Athenahealth taps William Winkenwerder for board

December 15, 2009 by MassDevice staff

Athenahealth Inc. (NSDQ:ATHN) tapped Dr. William Winkenwerder, a former Defense Dept. official who led the implementation of the world's largest electronic medical records system, for its board of directors.

Winkenwerder, currently chairman of a healthcare consulting company, was assistant secretary of defense for health affairs from 2001 to 2007. There he was in charge of the Military Health System, leading the implementation of the Armed Forces Health Longitudinal Technology Application. AHLTA is the military's electronic health records system that handles record-keeping duties for 9.2 million patients.

That experience will no doubt come in handy at Athenahealth, which is developing a Web-based EMR service.

Watertown, Mass.-based Athenahealth Inc. took a big hit to its bottom line during the third quarter, as a result of a tax provision that saw the company giving back about half of its profits to the feds.

The company paid more than $2.3 million in taxes during the three months ended Sept. 30, a charge that pushed its net income down to $2.3 million, compared to $3.7 million for the same period last year.

Without the income tax provision, Athenahealth would have turned a 32 percent increase in profits over the same period last year. Company officials said the provision was the result of a "reversal of a valuation allowance against U.S. deferred tax assets in the fourth quarter of 2008."

Permalink