July 24, 2024
PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Kelsey Butz
butzk@ochin.org
(518) 256-7540
The new agreement brings greater EHR platform choice to providers, while ensuring reliable access to equitable, high-quality care for roughly 30% of nation’s health center patients.
PORTLAND, Ore. and CINCINNATI (July 24, 2024) — OCHIN and OSIS, two national nonprofit organizations collectively supporting over 39,000 providers serving over 9.3 million patients, have entered into a formal partnership to help address a growing number of challenges that hinder today’s health care delivery system. The new partner agreement aligns OCHIN and OSIS capabilities to better support health center sustainability and fuel innovation for member organizations nationwide.
“At the heart of the new OCHIN and OSIS partnership is a shared belief that today’s health care system requires innovative approaches to connecting and transforming access to care,” said Abby Sears, president and CEO of OCHIN. “By standing together and joining forces, OCHIN and OSIS can make an even greater and more enduring impact for the providers, patients, and communities we serve.”
Technical staffing shortages, rising operational costs, and increasingly complex patient care require comprehensive electronic health record (EHR) solutions. By working together to develop affordable and tailored EHR strategies for providers in systemically underserved communities, the new OCHIN and OSIS partnership builds the resilience of both networks and will help transform care for roughly 30% of the estimated 31.5 million health center patients nationwide.
“OSIS and OCHIN have simultaneously been working to tackle the same issues that impact our Community Health Center Community. This new partnership allows us to remain independent but share resources for more efficient problem solving across the country,” said Jeff Lowrance, CEO of OSIS. “I look forward to continued growth for both our organizations and the ability to strengthen our mission in alleviating the burden that IT initiatives can add to safety-net organizations. We will continue to make a difference for those who need it the most.”
In addition to supporting members’ daily operations, the OCHIN and OSIS partnership will bring greater health center representation to national health equity research and advocacy, drive operational savings through collaborative innovation, and help address workforce shortages by tapping into the available talent and technical expertise present across both organizations to fill critical roles.
Both established nearly 25 years ago, OSIS and OCHIN each bring unique areas of expertise to the partnership, allowing greater choice for CHCs who can continue to depend on tailored support for their respective EHR platforms as they grow and innovate for the future.
OCHIN will continue to support rural hospitals following its 2023 expansion into acute care.
For more information about OCHIN and OSIS, visit their websites.
December 6, 2024 update:
To learn more about the OCHIN-OSIS partnership, listen to a Health IT and EHR podcast episode featuring Abby Sears of OCHIN and Jeff Lowrance of OSIS.
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About OCHIN
OCHIN is a nonprofit leader in equitable health care innovation and a trusted partner to a growing national provider network. With the largest collection of community health data in the country and more than two decades of practice-based research and solutions expertise, OCHIN provides the clinical insights and tailored technologies needed to expand patient access, grow and connect care teams, and improve the health of rural and medically underserved communities.
About OSIS
OSIS is a non-profit technology services organization representing the nation’s largest and most successful network of NextGen Health Centers. To strengthen the NextGen experience, OSIS shares commonalities that drive innovation and efficiency and have developed a series of solutions and tools to manage patient populations, reduce documentation time while capturing quality measures, and report on the factors that drive your organization. OSIS’ mission is to reduce the technology burden for Health Centers, allowing the main focus to remain on patient care.
