Athenahealth this past week updated its cloud-based software with new features to help providers be better prepared for the 2019 novel coronavirus, or 2019-nCoV.

The company has implemented new diagnostic testing orders and screening questions across its network of ambulatory and hospital customers.

"We pushed these updates directly into the workflows of 130,000 providers overnight – no downloads or installation required, and sincerely hope that our ability to respond quickly and provide the right resources will help our customers in their efforts to limit the spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus," said athenahealth CEO Bob Segert in a statement.

The new capabilities re meant to help ensure athenahealth's client are better able to screen and test their patients. Among the new tools quickly developed and deployed: a set of new travel-related screening questions that appear within athenaClinicals workflows.

In addition, the vendor has offered new code-backed diagnostic test order sets with testing and specimen collection, detailed recommendations for screening and diagnostic tests and links the up-to-date guidance from the Centers for Disease Control.

The new updates come as other IT vendors, such as Epic and InterSystems, have added coronovirus-specific updates to their own technologies.

Athenahealth is monitoring its network daily to track the use of these resources, and says that in the first week of availability, its screener questions have been used in nearly 30,000 patient encounters.

"Being able to provide front-door healthcare providers with the information and tools they need to drive better outcomes is vital to our role in the industry," said Segert. "And because all our customers are on a single, connected network, we can take action quickly to help them address public health emergencies such as this."

Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN
Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com

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