Nightingale Informatix Corporation (“Nightingale”
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A letter issued on October 27, 2009 to Ontario physicians from the President of the OMA stated that:
Under a new program, eHealth Ontario will partner with OMA subsidiary OntarioMD to implement the “EMR Adoption Program.” With support and investment of approximately $236 million from eHealth Ontario, the new program will broaden and accelerate physician adoption of EMRs over the next three years. This means EMRs will be accessible to more physicians, allowing them to leverage information technology to improve patient care and practice efficiency.
The previous Primary Care IT Program provided funding to 3,300 family physicians for EMRs in Ontario. The new EMR Adoption Program will see this number increase by 5,700, to a total of 9,000 physicians, with the ability to provide 10 million Ontarians with an electronic medical record by 2012.
All practice-based primary care physicians and, for the first time, specialists are eligible for the program. The program will provide both one-time and monthly funding, as well as transition and adoption support services. Early EMR adopters, who helped expand and evolve the program, are also eligible for a monthly subsidy in order to upgrade their EMRs to the latest certified specification.
The new funding program stipulates that all physicians operating in practices of less than three physicians will qualify for funding if they use a certified Application Service Provider solution (ASP) hosted at eHealth Ontario.
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In 2008, Nightingale was selected as one of only three certified and funding eligible ASP EMR systems in Ontario. This followed an open Request for Proposal (RFP) and extensive evaluation process conducted by OntarioMD. Subsequently, Nightingale entered into a 15-year agreement with eHealth Ontario for the provisioning and hosting of the company’s EMR system and making it available to funded Ontario physicians.
“This program and financial commitment from the Ontario Government are much needed catalysts for driving adoption of EMR and for creating a tangible mainstream market in Ontario,” said Sam Chebib, President and CEO of Nightingale. ”Nightingale is well positioned to take advantage of these developments and has been preparing its technology, sales and implementation resources to capture our share of that market. It is excellent news for Ontario physicians and patients, and an important step towards improving the province’s healthcare system."
OntarioMD will begin accepting applications for funding on November 2nd, 2009. The program runs until March 31, 2012. More information is available at www.ontariomd.ca.
About Nightingale
Nightingale is one of the fastest growing health care service and software companies in North America with over 5.3 million patient records under management in a hosted (ASP) environment. It is recognized as an industry leader in Web-based clinician and community based electronic medical records (EMR) serving the needs of small primary care practices, multi-physician outpatient clinics, and large scale regional health organizations and networks. Coupled with integrated practice management, transcription and revenue cycle management, Nightingale’
For further information, contact:
Media:
Alan Kriss
905 307 6863
akriss@nightingale.md
Investors:
Michael Ford
Chief Financial Officer
905 307 7870
mford@nightingale.md
WEBSITE: http://www.nightingale.md
Nightingale's Ontario EMR Funding Assistance and Adoption page:
http://www.nightingale.md/
