Allscripts has entered into a 10-year relationship with Affiliated Computer Services (ACS), a Xerox subsidiary, for the remote hosting and maintenance of hospital information systems. While Allscripts has long hosted ambulatory electronic health records on the web, the new arrangement with ACS will help Allscripts scale up for the vastly more complex and demanding task of remotely hosting its newly acquired Eclipsys Sunrise Suite for hospitals.
Specifically, ACS will help Allscripts manage cloud-based clinical and EHR applications for Allscripts clients. ACS also will provide data center and hosting operations that encompass mainframe, server, storage, backup, recovery, network, and cross-functional support.
Allscripts will pay ACS $50 million a year for these services, for a total of $500 million over the next decade.
A growing number of hospitals are outsourcing the management of their patient record systems to "keep it simple," Chad Harris, senior vice president and group president of healthcare provider applications for ACS, told InformationWeek in an interview.
Catherine Riedel, a spokeswoman for Allscripts, said that ACS would initially "focus on standardizing and optimizing our operational processes, help to manage our service level agreements on system availability, and enhance our recovery and security capability."
To learn more:
- read the InformationWeek Healthcare article
- see Allscripts' 8K filing with the SEC regarding the deal