Holy Cross Hospital Selects athenahealth to Support Launch of a New Electronic Health Record Platform Across Northern New Mexico

athenahealth, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATHN), a leading provider of web-based practice management, electronic health record (EHR), and patient communication services to medical groups, today announced that Holy Cross Hospital, a regional care delivery organization serving Northern New Mexico, has selected athenahealth’s web-based EHR service, athenaClinicals®, and medical billing service, athenaCollector®, for their owned physician group of 40 providers. Holy Cross Hospital is also offering athenahealth’s services to its affiliated community physician group of 30 providers through a financial assistance program as part of a larger effort to better connect doctors and patients across their health network. As part of this affiliated community physician program, Holy Cross will be in a position to execute on an exciting new extended clinical connectivity strategy making the exchange of health information easier across the region resulting in better care at lower cost.

athenaClinicals will be at the core of a new clinical platform aimed at driving better coordination of care between doctors and their patients. The platform will also enable their providers to participate in new government incentive programs like the HITECH Act. athenaClinicals became 2011/2012 compliant and was certified as a Complete EHR on September 30, 2010, by the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT®), an ONC-ATCB, in accordance with the applicable eligible provider certification criteria adopted by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The 2011/2012 criteria support the Stage 1 meaningful use measures required to qualify eligible providers and hospitals for funding under the ARRA.

"As we looked to deploy what we feel is an ambitious effort to better connect our owned and community providers we quickly realized the need to leverage the latest clinical and practice management technology. We found that in athenahealth,” said Peter Hofstetter, Holy Cross Hospital CEO. "With any large technological shift, we expect there may be workflow challenges and disruption for our providers and feel that the flexible design of athenahealth’s services and their HITECH ACT Bonus guarantee program gives us the best chance for success. We are excited that we are already seeing success in community physicians adopting the new electronic health record system and look forward to further empowering them to deliver the best care possible and more easily participate in new government and state programs.”

athenahealth recently extended the timeframe in which doctors can qualify for its federal stimulus bonus payment guarantee program that assures the Company’s web-based services will help doctors across the nation, including those in New Mexico, meet EHR certification requirements for achieving "Meaningful Use” and thereby qualify for reimbursement funds authorized by the HITECH Act. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) formally announced the final definition of Meaningful Use on July 13, 2010. With this deadline extension, physicians will now have until June 30, 2011, to participate in the program. Please visit www.athenahealth.com/bonus to learn more about athenahealth's EHR and the Company’s federal stimulus bonus payment guarantee program.

"Holy Cross has a bold and exciting strategy to leverage athenahealth’s cloud-based services to not only drive better operational results across its network but ultimately arm its providers with technology to help deliver the best care possible and participate in new government incentive programs,” said Jonathan Bush, athenahealth’s Chairman and CEO. "Given their geographic location and nature of their care delivery organization, Holy Cross has the foresight to move their physicians onto a web-based platform that can more easily connect their clinics and patients and exchange health information across Northern New Mexico.”

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About Holy Cross Hospital

Holy Cross Hospital is a regional acute-care facility whose mission is to provide preventative, curative and supportive health care services. We strive to maintain high-quality standards and utilize innovative, educational and cost-effective approaches for all members of the Taos community and surrounding areas. For more information please visit: www.taoshospital.org.

About athenahealth

athenahealth, Inc. is a leading provider of web-based business services for medical groups. athenahealth’s service offerings are based on proprietary web-native practice management and electronic health record (EHR) software, a continuously updated payer knowledge-base, integrated back-office service operations, and automated and live patient communication services. For more information, please visit www.athenahealth.com or call (888) 652-8200.

This press release contains forward-looking statements, which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding the benefits of and prospective markets for athenahealth’s service offerings. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in these forward-looking statements. In particular, the risks and uncertainties include, among other things: the risk that our service offerings will not operate in the manner that we expect, due to design flaws, security breaches, or otherwise; potential interruptions or delays in our internet-based service offerings; our reliance upon third parties, such as computer hardware, software, data-hosting, and internet infrastructure providers, which reliance may result in failures or disruptions in our service offerings; errors or omissions included in our payer and clinical intelligence rules engine and database; and the evolving and complex government regulatory compliance environment in which we and our clients operate. Existing and prospective investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. athenahealth undertakes no obligation to update or revise the information contained in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or circumstances, or otherwise. For additional disclosure regarding these and other risks faced by athenahealth, please see the disclosure contained in our public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, available on the Investors section of our website at http://www.athenahealth.com and on the SEC’s website at http://www.sec.gov.