SA Health Establishes Clinical Governance and Pre-Production Lab for 80-Hospital Electronic Health Record Project

CHICAGO and ADELAIDE, Australia, Aug. 2, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- SA Health, the public health system of South Australia, and Allscripts (NASDAQ: MDRX), the global leader in technologies that enable a Connected Community of Health™, announced a signed limited pre-production software license agreement facilitating the first stage of the Government of South Australia's initiative to implement an integrated Electronic Health Record (EHR) across SA Health's network of 80 hospitals and health clinics.

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Under the newly signed multi-million-dollar agreement, SA Health and Allscripts will activate strategic, multi-disciplinary "clinical working parties" and a pre-production testing environment to guide SA Health clinicians and technical leaders in their preparations for entering the "design and build" phase of the program.  

SA Health last November named Allscripts its vendor of choice to provide the project's central hub, called the Enterprise Patient Administration System (EPAS), which will give healthcare professionals timely, secure access to a patient's vital information wherever and whenever they need it.  SA Health plans to deploy the Sunrise Enterprise™ suite of advanced clinical, access management and financial solutions from Allscripts.

"This agreement with Allscripts marks substantial progress toward fulfilling the Government of South Australia's vision for a connected health system," said SA Health's Chief Medical Officer, Professor Paddy Phillips. "It will help to ensure that our clinical and IT leaders are fully prepared for this significant implementation project, one of the largest ever undertaken."

As part of the new agreement, SA Health will activate at least 14 clinical working parties with membership comprised of clinical leaders from multiple facilities, regions, specialties and scope of practice. These working committees will be able to experiment with the Allscripts solution in the new trial lab, helping them to provide critical input toward planning and implementation from their areas of clinical specialty and expertise.

"We believe that those who are closest to the patient should play an important role in decisions about an Electronic Health Record and its implementation," said Allscripts Chief Executive Officer Glen Tullman. "This agreement is designed to ensure that a wide variety of SA Health's clinicians have an opportunity to participate in the project's design early in the process, which in our experience leads to increased utilization by clinicians once the system is live."

SA Health IT staff also will utilize the pre-production environment to explore technical design assumptions, validate integration with third-party applications, and to establish technical integration options for out-of-scope systems.

About SA Health

SA Health consists of:

• South Australian Department of Health
• Women's and Children's Health Network (Women's and Children's Hospital, CAMHS, and Child and Family Health Service)
• Country Health SA Local Health Network (All country hospitals and health services)
• Northern Adelaide Local Health Network (Lyell McEwin Hospital, Modbury Hospital, GP Plus Health Care Centres and Super Clinics, plus primary, sub-acute and mental health services)
• Central Adelaide Local Health Network (Royal Adelaide Hospital, Hampstead Rehabilitation Hospital, The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, GP Plus Health Care Centres plus primary, sub-acute and mental health services)
• Southern Adelaide Local Health Network (Flinders Medical Centre, Repatriation General Hospital, Noarlunga Hospital plus primary, GP Plus Health Care Centres and Super Clinics, sub-acute and mental health services)
• SA Ambulance Service

SA Health is committed to protecting and improving the health of all South Australians by providing leadership in health reform, public health services, health and medical research, policy development and planning, with an increased focus on well being, illness prevention, early intervention and quality care.

About Allscripts

Allscripts (NASDAQ: MDRX) provides innovative solutions that empower all stakeholders across the healthcare continuum to deliver world-class outcomes. The company's Electronic Health Record, Computerized Physician Order Entry and other clinical, financial, connectivity and information solutions for hospitals, physicians and post-acute organizations are the essential technologies that enable a Connected Community of Health™. To learn more about Allscripts, please visit www.allscripts.com, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Forward-Looking Statements

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SOURCE Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, Inc.