Today, ABILITY Network announced it is joining CommonWell Health Alliance® as a General Member. CommonWell, a non-profit trade association, is dedicated to the vision that health data should be available regardless of where care occurs.

According to Black Book, 94 percent of America’s providers, healthcare agencies, patients and payers are not meaningfully connected.i In an effort to improve the status quo, CommonWell and its members have committed to using their diverse experience across the healthcare continuum to produce and deploy real-world, cross-vendor interoperability services that will contribute to improved healthcare delivery and outcomes for providers and the people they serve.

CommonWell and its members are actively deploying these interoperability services, which are now live at 4,700 provider sites nationwide, ranging from large acute hospitals to rural specialty practices. CommonWell services include patient enrollment, record location, patient identification and linking, and data query and retrieval across the healthcare continuum.

“ABILITY Network shares our vision that health data should be accessible to providers and the people they serve,” said Nick Knowlton, Membership Committee chair for CommonWell Health Alliance and vice president at Brightree. “By adding ABILITY Network to our diverse membership, we can continue to break down the barriers that have stood in the way of nationwide data exchange.”

ABILITY has been building applications that improve providers’ ability to share information since it was founded in 2000. ABILITY applications are built from a core secure data exchange between and among providers and payers. Applications are developed in a system-agnostic way, helping facilitate the exchange of administrative, claims, eligibility and some clinical data for providers across the continuum of care.

“Our membership in CommonWell represents our commitment to interoperability and complements our mission of helping providers and payers simplify administrative and clinical complexities of healthcare,” said Mark A. Pulido, Chairman and CEO of ABILITY Network. “We are excited about how our position and experience can help support an effort critical to creating a more effective healthcare system and improving patient care.”

ABILITY Network joins the Alliance with the intention to contribute to enhancing nationwide interoperability in healthcare. To date, more than 50 organizations are members of CommonWell.

For more information on ABILITY Network, visit www.ABILITYNetwork.com.

About ABILITY NetworkABILITY® Network is a leading healthcare information technology company helping providers and payers simplify the administrative and clinical complexities of healthcare through innovative applications and data analytics. ABILITY is headquartered in Minneapolis with principal offices in Boston and Tampa.

Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

About CommonWell Health AllianceCommonWell Health Alliance is a not-for-profit trade association of health IT companies working together to create universal access to health data nationwide. CommonWell members represent two-thirds of the acute care EHR marketii and more than one-third of the ambulatory care EHR marketiii, as well as market leaders and technology innovators supporting care settings such as post-acute care, imaging, perinatal, laboratory, retail pharmacy, oncology, population health, emergency services and more. CommonWell and its members are committed to the belief that provider access to health data must be built into information technologies at a reasonable cost for use by a broad range of healthcare providers and the populations and people they serve.

To learn more about CommonWell Health Alliance, visit www.commonwellalliance.org. Engage with CommonWell on our Blog, as well as through Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter using the handle, @CommonWell. CommonWell Health Alliance® and the CommonWell logo are registered trademarks of CommonWell Health Alliance Inc.

i http://blackbookmarketresearch.com/product/2014-black-book-state-of-the-private-enterprise-health-information-exchange-industry-top-hie-vendors/

ii KLAS - 2016 Hospital EMR Market Share, May 2016. © 2016 KLAS Enterprises, LLC. All rights reserved. www.KLASresearch.com

iii SK&A, a Cegedim Company - “Physician Office Usage of EHR Software” SK&A. February 2016.

ABILITY NetworkJennifer Marso, 612-277-3953Email: Jennifer.marso@abilitynetwork.comorCommonWell Health AllianceKaitlyn Corvino, 312-475-5914Hill+Knowlton StrategiesEmail: CommonWellPR@HKStrategies.com