WESTBOROUGH, Mass. – Nov. 20, 2013 – eClinicalWorks®, a leader in ambulatory healthcare IT solutions, today announced that it is investing an additional $50 million over the next 12 months to further enhance and expand patient engagement tools under the business unit Health & Online Wellness (healow) and population health solutions. With 14 million consumers using the company’s electronic patient portal and mobile application, this investment is in addition to the $25 million the company announced for 2013. Part of this funding will be used to hire an additional 100 software developers.
The Affordable Care Act will introduce many Americans into the healthcare system for the first time, pressing the capacity of doctors to meet this new demand. Population health and patient engagement tools become key components of mitigating this influx, while keeping the physician central to patient care. In contrast to most mobile health applications available today, the healow mobile application directly connects patients to their own and family electronic health records (EHRs), allowing immediate access to personal medical records and facilitating two-way communications between providers and patients. Several new initiatives are launching this year with the goal to improve communication channels between patients and healthcare providers. These include:
· Home monitoring tools;
· A Web-site for patients to find doctors and scheduling appointments; and
· Solutions for patients checking-in at doctors’ offices.
“Gwinnett Center began using healow to help maintain an open dialogue with our patients and expand the benefits of the Patient Portal,” said Shari Crooker, R.N. and practice administrator for Gwinnett Center Medical Associates. “The healow app has been great. All of our patients really love it and are using the Patient Portal more through healow than through traditional computers. It has streamlined communications ever more, and we look forward to building on this by engaging additional patient engagement tools through healow.”
Advancing patient engagement and understanding populations of patients can improve health outcomes and lay a foundation for many care coordination efforts, including Meaningful Use, Patient-centered Medical Homes and Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). According to a survey[1] of healthcare providers conducted by eClinicalWorks earlier this year, 93 percent of physicians find value in having a mobile health app connected to EHRs. The same survey found that 93 percent of physician respondents believe that mobile health apps can improve a patient’s health outcome, and 89 percent are likely to recommend a mobile health app to a patient. A separate survey[2] discovered that 95% of organizations with or considering an ACO or PCMH believe that integration of healthcare information technology systems with the electronic health records (EHR) system is important to create quality outcomes for patients.
“Engaged patients make better and more informed decisions about their health and are one of the cornerstones for transforming healthcare,” said Girish Navani, CEO and co-founder of eClinicalWorks. “Our population health and the healow patient engagement platforms have received tremendously positive response and rapid use. We currently have 14 million people using healow patient engagement tools and more than five million messages are sent to patients monthly, bringing together cutting-edge technology and a trusted source of health information – the medical provider.”
