The University Medical Center at Princeton is providing an interoperable electronic health record to its physician clinics.

The QuadraMed Corporation, based in Reston, Va., will collaborate with e-MDs, an Austin, Texas-based developer of EHR products, to provide the ambulatory EHR to affiliated physician practices.

Nick Thimis, CIO of the Princeton, N.J.-based Princeton HealthCare System, said the medical center is looking for a flexible system that provides better coordination of care and meets the needs of both patients and physicians.

“Today, affiliated physician practices can easily access patient information stored within our hospital’s clinical systems for improved decision-making and patient care,” he said.

“I can’t overemphasize the importance of linking inpatient and ambulatory patient history to help ensure greater safety and quality of care,” said Michael Stearns, MD, president and CEO of e-MDs.

Stearns said health information exchange between hospitals and physician practices is often limited by complex technical issues, but the new collaboration uses built-in interoperability that should enable access to secure, accurate and updated patient healthcare information across the continuum of care.

Hospital officials say the new system will help physicians achieve "meaningful use" of healtchcare IT and help pave the way for stimulus funding by 2011. To be eligibile, an organization must demonstrate the electronic capture of health information, implementing clinical decision support for improve diagnostics and reporting clinical quality measures and public health information.

"Through our partnership with e-MDs, we offer the University Medical Center at Princeton a complete suite of healthcare technology solutions to help them meet the 'meaningful use' requirements of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and help them attain stimulus funds,” said Duncan W. James, president and CEO of QuadraMed.

James said e-MDs’ ambulatory EHR solution complements the hospital’s QuadraMed EHR solution and is expected to help the organization increase ROI and realize improvements in patient safety and care.