Azalea Health, a web-based healthcare systems and services vendor, is merging with Prognosis Innovation Healthcare, a vendor of an electronic health records system targeting rural and community hospitals.

Azalea’s expertise is in the cloud-based IT, billing and reporting space for rural health clinics and hospitals. Leveraging the integration of the Prognosis inpatient EHR system will enable Azalea to expand its presence into the 50 or fewer bed hospital space to deliver a complete continuum of care platform to an expanded rural market segment, Azalea said.

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“Hospitals and medical practices in rural settings are struggling mightily to answer an incredibly unique set of challenges when it comes to access, cost control, technology and more,” said Baha Zeidan, founder and CEO of Azalea Health. “Innovation is critical to their ability to navigate the shift to value-based care and to deliver services in rural markets, a market that has 1,300 critical access hospitals.”

Bringing Azalea and Prognosis together, the two companies now can help these provider organizations more effectively create a single medical record that follows patients throughout their healthcare experience, Zeidan added.

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Rural hospitals, clinics and ambulatory practices now will be able to create clinical, financial and quality-driven outcomes with a single platform that lets services be pushed to the lowest cost provider in that continuum, he said.

Azalea Health now services thousands of ambulatory and hospital-based healthcare providers nationwide, across more than 30 medical specialties, and manages billions of dollars a year in healthcare charges processed through its platform, the company said. With the merger, Azalea will maintain its headquarters in Atlanta and maintain satellite offices in Macon and Valdosta, Georgia, and Houston, Texas, with nearly 150 employees across the country.

Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT
Email the writer: bill.siwicki@himssmedia.com