PRESS RELEASE

 Solution helps hospitals meet and exceed Federal requirements for
electronic health record “meaningful use”

HOUSTON, TX:  Encore Health Resources, a leader in advanced information technology services for the global healthcare industry, announced today the launch of its EHRight™ solution.  EHRight begins by helping hospitals meet Federal requirements for the meaningful use of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) – an achievement that will qualify hospitals for a share of the $19 billion in reimbursement funding promised by the 2009 Stimulus Act and the U.S. healthcare reform legislation passed last March.  EHRight then goes on to build a foundation that supports the re-use and repurposing of EHR generated data to drive information-based healthcare innovation and continuous improvements in care delivery.

“Old-school implementation methodologies stop at connecting clinical and business processes to the application implementation,” said Ivo Nelson, Chairman, Encore Health Resources.  “In contrast, we’ve taken our EHRight solution to the next step, hard-wiring clinical quality measures and other information needs to the data, so our customers have the flexibility to respond to inevitable changes in reimbursement and new delivery models, such as accountable care organizations.”

Encore has developed EHRight while working with some of the nation’s most forward-thinking healthcare organizations to address U.S. government demands for healthcare reform through the adoption of EHRs and advanced healthcare information technology (HIT).  EHRight can be used in conjunction with a new implementation or to optimize an existing EHR, and it can be customized to meet the needs of individual clients and projects. 

To help health systems transform through and beyond the three stages of EHR meaningful use, EHRight starts with planning for and building towards the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Stage 1 meaningful use measures and requirements.  EHRight provides specific focus on the requirements detailed down to individual fields and data elements within EHRs.  Once EHR systems are functional, the solution supports each hospital’s ability to improve patient care through analysis and the reporting of enterprise-wide data.

"While recently published final guidelines relax some of the Stage 1 requirements for meaningful use, the overall direction of CMS is clear -- reimbursement will increasingly be based on data reported directly from the EHR,” said Dana Sellers, President and CEO, Encore Health Resources.  "This change requires a whole new approach, from the implementation of systems to the ways data is governed, repurposed, and re-used.  Encore and our EHRight solution will help our clients navigate this new environment successfully -- not just through meaningful use, but well beyond."

EHRight was designed around the “Five Rights” required to ensure that the system design, build and implementation first establishes a foundation to participate in the federal incentive program, and ultimately provides the information infrastructure needed to respond for the future.  The Five Rights are:

• Right Data – Capture the required data in the prescribed standard and format that supports both ease of data entry as well as reporting and analysis
• Right Content – Build with evidence-based content that supports optimal physician order entry, clinical decision support and multi-disciplinary care planning
• Right Processes – Design processes to support capturing and using the data in workflows optimized by the technology
• Right Decision-Making – Provide governance models that focus on data decisions as well as process and technology decisions
• Right Technology – Select, integrate, and implement certified EHR technology; plan and design for future data analytics capabilities

EHRight tools include:

An assessment tool that compares certified EHR system functionality, build, content, process, and workflows against each defined meaningful-use requirement. This tool includes assessment templates for each measure and is used to develop meaningful use-readiness and risk-mitigation plans for either new implementations or the optimization of an existing implementation.

A data-element tracking tool that maps each clinical quality measure to the Health Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP) electronic specifications as defined in the final rules to support future report design and submissions.  This tool is used to trace the specific data elements to the precise clinical quality and core/menu set measures to track the system design and build through final report submission.

A library of workflow, process, and data-related decision questions to consider in designing and building the EHR. Decisions are captured in the assessment tool and are used by design teams.

EHRight helps hospitals:

• Plan strategically: EHRight brings industry experts and knowledge to align a hospital’s IT organization and services to proactively respond to dynamic industry changes.
• Select the best EHR vendor:  EHRight provides a set of vendor questions and clinical scenarios based on final rules for meaningful use and certified EHR technology to help health systems choose a vendor with both functionality and commitment to attain certification and support clients’ achievement of meaningful use.
• Design appropriately: EHRight provides a review of EHR system functionality, content, work-flow, and processes to assess gaps in a hospital’s ability to achieve meaningful use and provide tactical readiness and risk mitigation plans.
• Support new implementations through completion:  EHRight offers expert clinical guidance in evaluating implementation workflow and influencing design decisions that promote the capture of essential data. 
• Optimize existing EHR systems: EHRight applies high-level gap analysis and meaningful use tracking tools to assess the status of current build projects and identify processes, content, and data needed to accomplish meaningful use.  

ABOUT ENCORE HEALTH RESOURCES:  Encore Health Resources, founded by healthcare veterans Ivo Nelson and Dana Sellers, provides information technology consulting services to the provider segment of the healthcare market.  For more information about Encore, please visit www.encorehealthresources.com.