LISLE, IL, Sept. 14 /CNW/ - SXC Health Solutions Corp. ("SXC" or the "Company") (NASDAQ: SXCI, TSX: SXC), today announced it has entered into a strategic relationship with Allscripts (NASDAQ: MDRX) to enhance the electronic prescribing (e-prescribing) options available to SXC's healthcare benefits management customers.
The SXC-Allscripts arrangement enables SXC clients - health plans, employers, government agencies, pharmacy benefit managers and pharmacies - to seamlessly and securely exchange authorized eligibility, formulary, medication history, and pharmacy information with physicians or other prescribers who use Allscripts stand-alone e-prescribing or Electronic Health Record (EHR) solutions. The prescribers can then use the transmitted, patient-specific information during the prescribing process to make safer, more cost-effective decisions with their patients.
"As the industry's Technology-enabled PBM(TM), SXC is committed to driving e-prescribing across the many markets we serve," said Mark Thierer, President and Chief Executive Officer, SXC Health Solutions. "Delivering actionable information to the provider at the point-of-care is central to our operating principles. We are pleased to partner with Allscripts, the market leader with the most widely used e-prescribing and EHR solutions in the U.S. today. Beyond e-prescribing, we look forward to additional joint efforts with Allscripts to share patient-specific, clinically rich insights with prescribers where and when they need them."
Electronic prescribing offers significant advantages to payers, patients and physicians either as a stand-alone solution or as part of an EHR. Through industry-standard transactions, physicians using mobile devices or computers in their office can access patient-specific information related to medication coverage, available alternative therapies, medication history, potentially harmful drug interactions, and prescription costs. Allscripts and SXC believe exchanging prescription information in this way reduces adverse drug events and medication errors that cause thousands of needless deaths in the United States each year.
"This agreement enables us to partner with pharmacy benefit managers to increase the amount of relevant clinical information available for physicians using our e-prescribing and EHR solutions, which means they have more information to help them deliver better, safer patient care," said Glen Tullman, Chief Executive Officer of Allscripts. "SXC has carved out a unique position in the industry, and we see great opportunity in working closely together as the EHR marketplace and managed pharmacy landscape converge over the coming years."
To improve patient safety and care efficiency, the Institute of Medicine recommended in 2006 that all prescriptions be transmitted electronically by 2010. Since then, the number of U.S. prescribers routing electronic prescriptions has risen from 19,000 to 103,000 by the end of 2008, according to SureScripts. Growth in e-prescribing has accelerated further this year due in large part to the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 (MIPPA), which provides financial incentives to physicians who adopt the technology.
According to a March 2009 study by the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, the percentage of U.S. prescribers using electronic prescribing will increase from fewer than 15 percent today to more than 75 percent by 2014. The report predicts that about 90 percent of physicians will e-prescribe by 2018. The report also estimates that e-prescribing could save the U.S. government nearly $22 billion over the next 10 years, preventing 3.5 million medication errors and 585,000 hospitalizations by 2018.
About SXC Health Solutions Corp.
SXC Health Solutions Corp. is a leading provider of pharmacy benefit management (PBM) services and Healthcare Information Technology (HCIT) solutions to the healthcare benefits management industry. As the industry's "Technology-Enabled PBM"(TM), SXC's product offerings and solutions combine a wide range of advanced PBM services, software applications, application service provider (ASP) processing services, and professional services to help healthcare organizations reduce the cost of prescription drugs and deliver better healthcare to their members. SXC serves many of the largest organizations in the pharmaceutical supply chain, such as health plans; employers; Federal, provincial, and state governments; institutional pharmacies; pharmacy benefit managers; and retail pharmacy chains. SXC is headquartered in Lisle, Illinois with multiple locations in North America. Learn more at www.sxc.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements included herein, including those that express management's expectations or estimates of our future performance, constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by management at this time, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies. We caution that such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other risks that may cause our actual financial results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from our estimated future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by those forward-looking statements. Numerous factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements, including without limitation, our ability to achieve increased market acceptance for our product offerings and penetrate new markets; consolidation in the healthcare industry; the existence of undetected errors or similar problems in our software products; our ability to identify and complete acquisitions, manage our growth and integrate acquisitions; our ability to compete successfully; potential liability for the use of incorrect or incomplete data; the length of the sales cycle for our healthcare software solutions; interruption of our operations due to outside sources; our dependence on key customers; maintaining our intellectual property rights and litigation involving intellectual property rights; our ability to obtain, use or successfully integrate third-party licensed technology; compliance with existing laws, regulations and industry initiatives and future change in laws or regulations in the healthcare industry; breach of our security by third parties; our dependence on the expertise of our key personnel; our access to sufficient capital to fund our future requirements; and potential write-offs of goodwill or other intangible assets. This list is not exhaustive of the factors that may affect any of our forward-looking statements. Other factors that should be considered are discussed from time to time in SXC's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including the risks and uncertainties discussed under that captions "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" in our 2008 Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent Form 10-Qs, which are available at www.sec.gov. Investors are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements. All subsequent written and oral forward-looking statements attributable to SXC or persons acting on our behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by this notice. We disclaim any intent or obligation to update publicly these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Certain of the assumptions made in preparing forward-looking information and management's expectations include: maintenance of our existing customers and contracts, our ability to market our products successfully to anticipated customers, the impact of increasing competition, the growth of prescription drug utilization rates at predicted levels, the retention of our key personnel, our customers continuing to process transactions at historical levels, that our systems will not be interrupted for any significant period of time, that our products will perform free of major errors, our ability to obtain financing on acceptable terms and that there will be no significant changes in the regulation of our business.