HealthLand, Anthelio team up to provide EHRs to rural hospitals

Rural and critical access hospitals are about to get more help in transitioning to electronic health records. EHR vendor HealthLand and EHR services provider Anthelio have announced their partnership to help these hospitals migrate to EHR technology.

"Rural and critical access hospitals have some unique obstacles," Rick Kneipper, Anthelio's chief strategy and innovation officer, told FierceEMR. "People in these hospitals wear multiple hats, and Meaningful Use is slamming their resources. These hospitals can't provide dedicated FTEs to give [migration] their undivided attention."

HealthLand serves more than 500 hospitals and healthcare organizations. Increased demand for HealthLand's Centriq EHR product caused it to reach out for Anthelio's assistance. "It's a neat match. They bring the knowledge of migration to EHRs but need large scale project management and technological support, standardization and a repeatable process, Kneipper noted.

Kneipper expects the partnership to be a multi-year collaboration.

These hospitals in particular need a support team that takes as much load off of the hospital and enables them to "keep an eye on the revenue cycle ball," Kneipper explained. "They can't afford to miss money during the migration," he added.

Connecting the rural community to the world electronically will also bring about changes in health care delivery, such as telemedicine and interoperability, Kneipper predicted. "The folks in DC are starting to pay attention to rural care," he added.

To learn more:
- read the Anthelio announcement