Monday, July 7, 2014
VIENNA, Va. (July 1, 2014)—CommonWell Health Alliance (the Alliance) announced it will move into an new phase of its effort to advance health information technology (HIT) interoperability, expanding membership opportunities and welcoming new members Brightree and MacPractice as contributing members of the not-for-profit trade association.
“When CommonWell was created in 2013, we wanted to ensure our members and their clients received value quickly and comprehensively,” said Nick Knowlton, board member for CommonWell Health Alliance and senior director at Greenway Health. “In that spirit, each of our initial member companies brought a unique aspect to allow us to stay focused, yet visionary.”
Knowlton explained that today, with more than 10 provider sites live, thousands of people enrolled and dozens of clinicians leveraging the organization’s services daily, CommonWell is now positioned to more broadly open its membership to organizations, including health care organizations, vendors and systems, who share the association’s vision for interoperability.
Members of the Alliance represent a wide breadth of the industry and allow the organization to build specifications and pilot services across varying geographies, provider types and venues of care. The following newest contributing members bring distinctive strengths to the Alliance as they look to expand their services.
Brightree (brightree.com) enters the Alliance as the first dedicated post-acute vendor, with a sizeable footprint in the home health sector—one of the fastest growing patient care settings. In keeping with the Alliance’s goal of improving patient care regardless of where the patient is seen, Brightree’s entry will open new opportunities for in-home HIT access for patients and their clinicians. “Brightree is dedicated to representing the post-acute care community’s desire to help our nation reduce the cost of care while improving patient outcomes. We believe the contributing membership gives us the highest level of involvement to ensure the unique workflows and needs of home health, long-term care and hospice providers are considered in setting new data-sharing standards across the complete continuum of care,” said Dave Cormack, president and CEO of Brightree.
MacPractice (macpractice.com) brings the Apple community, technology and user base into mainstream CommonWell. Providing MacPractice-developed OS X and iOS native practice management and electronic medical record (EMR) products and surrounding services to 30,000 users (including 15,000 providers), MacPractice will bring greater visibility and credibility to the Alliance’s efforts on behalf of physicians, dentists, chiropractors and optical specialists within the Apple ecosystem. “As an Apple developer that is dedicated to making Apple native products that are continuously relevant to doctors who prefer to use Macs, iPads and iPhones in their practices, MacPractice is excited to collaborate with other top HIT vendors to make interoperability a practical reality that benefits US patients and doctors,” said Mark Hollis, CEO of MacPractice.
Brightree and MacPractice join Founding members Allscripts, athenahealth, Cerner, CPSI, Greenway, McKesson and Sunquest, contributing members CVS Caremark and MEDHOST, and service provider RelayHealth in pursuit of the Alliance's goal of providing better care and increased safety for patients and consumers. For more information on participating and membership levels, visit commonwellalliance.org.
