HMS DirectSM Expands Data Center Capacity to Meet Community Hospitals’ Growing Demand for ASP Delivery of Clinical and Financial IT Solutions

Majority of company’s pending contracts slated for hosted applications

NASHVILLE, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--HMS Direct^SM, a leading managed-service provider for the healthcare industry, is expanding its data center capacity to support the growing number of hospitals choosing the ASP model to upgrade their technology and help achieve meaningful use while reducing hardware, software and maintenance costs. The company’s ASP deals have outpaced conventional customer-premise solutions so far in 2011, a growth trend that HMS Direct believes is still in its early stages.

“Our ASP model drives significant value for virtually any hospital, with community hospitals poised to be the biggest winners of all.”

HMS Direct offers remote hosting and management services for hospital information systems as a cost-effective and highly reliable platform for giving hospitals access to electronic health records (EHRs) and other clinical applications needed to qualify for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) stimulus funds. HMS Direct uses the ASP model, currently delivering clinical and financial software and IT services to more than 70 community hospitals across the country.

“More than 60 percent of our sales pipeline is for managed IT solutions,” said Tom Stephenson, president and CEO of Healthcare Management Systems Inc., which owns HMS Direct. “Our ASP model drives significant value for virtually any hospital, with community hospitals poised to be the biggest winners of all.”

Providers rely on HMS Direct for access to EHR applications in addition to reliable, secure and affordable full-system monitoring, data back-ups and seamless software and hardware upgrades. Hospitals’ choice of hosted solutions over conventional on-premise systems is an accelerating healthcare IT trend, particularly among thousands of community hospitals in the U.S.

By choosing the ASP approach, hospitals not only avoid the higher up-front hardware and software investments inherent to on-premise systems, but managed-services agreements enable hospitals to redeploy IT staff to other valuable projects. HMS Direct’s hosted model is a powerful option for a variety of hospitals, and it’s a particularly solid fit for hospitals with 50 or fewer beds preparing for meaningful use.

“HMS Direct’s offering is tailor-made for the community hospital concerned about budgetary constraints, staffing limitations and the privacy and security of patient data,” said Stephenson. “It enables medical professionals to focus on the clinical and operational changes that electronic health records require, so that they can prove meaningful use and improve patient care.”

As part of its growth strategy, HMS Direct plans to increase its data center capacity by moving hosting infrastructure into the Nashville facility of Peak 10, a provider of world-class data centers. Peak 10 facilities are staffed around the clock by highly skilled and experienced engineers and support personnel and will enhance HMS Direct’s offering by ensuring a more secure, fault-tolerant and scalable environment for the additional capacity needed to serve its growing customer base. Peak 10 helps companies comply with regulations such as healthcare’s HIPAA and HITECH Acts; Sarbanes-Oxley regulations for public companies’ financial reporting; and PCI, the credit card industry’s security standards.

About HMS Direct

HMS Direct serves one of the fastest growing markets in the hospital IT industry. The roster of clients that have chosen HMS Direct to host and manage the HMS financial and clinical applications suite on their behalf exceeds 70 facilities. HMS Direct is a wholly owned subsidiary of Healthcare Management Systems Inc. (HMS).

About HMS

Healthcare Management Systems Inc. (HMS) is a Nashville-based healthcare company that develops, sells and supports integrated clinical and financial hospital information systems and services designed to increase efficiency while improving patient safety. The HMS EHR is 2011/2012 compliant and has been certified by Drummond Group, an ONC-ATCB, in accordance with the applicable certification criteria adopted by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Founded in 1984, HMS currently serves nearly 700 community hospitals; behavioral, rehabilitation and long-term acute-care facilities; and multi-entity healthcare organizations nationwide. For more information, please visit www.hmstn.com.

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