6 leading EMR companies form alliance for compatibility, record exchange

Six electronic medical record (EMR) service companies—several of them marketshare rivals—have joined efforts to create the CommonWell Health Alliance, an independent, not-for-profit organization focusing on interoperability standards for electronic health data exchange.

Cerner, McKesson Corp., athenahealth, Allscripts Healthcare Solutions and Greenway Medical Technologies and RelayHealth (owned by McKesson) comprise the founding companies of the endeavor.

Among other things, the alliance members will “certify core interoperability services and standards to health information technology (HIT) vendors to embed within their own software to solve many of the challenges associated with interoperability,” explains the alliance’s fact sheet.

The alliance will also provide record locator services—RelayHealth’s role in the group—to exchange EMR data across multiple providers and care sites.

The companies jointly announced the news of the alliance Monday at the Health Information Management Systems Society (better known as HIMSS) 2013 conference, the largest annual U.S. conference dedicated to healthcare information technology.

Pamela Tabar

Pamela Tabar was editor-in-chief of I Advance Senior Care from 2013-2018. She has worked as a writer and editor for healthcare business media since 1998, including as News Editor of Healthcare Informatics. She has a master’s degree in journalism from Kent State University and a master’s degree in English from the University of York, England.