With Cook Children’s and athenahealth

Jul 15, 2009 07:29 GMT  ·  By

With products such as Amalga and HealthVault Microsoft puts its technologies at work for the evolution of the healthcare system. But efforts in this regard don't stop with the Redmond company itself. A collaboration with Cook Children’s, a top pediatric hospital in the US, has evolved through the addition of athenahealth as another partner in a health IT strategy designed to benefit patient care nationwide, Microsoft revealed. The trio aim to increase the quality of pediatric healthcare and outcomes for patients through the implementation of information technology solutions.

“We’re excited to collaborate with Cook Children’s and athenahealth to implement a health IT strategy that will help improve the care and outcomes of pediatric patients across the country,” revealed Steve Shihadeh, vice president of Microsoft’s Health Solutions Group. “By unlocking and connecting the vast amounts of data across the health enterprise with Amalga UIS, we can give the professionals at Cook Children’s the right information at the right time, helping them make optimal decisions for improving the health of children.”

The technological recipe for taking pediatric care to the next level involves efforts from Cook Children’s, which started looking to technology to boost prevention and treatment of illnesses in 2008. The solution Cook Children’s came across for its Cook Children’s Physician Network (CCPN) was to adopt athenahealth’s 2008 CCHIT Certified electronic health record (EHR) service, athenaClinicalsSM, as well as the athenaCollectorSM revenue cycle management service.

“Cook Children’s Health Care System continues to demonstrate its leadership position nationally, and athenahealth is thrilled to have been selected to work with them and Microsoft as they deploy our unique ambulatory EHR and revenue cycle management services that we believe will improve both the clinical and financial outcomes for its patients and physicians,” added Jonathan Bush, chairman and CEO of athenahealth. “With all of our clients sharing the same national physician network, athenaNet, Cook Children’s is now in a position to execute on an exciting new clinical connectivity strategy that will benefit children throughout Texas and across the country.”

Microsoft’s part comes as Cook Children’s will also embrace the Redmond company's Amalga Unified Intelligence System (UIS) and HealthVault. As planning and implementation went along, the software giant revealed that the technologies were in no way limited to the needs of Cook Children’s but could be tailored to health organizations across the US.

“This unique venture with these proactive organizations brings a fresh solution that will be reproducible and sustainable in medical practices across the country at a very low cost,” explained Rick Merrill, president and CEO of Cook Children’s Health Care System.