athenaClinicalsSM: How We Constantly Enhance Our Services
We’re always thinking about our next product and service enhancement.
athenaClinicals is a good example of how we constantly improve our software and services to offer the most cutting-edge, effective and easy-to-use package available. To do this, we release a new version of the software twice per quarter.
“In addition to releasing many key features and functionality, we continually improve things like the stability and intuitiveness of the system,” said Kevin Tolin Scheper, athenahealth’s director of clinical implementation services. “We also want to make sure that we’re serving practices of all sizes, so we tweak the product to make sure it’s scalable across single provider, small and larger group practices.”
These updates are “quiet” in the sense that clients probably don’t notice much about them, but they improve the overall functioning of the electronic medical record (EMR) and the client experience in general.
What is athenaClinicals?
The core idea behind athenaClinicals is that it takes more than just software to deliver the kinds of consistent financial and operational improvements that practices are looking to get through the adoption of EMRs. So athenahealth developed the world’s first “clinical cycle management service” – combining web-based clinical software, knowledge, and work to deliver far more dependable returns-on-investment to practices than traditional EMRs have been able to do.
Now, athenahealth provides the only physician revenue and clinical cycle management offering that integrates web-based practice management and EMR software, continually updated payer and clinical knowledge, and back-office processing specialists into a single service. The results are: faster payment at lower cost, improved patient care, higher revenue retention and less hassle for the thousands of providers using athenahealth nationwide.
There are now 85 providers live with athenaClinicals in primary care specialties, including the latest launch of an OB/GYN specialty.
“The OB/GYN specialty launch has exceeded our expectations for success,” said Tolin Scheper. “The initial Beta group has been live on athenaClinicals since mid-April. The group has ramped up quickly with high rates of client satisfaction.”
Also, last month, the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT) certified the software component of athenaClinicals. CCHIT also declared that athenaClinicals meets CCHIT ambulatory electronic health record (EHR) criteria [see the May Pulse story].
“CCHIT certification is important to us and our clients,” said Tolin Scheper. “It gives us a stamp of approval that the market recognizes. This market credibility will help us bring more providers into the athenaClinicals network. The more providers we add, the more we add to our continually updated payer and clinical knowledge.”
By the end of August, we expect to implement 70 more providers – almost doubling the current number.
“It’s a very exciting time – we’re growing rapidly, iterating the product and services successfully and we feel we’re having a positive impact on our clients,” said Tolin Scheper.