OSIS Extends NextGen Partnership to Support FQHCs
OSIS, a nonprofit technology services organization that serves community health centers, has expanded its partnership with EHR vendor NextGen Healthcare.
OSIS adopted NextGen Healthcare as its EHR vendor of choice in 2007. As one of NextGen Healthcare's largest partners, OSIS represents over 3 million patient lives across more than 500 locations in underserved communities across 35 states.
Under the expanded partner agreement, NextGen Healthcare clients will have access to robust wraparound services from OSIS, and the organizations will partner on joint marketing efforts, thought leadership, and outreach to community centers nationwide.
The expanded relationship also offers access to Uniform Data System (UDS) and UDS+ consultation and optimization services.
Thousands of community health centers — and the EHR vendors and IT organizations that support them — are in the midst of a huge shift in how they report on quality measures to the federal Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA).
The new platform now being tested, UDS+, is expected to become mandatory in 2025 or 2026 and will overhaul HRSA’s Uniform Data System reporting methodology. HRSA uses UDS data to assess the impact and performance of the Health Center Program and to promote data-driven quality improvement.
UDS+ will involve electronic submission of de-identified patient-level data from health centers to HRSA through automated reporting platforms. HRSA stresses that automating UDS reporting will eventually eliminate the need for health centers to have staff members manually enter UDS data, while simultaneously allowing them to submit more granular data about their patient populations.
HRSA is hoping that UDS+ will increase the utility of UDS report data by aligning with interoperability standards and reporting requirements used across the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and within the healthcare industry. The new program uses standard application programming interfaces (APIs), and HRSA has developed a UDS+ FHIR data receipt and submission process.
“NextGen Healthcare is a proven leader in the community healthcare space and a trailblazer in UDS modernization,” said Jeff Lowrance, CEO of OSIS, in a statement. “Through this relationship, we hope to unlock the power of health IT investments with data-driven insights, improve quality scores, and minimize costs.”
In July 2024, Portland, Ore.-based OCHIN and Cincinnati-based OSIS, two nonprofit organizations with combined health IT operations that support more than 39,000 providers serving over 9.3 million patients at community health centers nationwide, entered into a formal partnership.
Although OSIS will become a wholly owned subsidiary of OCHIN, the organizations stressed that their brands, operations, governance structures, and nonprofit statuses will continue to be independent. OCHIN will remain focused on Epic operations and collaborative members, and OSIS will continue to support NextGen for its members and participating health centers.
Both established nearly 25 years ago, OCHIN and OSIS said they are committed to meeting members where they are, on their respective EHR platform of choice.
OCHIN’s Epic-based network now reaches more than 6.3 million patients through more than 34,000 providers at over 2,000 healthcare delivery sites nationwide.
While some current OSIS members may have interest in transitioning from their NextGen EHR to OCHIN Epic, others will remain on OSIS NextGen or will be free to select a different platform and vendor if they choose based on their specific needs. Through this partnership, OSIS members will have access to additional service offerings not currently available, such as workforce support.
Another goal of the partnership is generating operational savings and production efficiencies through improved third-party contract pricing negotiations and cost advantages derived from economies of scale. Harnessing this collective strength is essential to optimize and advocate for community health centers that today are tasked with delivering both high-quality and high-volume care despite inadequate funding, OCHIN said.
The partnership also offers the opportunity to bring greater community health center representation to national health equity research and advocacy by augmenting the OCHIN-led ADVANCE Clinical Research Network and voluntarily contributing to practice-based research and innovation powered by the largest collection of de-identified community health data in the country.
