athenahealth, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATHN), a provider of cloud-based services and mobile applications for medical groups and health systems, today launched athenaInsight, a daily news hub reporting on American healthcare by drawing upon the activity and trends of more than 80,000 healthcare providers and 81 million de-identified patients on the athenahealth network. athenaInsight provides an unparalleled look into the habits of high-performing health systems, drivers of effective physician leadership and engagement, and trends tied to public health, such as Zika, opioids and the flu virus.

An infographic accompanying this announcement is available at 
http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/6fffe288-388b-4e01-a49f-a175d2dffb1b

“Healthcare suffers from a critical lack of cross-continuum information and knowledge sharing,” said Jonathan Bush, CEO, athenahealth. “With athenaInsight, we’re working to address this by putting our network—one of the largest data sets in the healthcare industry—to work. We are uniquely positioned to leverage our network data and zero-in on healthcare’s bright spots, the corners of healthcare where innovation is yielding results. We do this with our clients every day, but now with athenaInsight, we’ll share what we see, what we know, and what we learn with a much broader audience.”

As part of its launch, athenaInsight is tapping into athenahealth’s network data to investigate opioid prescribing trends on a national scale and reporting on the many dimensions of the nation’s opioid crisis with in-depth features, expert interviews, and data-backed charts and infographics. This ongoing reporting project explores prescribing patterns and insights, as well as stories about the impact of opioids on patients, providers and clinical settings.   

athenahealth Works with CDC and other Specialty Societies to Combat Opioid Abuse

As part of its commitment to help address the opioid crisis, athenahealth has collaborated with the CDC to launch the Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain, an interactive, patient-specific tool designed to be used in 90 seconds at the point-of-care. Since its launch this spring, this has become the most-viewed guideline in Epocrates, the number one mobile medical reference app¹. Through its EHR, athenaClinicals, providers gain easy access to drug safety information and automated drug-interaction alerts. Also, in partnership with various specialty societies, athenahealth is actively identifying and alerting patients with opioid-related health risks and their providers across its network using evidence-based clinical guidelines. 

“The current landscape of opioids in healthcare is complex and continues to evolve,” said Dr. Todd Lininger, Chief Medical Officer, Prospira Pain Care. “Having technology serve as a partner in our fight against this epidemic is essential – from helping to understand regulations, serving up best practices, and even taking the lead on reaching out directly to providers and patients when clinically necessary. The work that athenahealth is doing across its platform is exactly what healthcare needs.” 

For more information about athenaInsight and for coverage of the opioid epidemic, please visit www.athenaInsight.com. To explore data as it flows across the healthcare Internet, check out the athenaInsight interactive look at interoperability.  

About athenahealth, Inc.
athenahealth is a leading provider of cloud-based services for electronic health records (EHR), revenue cycle management and  medical billing, patient engagement, care coordination, and population health management, as well as Epocrates and other point-of-care mobile apps. We connect care and drive meaningful, measurable results for more than 80,000 health care providers in medical practices and health systems nationwide. For more information, please visit www.athenahealth.com.

¹ Epocrates has been recognized as the #1 medical reference app in terms of reach on smartphones according to the 2016 Taking the Pulse® U.S. study