Interwell Health Welcomes Eight New Practices to Acumen Epic Connect

Cambridge, Mass. – Jan. 9, 2024 – Interwell Health, a kidney care management company that partners with physicians on its mission to reimagine healthcare, today announced that it has added eight new practices and more than 450 providers to its Acumen Epic Connect (Acumen) platform in the past year. Acumen, the most-adopted nephrology-specific electronic health record (EHR), enables these practices to better support physicians in their transition to value-based care and improve patient outcomes.

Most nephrology practices using Acumen participate in value-based care agreements with government and private payers. The nephrology-focused configuration of the Epic EHR platform allows practices to identify opportunities to improve quality of care provided to individual patients, while also measuring the effects of value-based initiatives across their entire patient population.

"Acumen Epic Connect is key to fulfilling our mission of reimagining kidney care and helping people with chronic kidney disease live healthier lives,” said Robert Sepucha, CEO of Interwell Health. “It is a powerful tool that helps independent nephrology practices improve patient care and succeed in new value-based care agreements. We are thrilled that so many leading nephrology practices nationwide have made Acumen their EHR of choice.”

The new practices implementing Acumen include:

• Dallas Nephrology Associates 
• Kidney Care of Oregon 
• Knoxville Kidney Center in Tennessee
• Lafayette Kidney Care in Louisiana 
• Metrolina Nephrology Associates in North Carolina
• Nevada Kidney Disease and Hypertension Center 
• Northwest Renal Clinic in Oregon

These practices join 2,500 kidney care providers who currently use Acumen. Seventy-three percent of Interwell Health’s physician network uses this EHR system, a percentage that has continued to increase since the merger of Acumen with Interwell Health in 2022. 

Acumen offers features that improve collaboration between nephrology practices, hospitals, and dialysis centers. The software also leverages decades of longitudinal information to help practices understand how they are performing relative to their peers.

“Acumen Epic Connect is the digital front door for us to provide care in this transformation toward value-based care which is helping us improve the lives of all our patients,” said Dr. Charles Zachem, Managing Partner of Kidney Care of Oregon. “Acumen provides the analytics and interoperability that we need to provide high quality population health. It has added immediately available actionable data that allows us success as we transition to value-based care while also performing in the fee-for-service world. We would not be able to bridge these two worlds without Acumen.”

“Physicians are excited about the capabilities of Acumen Epic Connect and its ability to help their practices improve their workflows and operations,” said Sam Gopal, President of Acumen Physician Solutions. “Our team works very closely with practices at every step to provide a smooth transition and we rely on their feedback to ensure our technology remains best-in-class.”

Acumen reached a milestone of five million patient records in its system in 2023, which is now over six million. In 2023, Acumen again received Epic Connect Accreditation, becoming one of a select group of Epic organizations to earn this honor in consecutive years. Dr. Timothy McNamara, Acumen’s Medical Director, was recently elected to Epic’s Nephrology Steering Board which is comprised of 13 leaders from academic institutions and healthcare organizations across the country.

More information can be found at:acumenmd.com.