Athenahealth Inc., a provider of cloud-based EHR services, has announced a collaborative agreement with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston. Under terms of the deal, athenahealth purchased webOMR, the web-based EHR platform developed by BIDMC.
The two organizations said they would collaborate on the development of athenahealth's acute care service offering that will support the needs of large hospitals and health systems. Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Needham, a 58-bed community hospital, will serve as the alpha development site for this new inpatient service. Needham providers will use newly developed athenahealth inpatient functionality alongside their existing software portfolio.
Additionally, Beth Israel Deaconess Healthcare, which is comprised of 185 providers across 38 Massachusetts locations, will begin a phased implementation of athenahealth's athenaOne suite of EHR, revenue cycle management, and patient engagement services.
"We know the days of self-built information systems will not last forever,” said John Halamka, M.D., BIDMC's chief information officer, in a prepared statement. “We want to continue to innovate while also leveraging the scale of a commercial vendor."
Athenahealth said its access to the webOMR technology would accelerate its ability to support the full spectrum of the hospital and health system market, an effort begun earlier this year when athenahealth announced its acquisition of RazorInsights and entered the 50-bed-and-under inpatient care space.
