EHR Vendor athenahealth Partnership Focuses on FQHC Health IT

EHR vendor athenahealth has partnered with a health center-controlled network to enhance health IT offerings for federally qualified health centers (FQHCs).

The partnership combines athenahealth’s cloud-based suite of health IT products, athenaOne, with AllianceChicago’s (AC) community health resources and expertise.

“Through coupling athenaOne with AllianceChicago’s accumulated insights and resources, we can directly impact more providers and patients in underserved areas by providing state-of-the-art resources that they need and leverage these to further enhance our cutting-edge solutions,” Bob Segert, chairman and CEO of athenahealth, said in a public statement.

“We’re proud to work with AllianceChicago to support the unique needs of FQHCs,” he continued. “They have done significant work to give a voice to FQHCs and empower them to work together and share resources, technologies, and approaches for the greatest good.”

Throughout the pandemic, it became apparent that health IT was necessary for healthcare organizations to deliver high-quality care to at-risk populations. The EHR vendor’s partnership is set to help FQHCs and their patients thrive through an enhanced suite of offerings that specifically support integrated care for at-risk populations, the organizations said.

The organizations will evolve the comprehensive solution as time goes on to meet the needs of FQHCs for improved care coordination and outcomes, representatives said.

“Our mission at AllianceChicago is to improve personal, community, and public health through innovative collaboration,” said Fred Rachman, MD, CEO of AllianceChicago. “We see athenahealth as a valuable and strategic partner in this mission and I look forward to leveraging our experience to further enhance support to better equip our health centers to advance, especially after a turbulent year.”

“Together we hope to assure that athenahealth’s leading-edge technology will make a sizable impact in helping to address the specific priorities, interests, and diversity of the underserved populations our health centers serve,” Rachman continued.

athenahealth also recently expanded a partnership that aims to boost prescription drug price transparency.

epocrates, an athenahealth company, expanded its partnership with health IT vendor ConnectiveRx in efforts to boost clinical decision support through prescription drug price transparency.

The expanded health IT partnership is expected to provide patients on athenahealth’s nationwide, cloud-based network with reduced out-of-pocket costs for medications.

According to an Annals of Internal Medicine study, between 20 to 30 percent of medication prescriptions are never filled and 50 percent of chronic disease medications are not taken as prescribed.

Lack of drug affordability and awareness of cost-saving options are two major barriers that contribute to low medication adherence.

With the ConnectiveRx ScriptGuide program, providers will receive patient savings offers within the athenahealth EHR after they write the prescription.

“At athenahealth, we constantly evolve our offerings to better support and engage healthcare professionals, aiming to deliver the personalized information they need to optimize patient care and outcomes,” Paul Brient, chief product officer at athenahealth, said in a public statement at the time of the announcement.

“Through this partnership with ConnectiveRx, we look forward to providing additional value to our customers’ patients by addressing two of their biggest barriers: medication cost and non-adherence,” Brient continued.

epocrates and the health IT vendor first unveiled their partnership earlier this year when epocrates became the exclusive reseller of ConnectiveRx’s ScriptGuide patient savings messages.