Allscripts and Boston-based Humedica have announced their collaboration on a next-generation cloud-based clinical informatics platform that will help physicians and hospitals succeed in the coming era of value-based reimbursement.

The companies also announced Monday that Allscripts has made a strategic investment in Humedica to enhance its existing portfolio of analytics solutions and address that fundamental shift in the way healthcare providers are paid. As the U.S. healthcare system transitions from a pay-for-service model to pay-for-value through new arrangements including bundled payments and ACOs.

[See also: Humedica promises cutting-edge clinical informatics for providers.]

"To succeed in the era of payment reform, healthcare organizations need visibility into quality and cost across every care setting with the ability to track the performance of each provider, organization and at-risk patient in the care process," said Glen Tullman, CEO of Allscripts. "Our partnership with and strategic investment in Humedica augments our successful reporting and analytics solutions, with a cloud-based informatics engine that's fine-tuned to meet some of the most pressing challenges of payment reform."

Allscripts and Humedica will collaborate to bring to market Allscripts Clinical Analytics Powered by Humedica, which will integrate with Allscripts acute care and ambulatory EHRs, helping provider organizations conduct robust operational and outcomes benchmarking and comparative analyses. The tool will enable organizations to manage quality and risk to drive improved outcomes in a complex environment, officials say, across all settings of care and even when they are using disparate clinical systems.

[See also: Allscripts announces partnerships to improve bill-paying capabilities.]

Tullman adds that, "because some of our key clients already have adopted Humedica, we've had the opportunity to see how powerful the solution is and how much more we could do together to advance patient care."

"Having worked closely with both Allscripts and Humedica, we are excited that the two organizations are partnering," said C. Edward Brown, CEO of the Iowa Clinic, the largest physician-owned multi-specialty group in Central Iowa. "We have been extremely satisfied with both the Allscripts Electronic Health Record and the Humedica MinedShare solution."

Humedica has been providing comprehensive clinical analytics to leading medical groups across the country through its long-term partnership with the American Medical Group Association and its medical informatics subsidiary, Anceta. By adding a partnership with Allscripts, the firm will expand the reach of its clinical analytics platform and enable providers, including AMGA members, to benefit from the combination of the two organizations' product offerings, analytics and technology.

"I have no doubt that many member organizations of the American Medical Group Association, like the Iowa Clinic, will benefit from the relationship between Humedica and Allscripts," said Donald W. Fisher, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of AMGA. "Multi-specialty medical groups need sophisticated informatics, including in-depth clinical analytics, to assume a leading role in transforming healthcare, through ACOs and other value-based payment models."

[See also: ACOs and meaningful use to go hand in hand.]

Executives say the Allscripts-Humedica collaboration will empower physician practices, hospitals, health systems, ACOs and post-acute providers to:

• Gain insight into their clinical and operational performance
• Assess and identify their best clinical practices
• Identify the levers for clinical improvement
• Manage individual variations in clinical performance
• Improve compliance with care guidelines
• Perform predictive modeling to track high-cost and high-risk patient care in real-time, reducing preventable complications and improving performance
• Prove the value of care delivered to payers through access to configurable performance benchmarks

"Clinical insights gained through analyzing data in the EHR and other applications can give healthcare organizations unprecedented visibility to the total clinical risk, true clinical performance and best practices necessary to optimize population health," said Michael Weintraub, president and CEO of Humedica (pictured at right). "Our partnership with Allscripts ultimately will enable healthcare organizations to translate analytics into actions that help them succeed in the era of healthcare reform."