces treatment delays, avoidable medical errors, unnecessary duplication of services and other factors that impact care quality, cost and satisfaction.
The future of care, from the front lines
The Veranda, a long-time Greenway Health customer based in Albany, GA, uses CommonWell services combined with Greenway Prime Suite and related solutions to support the practice’s commitment to being a world-class patient-centered medical home (PCMH). “We began more than 60 years ago in OB-GYN, serving those needs for our area’s female patients,” said Nancy Brown, RHIA, practice administrator. “Since then, we’ve expanded into even broader aspects of women’s health, as well as family practice, endocrinology and pediatrics. Becoming a PCMH and delivering truly patient-centered care seemed a natural step for us.
“With a growing population that’s typically been seen in multiple hospitals, doctor’s offices and other care venues, integrating CommonWell services with our Greenway Health solutions just made sense,” Brown continued. “As a PCMH, you can’t develop and execute a care plan if patients don’t even recall everywhere they’ve received care, let alone all of their medications, lab results and procedures. CommonWell will enable us to quickly gather more of the relevant patient records so we can better coordinate that care and deliver better potential outcomes. This is really the future of healthcare, and I’m glad we’re participating in it, on the front lines.”
A commitment to connect healthcare
CEO Green noted that “Connectivity is one of the three foundational pillars — Serve, Connect, Care — that define Greenway and our commitment to making a difference. That’s why we were proud to have helped found and continue to support CommonWell. We’re determined to tear down barriers to the safe and efficient sharing of pertinent data across healthcare stakeholders, making coordinated and effective care a reality. Offering CommonWell services to our customers at no charge, easily accessed from our system and our customers’ workflows, takes that commitment yet another step.”
Plans currently call for CommonWell services to be available to users of Greenway Health’s other main electronic health record/practice management platforms, Intergy and SuccessEHS, at a later date.
About CommonWell Health Alliance
CommonWell Health Alliance is a not-for-profit trade association of health IT companies working together to create universal access to healthcare data. CommonWell is open to all organizations committed to making patient data available to providers regardless of where care occurs. Members support the belief that provider access to this data must be built into health information technologies at a reasonable cost for use by a broad range of providers and the people and populations they serve.
To learn more about CommonWell Health Alliance, visit www.commonwellalliance.org and read the CommonWell blog. Also follow CommonWell on Twitter at @CommonWell, LinkedIn and Facebook.
About Greenway Health
Greenway Health™ delivers an integrated ambulatory information platform that empowers providers, consumers and payers with the right information and insights — at the right time, place and manner — to enable coordinated, efficient and effective care in a value-driven environment. Greenway® serves more than 75,000 providers in nearly 10,000 organizations across over 40 specialties, touching more than 100 million lives.
