Strengthening the Safety Net athenahealth has been a seed funder and visionary participant in “Quality of Care in Free & Charitable Clinics: Roadmap to Health Equity,” a joint national initiative of Americares, the National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics and Loyola University Chicago to design an infrastructure enabling clinics across the country to collect and report on quality measures—advancing the quality of care and attracting more resources to the sector.
Wired for Impact Through its athenaGives program, athenahealth has donated its electronic health records system, athenaClinicals, to nearly 300 free and charitable clinics across the U.S. These contributions have helped community clinics that operate on a shoestring as well as their patients, who represent some of the most at-need patients in the country—the low-income and un- and under-insured. Through the program, Americares own Americares Free Clinic in Stamford received and implemented athenaClinicals, the first EHR system in our four Fairfield County clinics.
Responding to Disaster When Americares responds to disasters such as Hurricane Michael in 2018 and Hurricane Harvey in 2017, athenahealth is with us. The company and its employees have mobilized on behalf of Americares, raising hurricane response funds quickly so that Americares can stage rapid and effective responses. Following Hurricane Michael, which took the Florida panhandle by surprise in October, Americares set up a temporary clinic in Panama City to provide care to survivors when area health facilities were closed due to damage. With the support of athenahealth and other partners, Americares also sent financial support and 61 shipments of medicines, medical supplies and other relief items to clinics in the area, bringing healing and hope.
About athenahealth and athenaGives athenahealth partners with hospital and ambulatory customers to drive clinical and financial results. The company offers medical record, revenue cycle, patient engagement, care coordination, and population health services. athenahealth combines insights from its network of over 160,000 providers and approximately 117 million patients with deep industry knowledge and performs administrative work at scale. athenaGives works to improve the health of local communities and the uninsured across the United States. Through athenaGives, athenahealth donates products and services to free and charitable clinics throughout the country and directs cash donations towards nonprofits that work exclusively with the uninsured population and support these free and charitable clinics in their work to provide access to quality care and keep folks out of the costly emergency room.