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Contact: Matthew Fenwick - 312-422-2820 - mfenwick@aha.org


(Wednesday, November 03, 2010) -

The American Hospital Association Awards the Exclusive AHA Endorsement to AT&T Healthcare Information Exchange Services

 

The American Hospital Association (AHA) today announced that it has exclusively endorsed AT&T’s Healthcare Information Exchange (HIE) services, recognizing the strength of AT&T’s integrated network and solutions offering.  AHA Solutions, Inc., a subsidiary of AHA, awards the AHA endorsement to products and services that help member hospitals and health care organizations achieve operational excellence, and endorsed AT&T following an extensive evaluation selection process of various HIE service providers.

      

AT&T’s flagship HIE service, AT&T Healthcare Community Online (HCO), enables the highly secure exchange and sharing of patient health data across multiple health systems. The cloud-based health information exchange and portal integrates patient records and data from multiple sources into a single patient view, providing real-time access for physicians to patient information and eHealth applications. AHA’s endorsement of AT&T HCO builds upon the endorsement of AT&T’s voice and data networking services in 2006 and AT&T’s wireless services in early 2010. AHA’s new exclusive endorsement now includes AT&T’s HIE, voice, data networking and wireless services.

The primary drivers for Healthcare Information Technology (HIT) improvements in the U.S. have been to achieve a significant reduction in costs and improve better patient care.  AT&T HCO allows health care providers to save time and money by allowing them to utilize their existing IT infrastructure and integrate it with new applications, enabling the secure, community-wide health information exchange of electronic medical records.

“Throughout our due diligence in evaluating we were impressed with how AT&T HCO connects providers and increases the access and availability of patient medication information allowing hospitals to take better care of their patients,” said Anthony Burke, CEO of AHA Solutions. “During our evaluation, we found that AT&T HCO was designed to allow organizations at different stages along the IT adoption curve to participate within the exchange.”

AT&T HCO securely shares patient and medical data across applications the provider has selected. Similarly, many applications within AT&T HCO are associated with state, federal, and not-for-profit organizations that monitor critical components of a patient’s medical history. AT&T HCO as a single-point of integration for a HIE is designed to:

  • Connect providers with other health care providers and entities
  • Increase access and availability of patient and medical information
  • Aggregate data for government and relevant organizations
  • Bridge information gaps in medical records
  • Bring transparency to health care delivery
  • Allow for better quality measurements
  • Reduce waste in the health care system

“AT&T’s marketing capabilities were also impressive,” Burke commented. They developed an awareness campaign to educate the health care community around how AT&T HCO can be used to further drive adoption and utilization, not stopping solely at a technical implementation. The benefit of having as many organizations and facilities participating within the exchange across the community is huge for the patient and the overall delivery of care as well.”

"This HIE endorsement recognizes the value that AT&T HCO brings to the delivery of care,” said Sherry Charles, Vice President, Wholesale and Government, Education and Medical (GEM) Solutions Marketing, AT&T Operations, Inc.  "Our highly secure, cloud-based platform enables simple integration of existing applications and can be turned up quickly - thereby enhancing the patient-provider experience by making it easy to connect, collaborate, and share information."

About AHA
The American Hospital Association (AHA) is a not-for-profit association of health care provider organizations and individuals committed to the health improvement of their communities. The AHA is the national advocate for its members, which includes nearly 5,000 hospitals and health care systems, networks, and other providers of care, and 37,000 individuals. Founded in 1898, the AHA provides education for health care leaders and is a source of information on health care issues and trends. For more information, visit www.aha.org.

About AHA Solutions
AHA Solutions, Inc. is a resource to hospitals pursuing operational excellence. As an American Hospital Association (AHA) member service, AHA Solutions collaborates with hospital leaders and market consultants to conduct product due diligence and identify solutions to hospital challenges in the areas of finance, human resources, patient flow and technology. AHA Solutions provides related marketplace analytics and education to support product decision-making. As a subsidiary of the AHA, the organization convenes people with like interests for knowledge sharing centered on timely information and research. AHA Solutions is proud to reinvest its profits in the AHA mission: creating healthier communities. For more information, contact AHA Solutions at (800) 242-4677 or visit www.aha-solutions.org.