Electronic Health Reporter

MILPITAS, Calif., and WATERTOWN, Mass., Oct. 28, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Quantros, the leading provider of cloud-based services for quality, safety, and clinical business intelligence solutions across the continuum of care, and athenahealth, Inc. (Nasdaq:ATHN), a leading provider of cloud-based services for electronic health record (EHR), practice management, and care coordination, today announced a first-of-its-kind arrangement between a Patient Safety Organization (PSO) and a health IT supplier, in which thousands of clinical providers and provider organizations across the U.S. will gain free access to a safe, privileged environment in which they can easily submit patient safety concerns and findings as well as share best practices to enhance safety and improve care.

As part of this initiative, athenahealth will implement Quantros’ safety reporting solution, Safety Event Manager (SEM), throughout its national network of ambulatory clinics, serving approximately 47,000 health care providers. As part of this partnership, athenahealth’s EHR clients will be able to submit patient safety data in a simple and streamlined process as part of the EHR workflow to a federally sanctioned PSO, the Quantros Patient Safety Center (QPSC).

“At athenahealth, we are teachers and learners. We fundamentally believe that highly productive work and ongoing improvement comes from a culture of safety and from within an environment where continuous collaboration and advancement can happen,” said Jonathan Bush, President, CEO, and Chairman of the Board of athenahealth. “Partnering with Quantros strengthens our delivery of cutting-edge technology and services and differentiates the environment in which our clients can iterate, collaborate, and improve. Safety and innovation in health care go hand and hand; this is a natural and exceptional partnership.”

This partnership comes before the implementation of federal mandates related to safety reporting, and is aimed at protecting and advancing patient care and the medical practice workflow. Together, athenahealth and Quantros are taking the lead in the realm of patient safety and in line with calls from the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC). This partnership also delivers upon the third pillar of athenahealth’s Code of Conduct, published earlier this year, in which the company committed to proactively work with clients to identify, report on, and resolve all patient-safety related events via a PSO.

“At a time when our health care market is moving towards greater transparency and greater accountability, this partnership will set a higher standard for safety and collaboration,” said Keith Hagen, President and CEO at Quantros. “Credible data is critical to driving improvement. Pair that data with athenahealth’s stellar patient care coordination, and we are set to enhance health care performance on a national scale.”

About athenahealth, Inc.

athenahealth is a leading provider of cloud-based services for EHR, practice management, and care coordination. athenahealth’s mission is to be caregivers’ most trusted service, helping them do well doing the right thing. For more information, please visit www.athenahealth.com or call 888-652-8200.

About Quantros

Quantros helps health care providers improve quality and patient safety by empowering organizations, at every level, with the actionable intelligence they need to improve outcomes and reduce risk. Quantros provides cloud-based tools and resources for the full spectrum of the health care industry in the areas of safety and risk management, quality and performance improvement, accreditation and compliance, and centralized decision support. Today, more than 8,500 health care provider entities, including over 6,000 retail pharmacies, use Quantros solutions to capture meaningful data to effectively drive the decisions that improve the safety and quality of care.