Healthcare information company Allscripts and Lyft are joining forces to incorporate non-emergency transportation directly into the physician’s workflow. Leveraging Lyft’s proprietary application programming interface (API) and Allscripts' Open platform, the companies plan to integrate this functionality, into Allscripts Sunrise™ electronic health record (EHR), to enable clinicians to order the Lyft service for patients.

Today, 3.6 million Americans have transportation issues that prevent them from getting to or from a doctor’s appointment, and 25% of lower-income patients have missed or rescheduled appointments due to lack of transportation. Through this partnership, Allscripts and Lyft have the potential to reach millions of Americans, in an effort to eliminate these transportation barriers and improve access to healthcare.

“Our partnership with Allscripts is an important next step towards reaching our goal of cutting in half the number of Americans that face transportation issues to medical appointments by 2020, as we work to ultimately improve people’s lives with the world’s best transportation,” said Gyre Renwick, VP of Lyft Business. 

Sunrise offers an intelligent, comprehensive suite of solutions for large, multi-specialty institutions. Built on an Open platform with advanced clinical decision support, Sunrise provides immediate analysis and insights across inpatient, ambulatory, emergency and other high-acuity care settings.

Allscripts is working to integrate its Sunrise EHR with Lyft’s Concierge API through key points of care. When patients’ transportation needs are noted in Sunrise, an automated workflow would schedule Lyft transportation for that patient. Additionally, tracking boards would provide real-time notifications of patient pickup, ETA and arrival for providers and other members of the care team.