Practice Fusion Joins Federal Interoperability Pledge

Practice Fusion, the cloud-based electronic health record (EHR) vendor from San Francisco, has become the latest technology company to sign the interoperability pledge introduced by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) at HIMSS16 in Las Vegas earlier this year.

At HIMSS, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, announced a major federal initiative that has gathered together industry leaders to advance data-sharing, consumer access to healthcare data, and interoperability. “[C]companies that provide 90 percent of electronic health records [EHRs] used by hospitals nationwide as well as the top five largest private healthcare systems in the country have agreed to implement three core commitments,” according to a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) news announcement released at the same time.

These commitments that have been agreed to were consumer access, no information blocking, and standards. In alphabetical order, HHS’s announcement indicated the following vendor companies that had agreed to participate in this initiative: Aprima, athenahealth, Allscripts, Cerner, CPSI, Epic, GE Healthcare, Intel, McKesson, MedHost, Meditech, NextGen, Philips, Surescripts, Optum, and Greenway Health.

Now, Practice Fusion is on board. “Interoperability is core to our mission: Connecting doctors, patients and data to drive better health and save lives," Tom Langan, CEO of Practice Fusion, said in a statement. "Since 2005, we've been focused on expanding our ability to aggregate clinical data and share it, helping to make healthcare better for everyone."

According to the company, Practice Fusion commands a 6.5 percent share of the overall EHR market in the U.S., facilitating more than five million patient visits a month. Practice Fusion also helps providers coordinate care with a healthcare ecosystem that includes 600+ connected partners, its officials said.