WATERTOWN, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--athenahealth, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATHN), a leading provider of cloud-based practice management, electronic health record (EHR), and patient communication services to medical groups, announced today the appointment of Todd Rothenhaus, M.D. to the newly created position of Chief Medical Information Officer (CMIO). Dr. Rothenhaus will report directly to athenahealth Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Ed Park.
Dr. Rothenhaus’ primary responsibilities at athenahealth will include contributions to product development, implementation and client support, compliance and risk assessment, and sales support and physician advocacy.
Jonathan Bush, Chairman and CEO of athenahealth, commented, “As the drivers of physician reimbursement migrate toward clinical and quality management-based models, and adoption of athenaClinicals®, our cloud-based EHR service, increases, we believe that having a CMIO in-house to support the expansion of our value proposition is critical. Todd’s experience in the trenches of health systems and health care IT deployments gives him a very keen sense for how clinical information should move through the supply chain such that it improves outcomes for patients, care providers, and organizations.”
Bush added, “We’re confident that Todd’s engineering and clinical background will augment our credibility with prospects and help our service offerings to evolve as new care models, regulations, standards, and provider challenges emerge over time.”
Dr. Rothenhaus has established a record of success in managing information technology services inside large health care organizations. Most recently, he was Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Steward Health Care (formally Caritas Christi Health Care), where he orchestrated the overhaul of their health care IT services and infrastructure. While at Steward, Dr. Rothenhaus developed and executed a $70 million plan to automate care delivery, deploying inpatient EHR and integrated ambulatory EHR systems and positioning the health system to qualify for Meaningful Use dollars and to become an Accountable Care Organization (ACO).
“athenahealth’s cloud-based services helped me to achieve what was a very grand IT mission at Steward Health Care in terms of the rapid deployment and scaling of an EHR offering,” said Dr. Rothenhaus. “This positive experience, in contrast to my experience with other health care IT vendors, drove me to become very excited about athenahealth’s distinct value proposition. As CMIO of athenahealth, I see tremendous opportunities to positively impact care delivery organizations. I am eager to contribute to the evolution of athenahealth’s service offerings as they empower clients to pursue the most aggressive cost-of-care and outcomes-based missions.”
Prior to his role at Steward Health Care, Dr. Rothenhaus served as Medical Director at Boston Medical Center’s Newton Emergency Department, Director of Informatics at Boston University’s Department of Emergency Medicine, and began his career as an attending physician at Boston Medical Center’s Emergency Department. He has served on a number of national committees, most recently as Chairman of the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology’s (CCHIT) ED Workgroup, and has held a number of academic appointments at institutions such as Northeastern University. Dr. Rothenhaus has been actively engaged in professional societies like the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives and the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS).
Dr. Rothenhaus received a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Tulane University and an M.D. from George Washington University. He completed his internship and residency with George Washington University Hospital and George Washington/Georgetown University, respectively.
About athenahealth
athenahealth, Inc. is a leading provider of cloud-based business services for medical groups. athenahealth’s service offerings are based on proprietary web-native practice management and electronic health record (EHR) software, a continuously updated payer knowledge-base, integrated back-office service operations, and automated and live patient communication services. For more information, please visit www.athenahealth.com or call (888) 652-8200.
This press release contains forward-looking statements, which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding the impact that the CMIO may have on the development and sale of athenahealth’s service offerings. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in these forward-looking statements. In particular, the risks and uncertainties include, among other things: the risk that our service offerings will not operate in the manner that we expect, due to design flaws, security breaches, or otherwise; potential interruptions or delays in our internet-based service offerings; our reliance upon third parties, such as computer hardware, software, data-hosting, and internet infrastructure providers, which reliance may result in failures or disruptions in our service offerings; errors or omissions included in our payer and clinical intelligence rules engine and database; and the evolving and complex government regulatory compliance environment in which we and our clients operate. Existing and prospective investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. athenahealth undertakes no obligation to update or revise the information contained in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or circumstances, or otherwise. For additional disclosure regarding these and other risks faced by athenahealth, please see the disclosure contained in our public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, available on the Investors section of our website at http://www.athenahealth.com and on the SEC’s website at http://www.sec.gov.