Corporate

Health IT Adoption Rates Drive Orion Health Continued Global Growth

Orion Health Inc. has achieved a strong profit performance for the year ending March 31, 2010 in spite of the economic turmoil's impact across the industry. Orion Health's gross sales revenue across the group increased 28% percent in the second half of 2010 compared with the same period last year.

According to Ian McCrae, Orion Health CEO, the past year has been one of the strongest in the global marketplace for the company, which has been providing interoperability solutions to the healthcare industry since 1993. Based on the momentum seen during the first two months of fiscal year 2011, Mr. McCrae is confident this consistent quarter-on-quarter growth will continue throughout 2010.

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Reforms Benefit Orion Health

By Claire McEntee - The Dominion Post

Auckland software firm Orion Health says it is already cashing in on major health reforms in the United States, which could see tens of billions of dollars poured into health technology.

US President Barack Obama last month signed off the historic health reforms, which mainly seek to overhaul health insurance in the country but also promise to dramatically boost the use of health technology, including electronic health records.

Orion chief executive Ian McCrae says the firm concluded several large sales in the US in the last six months, as the reforms - which could see as much as US$30 billion go into electronic health records- took shape and funding began to trickle through.

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New Product Releases

Rhapsody Version 4

The latest version of Orion Health's integration engine software will be released next month and focuses on providing world class leading integration technology. The new features also enhance Rhapsody as a healthcare service bus for those using service oriented architectures (SOA) to solve their integration challenges. Rhapsody provides high-performance, standards-based healthcare interoperability required for better information exchange and better patient outcomes.

Rhapsody's technology-independent approach makes it the best choice for hospital environments, regional solutions or anyone focused on providing better health services based on sharing patient data.

Rhapsody 4 will provide unparalleled capabilities for both interface development and operational support without compromising on ease of use. Key features and enhancements include:

Support for the latest communication standards such as secure Web Services. These standards have been adopted by groups such as HL7 (for version 3 messaging) and Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE)
Managed look-up tables for code system translations and other conversions
Advanced monitoring options with a new secure monitoring API and programmatic interface
Simplified interfaces for monitoring and archive browsing
A drag and drop interface designed specifically for the interface analyst

Orion Health Demonstrates Unrivalled Interoperability During ITK Proof of Concept Project

Earlier this year, Orion Health successfully implemented the new NHS Interoperability Toolkit (ITK) standards published by Connecting for Health, by completing end-to-end testing of the Discharge Summary scenarios with eight vendors.

The Electronic Discharge Summary Proof of Concept involved a series of witness testings by a team from Connecting for Health.Orion Health used the Rhapsody Integration Engine and Concerto Clinician Portal as integral components in the proof of concept.

Orion Health is now focused on how it can help NHS Trusts rapidly and safely share clinical data through the ITK.

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Delivering Software as a Service for the NHS market

The National Program for IT (NPfIT) promised huge improvements in information technology support for clinical care in the English NHS when recently adopting the Connecting for Healthcare (CFH) philosophy. However, the NHS Trusts continue to face an uphill battle balancing the demands of users and the objectives of the NPfIT against an ever-decreasing IM&T budget. Not to mention the backdrop of uncertainty in the future political situation in the UK.

Orion Health has launched a solution exclusively for the NHS in England and Wales. Orion Health Software as a Service consists of the same market-leading software utilized by nearly 40 NHS Trusts in the UK including the Rhapsody Integration Engine, Concerto Portal and other software capabilities such as discharge summaries, disease management, bed management and many others - the difference is the way the software is made available and, as a result, the costs.

Download the brochure here [PDF - 680KB]...

New Customers Across the Globe

Concord Hospital Selects Orion Health to Streamline Data Integration for New EMR

Concord Hospital, a regional medical center, and one of the busiest acute care hospitals in the State of New Hampshire, has selected the Orion Health Rhapsody Integration Engine to supplement and eventually replace their current solution, Sun Microsystems eGate. Rhapsody will serve as the hospital's new and advanced platform to migrate, manage, and streamline message exchange for their new Health Information System (HIS).

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Orion Health Signs First Scandinavian Deal

Earlier this year Orion Health signed its first major deal in Scandinavia, following the signing of a framework agreement between Logica and the South-Eastern Norwegian Regional Health Authority. The main goal of the new clinical desktop solution is to enable easier access to data services and applications for doctors and nurses, efficient sharing of information across hospitals and to improve workflow in the organization.

