You may have noticed that we have been a bit quiet on our CommonWell Community blog lately. To be honest, things have been pretty exciting and busy. We have been bringing on new members, hosting our annual Fall Member Summit and finalizing our Commercial Services contract.

Whew. I get tired just thinking about all we have been doing.

Having been involved with the Alliance since its pre-formation days, it is a wonderful feeling for me to stop once a quarter and look back to see what we have accomplished. This past quarter is one of my favorite so far. After spending the prior twelve months focused on formation, technology and service launch, we opened the gates to broader membership in July (a place near and dear to my heart as our Membership Committee chair), and the response has been very positive.

Membership

I am thrilled to share that we have two new Contributing Members and our first General Member, all of whom were able to participate in our CommonWell Fall Member Summit earlier this month, as well as a New Member Welcome Summit. They are already jumping in with both feet and have brought a fantastic energy and focus to our association.

New Contributing Members

Aprima

Aprima offers a fully integrated, single-application, single-database EHR/practice management solution, as well as complete revenue cycle management services. Recognized as a vendor committed to interoperability, we look forward to working with Aprima to bring CommonWell services to its customers.

CareCloud

CareCloud is helping thousands of physicians to increase collections, streamline operations and improve patient care with modern EHR, practice management, and medical billing software and services. CareCloud’s impressive growth curve in the ambulatory EHR space, along with their vision, cloud-based technology and innovative client base, is a welcome addition to our Alliance.

Both Aprima and CareCloud are showcasing their CommonWell colors at MGMA this week, so please stop by their booths, as well as our other 5 member companies exhibiting this week in Las Vegas.

New General Member

Clinical Computer Systems, Inc. (OBIX)

Clinical Computer Systems (CCSI) is a leader in perinatal data systems with innovative, customer-driven, computer-based solutions. Dedicated to the development and support of the OBIX Perinatal Data System, CCSI is our first perinatal health IT vendor and first general member for the Alliance.

CommonWell Fall Summit

One of the things that is most fulfilling to me as a member of the Alliance is the culture we have built around collaboration, transparency and inclusiveness. Nowhere could this be better seen than at our annual Fall Summit held earlier this month in Kansas City.

CommonWellSummit-Fall2014We kicked off the event with our first New Member Welcome Summit, with more than fifty attendees from both new members and first-time attendees from existing members. On day two, more than 100 people from our now 14 member companies filled the auditorium to hear about the successes of our last 12 months and the goals for our coming year. The afternoon was spent with each committee delving deep into project work to further our shared mission and vision. The final day consisted of our member company representatives rolling up their sleeves to work on new use case proposals. It was a very busy few days but we managed to get in a bit of fun as well (including helping to celebrate the Kansas City Royals amazing playoff showing!).

As any good executive will tell you, organizational culture is paramount to success. It was a great experience to see the interaction across all our members – old and new – and watch everyone’s can-do attitude in action. I think my favorite comment from one of our newest members was how impressed he was at just how well the Alliance participants collaborate and treat each other with complete respect, particularly given the competitive nature of our industry.

Commercial Services contract

As we have shared previously, the Alliance and its members have been diligently working to move from our initial service launch, which we kicked off earlier this year, to a nationwide commercial services offering. This month, we finalized the Commercial Service Agreement with our service provider RelayHealth. More news will be coming soon, including what it means for our members and their clients, so stay tuned!

 

As I said – exciting times!

If you haven’t already, we hope your organization can join us in our effort to improve provider access to health data. In just one year, we have doubled our membership, launched new interoperability-enabling services, and blazed a trail to help us onboard new members and launch new, much-needed interoperability solutions for our industry.

Please join us to help change the industry for the benefit of the providers and the patients we all represent!

Nick Knowlton, vice president, business development – Brightree, serves as CommonWell’s Membership Committee chair.