National Decision Support Company and Cerner Corporation Extend Partnership for Imaging Appropriate Use Criteria

CHICAGO, Nov. 30, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- National Decision Support Company today announced that it has executed an exclusive agreement with Cerner, enabling clients to contract directly for ACR Select within their Cerner Millennium EMR.

"We sought a partner to not only meet the needs of the Protecting Access to Medicare Act (PAMA), but also to drive to an end-state where appropriate care is delivered through evidence-based care pathways, access to care is improved through the reduction of wasteful administrative processes, and costs are lowered from unnecessary radiology exams," said Brandon Long, Director of Radiology and Clinical Imaging, Cerner Corporation. "NDSC shares this vision, and together with our clients we will realize these benefits."

Nebraska Methodist is one of the first Cerner clients to sign under this new agreement and deploy ACR Select directly within their Cerner Millennium EMR as part of their Cerner contract.  "Nebraska Methodist joins hundreds of healthcare systems spanning over 800 facilities that have placed their trust in the quality and completeness of our content and the depth of our EMR relationships," said Michael Mardini, CEO, NDSC.

"We're pleased that Cerner has decided to work directly with us as the primary source of the American College of Radiology Appropriateness Criteria," said Mardini. "It's a true demonstration of their trust in NDSC." This new agreement ensures that clients get the best possible user experience without having to engage with third-party integrators—simplifying acquisition, speeding up implementation, and enabling healthcare providers to accelerate their implementation of value-based imaging initiatives.

Notably, Einstein Healthcare Network in Philadelphia, one of the early adopters of Cerner integrated ACR Select, anticipates leveraging their implementation to drive imaging stewardship. "As we continue to move farther away from a fee-for-service model to a value-based model, it is more important than ever to minimize the inappropriate use of advanced imaging studies," said Dr. Ryan Lee, Director of Quality and Section Chief of Neuroradiology, Einstein Healthcare Network. "We want our radiology department to take the lead in that respect because over the years we have had decreasing interaction with our colleagues, mostly due to technology. Clinicians can see their scans pretty much anywhere and don't come down to the department as much as they did 20 years ago. Clinicians, as a result, are ordering studies with less guidance than they had previously and clinical decision support is bringing that guidance back. Also, importantly, there is potential for increased interaction with the radiologist by providing a mechanism for consultation in problematic cases."

Cerner customers can engage directly with their Client Results Executive to get more information about ACR Select and how it can become part of an organization's quality, compliance and imaging stewardship program.

NDSC will be demonstrating its latest developments, including integrations with leading EHRs, at RSNA 2015, booth #3153, November 29 – December 3, 2015, Chicago, IL.

About ACR Select
ACR Select is a digitally published version of the American College of Radiology (ACR) Appropriateness Criteria (AC), which covers more than 1,000 exams, 3,000 clinical scenarios and 15,000 discrete clinical endpoints.  This market-validated gold standard Appropriate Use Criteria (AUC) was created over the span of 25 years by thousands of physicians—representing more than 20 medical specialty societies reviewing over 6,500 discrete pieces of evidence—and has been the standard for virtually ever payer-driven utilization and quality management program for more than two decades. The process to author these criteria exceeds the rigor specified by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 for provider-led entities to author qualified AUC.

About National Decision Support Company
Processing nearly 1 million transactions per month, National Decision Support Company (NDSC) provides integrated solutions for developing, maintaining, accessing, delivering, and analyzing actionable, standards-based Appropriate Use Criteria (AUC) for imaging, lab, and the healthcare enterprise. The company partners with healthcare provider organizations and national medical societies—including American College of Radiology (ACR), American College of Cardiology (ACC), and European Society of Radiology (ESR)—to structure content and deliver it through physician-centric workflows. NDSC's clinical solution set provides physicians access to the latest evidence-based approaches to medicine, allows providers to develop and deliver local care pathways and protocols, and lets healthcare organizations continuously analyze the impact that AUC has on care delivery without disrupting the doctor-patient relationship. For more information, visit www.NationalDecisionSupport.com.

SOURCE National Decision Support Company

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