"Welcome to our company blog. Within these blog posts, we hope to share our insights on clinical quality management, the patient-centered medical home, chronic disease management in primary care, evidence-based medicine, and the use of technology in ambulatory care settings."

- David Morin, CEO and Donald Nease Jr., MD, Chief Medical Officer

I am very pleased to introduce the latest member of the Cielo team, Mr. Dale Hunscher.  Dale is the company's new Chief Technology Officer and he brings a tremendous amount of expertise to the company. Dale has spent over 25 years in software engineering and software design management roles.  For the last seven years, he served in various healthcare informatics roles at the University of Michigan and was widely published during that time.  Prior to the University, Dale was the CEO of an Ann Arbor software design company. His blog, FutureHIT, examines the future of health information technology and is widely read in the healthcare informatics circles. Dale's expertise in healthcare software design and architectures further ensures that Cielo will continue to lead the market in internet-delivered solutions for clinical quality management. Dave Morin Co-Founder and CEO Cielo MedSolutions LLC

2009 provided Cielo with 100% growth, the third year of triple-digit growth by our company.  Of course, we're proud of that.  But more so, we're proud of what our customers are doing with Cielo Clinic - high-performing patient-centered medical homes, great increases in care quality, stronger pay-for-performance reimbursements.  This is the greatest testament we share on the power of our product. Dave Morin Co-Founder and CEO Cielo MedSolutions LLC

Happy New Year! I’m happy to report that we had a 400% growth in Cielo Clinic software licenses in 2008. In 2009, we will process our 1,000,000th patient encounter with our system. This is great testimonial to the power of Cielo Clinic. Dave Morin CEO and Co-Founder Cielo MedSolutions

I'm asked quite a lot about uploading clinical data directly to CMS to support the PQRI program. Along with the questions we often hear conjecture about the status of the project and what a provider can do. Today I will outline Cielo’s involvement in the programs. CMS has put forward two programs related to Registries submitting data on behalf of practices for PQRI measurement. 1) 2008 PQRI Registry Test & 2) 2008 Registry-Based Data Submission. Cielo is involved in both the Test program as well as the Data Submission program. Goals of the Registry Test program are to validate a registries' ability to gather, calculate and report on PQRI quality measures. Goals for the Registry-Based Data Submission program are to enable physicians to participate in the 1.5% incentive payment portion of PQRI through an alternative reporting system (their Registry). Cielo’s involvement in the two PQRI related projects: PQRI Registry Test Program The 2008 PQRI Registry Test program was initiated by CMS in early 2008. This program was a “test submission only” program in which no incentive payments were available. Cielo has been involved from the inception of this program including a meeting at CMS offices in Baltimore. As part of our test submission we captured, calculated and reported PQRI measure #1 (Hemoglobin A1c Poor Control in Type 1 or 2 Diabetes Mellitus). We were notified earlier this week that our first submission was validated without error and that we have met the requirements of the program. Registry-Based Data Submission In May of this year Cielo self-nominated to be accepted into the Registry-Based Data Submission program. There are NO approved vendors yet. Registries had until May 31 to submit their self-nomination and must go through an interview, documentation and testing process prior to the end of August. Around August 31, 2008 there will be an announcement from CMS listing the registries that qualify. Once selected a registry will be allowed to submit PQRI data to CMS in January and February 2009. Cielo has met all steps involved with this process and awaits an announcement of the selected vendors. I think it should be noted, though, that there is quite a bit of "devil in the details" and would highly recommend reading about the projects at the CMS website. As usual, it’s never as easy as “just dropping in a registry”. Chris King Senior Vice President Cielo MedSolutions