CommonWell Adds HIMSS, eClinicalWorks, Others to its Growing Alliance

The CommonWell Health Alliance is continuing its growth, recently announcing that seven new members are joining its effort to enhance nationwide health data exchange.

Westborough, Mass.-based eClinicalWorks joins CommonWell as a contributor member. eClinicalWorks is a cloud-based electronic health record (EHR) company offering solutions for private practices, hospitals, population health, revenue cycle management and patient engagement. lifeIMAGE, a Newton, Mass.-based interoperable medical image sharing network; MediPortal, a Lake Success, N.Y.-based patient engagement solutions company; and Modernizing Medicine, a Boca Raton, Fla.-based creator of a specialty-specific suite of products and services for the clinical, financial and operational aspects of practices, also join CommonWell as contributor members.

What’s more, the Chicago-based HIMSS, a global organization focused on better health through information technology; ImageTrend, a web-based emergency response, hospital and integrated healthcare software provider from Lakeville, Minn.; and Mana Health, a New York City-based cloud platform-as-a-service that unifies patient data from EHRs, apps and devices, join as general members.

Since its start at the 2013 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Conference, CommonWell has continued to add new members, despite opposition from Epic Systems, one of the biggest health IT vendors in the industry. The Alliance’s goal is to promote healthcare interoperability, regardless of health IT vendor, geography or setting of care.

According to its officials, with the addition of these members, CommonWell Health Alliance now has 40 members and represents 72 percent of the acute care EHR market and 34 percent of the ambulatory care EHR market.

“Connecting medical providers and patients is paramount to elevating health care delivery,” Tushar Malhotra, integration lead for eClinicalWorks, said in a statement. “The work by CommonWell and its members helps move the industry forward, and we are pleased to officially become a member, joining the effort to make nationwide interoperability ubiquitous. Our immediate next steps include making the cross-vendor interoperability services available to the providers using our solutions.”