Under the agreement, Logica, in cooperation with subcontractors Orion Health Ltd. and Exonor, will deliver an easy-to-use portal that will integrate existing work processes and patient data systems in the region's hospitals, initially at the Oslo University Hospital.

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Orion Health helps Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust deliver an enhanced Electronic Patient Record

Orion Health recently won a significant contract to deliver a future-proof solution at one of the UK's largest NHS Foundation Trusts. The project at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust will integrate Orion Health's solution while keeping existing IT systems in place, allowing for the timely delivery of a considerably richer Electronic Patient Record. Orion Health, in partnership with Initiate and Oracle, will help the Trust by delivering concise patient data to clinical users enabling them to make more informed decisions and improve quality of care.

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Orion Health appointed for pilot ECR Project for Northern Ireland

Orion Health Ltd was appointed by Northern Ireland to pilot a new Electronic Care Record (ECR). The one-year pilot phase will see hospitals and GP practices across two of the five Health and Social Care Trusts begin to share medical records and basic social care information using the Concerto Portal from Orion Health. Concerto Portal is a web-based clinical portal that provides a unified view of patient data sourced from many disparate information systems and databases across a healthcare organization.

Read full press release here...

Orion Health User Group Events

North America Rhapsody User Group - San Francisco, CA

This year for the spring North America Rhapsody User Group Orion Health decided to switch things up and change locations from Las Vegas to San Francisco. The change to San Francisco was a welcomed one with many of our customers, partners and Orion Health staff expressing excitement to be in this wonderful, historical and upbeat city for the first time.

As always Orion Health offered 3 days of training sessions including a couple new sessions - Rhapsody for Decision Makers and SOA/Web Services for Rhapsody v4.0.

Following the training session days, we had our Rhapsody User Group conference. After introductions, updates (including the announcement of Rhapsody version 4.0), and corporate announcements from Orion Health the microphone was passed to customers to give insightful presentations on their first hand experience using Rhapsody.

Customer presenters included Mississippi State Department of Health to discuss the use of Rhapsody Connect and public health reporting, Virtual Radiologic to discuss the various ways in which they are using Rhapsody including finals billing, notifications of images received and interpretive services and finally the State of Michigan presented on the use of Rhapsody to achieve PCI Compliance.

For the evening Orion Health hosted a dinner and drinks event on the top floor of the hotel at Harry Denton's Starlight Lounge, a historic gem, voted #1 Night Club in San Francisco. Guests were able to enjoy food and drinks while looking out at the 360 degree view of San Francisco and a beautiful west coast sunset.

UK User Group - Northumbria, UK

The 2010 UK User Group conference was held at the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust Conference site in April. The highlight of this years conference is credited to the numerous customer presentations we had from Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, West Suffolk Hospitals NHS Trust and Herfordshire PCT. We also had a partner presentation by Kainos Software.

Orion Health also took this as a great opportunity to introduce customers to the newly appointed President of International, Charles Scatchard. During his discussion with the group he introduced Orion Health's new SaaS offering generating a lot of interest from our customers.

Australia User Group - Sydney, Australia

Customers, prospects, vendors and Orion Health staff gathered for a two-day conference in May to hear from leading industry speakers and discuss healthcare IT issues facing the nation.

They keynote speaker at this year's event was the deputy director from the Menzies Centre for Health Policy at the University of Sydney, who specializes in Australian and international health policy. Having just returned from a briefing in Canberra on the government's health care plan, Dr Jim Gillespie explained what this latest policy meant for the future of eHealth in Australia. Then just a day later Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced another $2b spending on Health and specifically the introduction of electronic health records.

New Zealand User Group - Auckland, New Zealand

This year's conference was the largest we have had in recent years - and an indication that the New Zealand health IT sector is once again eager to move forward and return to being one of the worlds leading health systems.

The theme of the conference was about encouraging leadership and innovation in the health IT sector in New Zealand and included presentations and discussion on New Zealand's National Health IT plan. The conference also included educational sessions focusing on integration capabilities of Concerto Portal and Rhapsody Integration Engine.

Partner Announcements

Philips and Orion Health Partner to Deliver on Enterprise Interoperability

On April 29th, Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI) announced an agreement with Orion Health, a leading provider of integration solutions in healthcare, to deploy the Orion Health Rhapsody Integration Engine across Philips' portfolio of healthcare informatics solutions.

Read full press release here...

Chatham County Safety Net Planning Council Goes Live with Orion Health HIE

In April, the Chatham County Safety Net Planning Council (CCSNPC) of Savannah, Georgia announced the "go live" of their Health Information Exchange (HIE). CCSNP leverages both Orion Health's extensive experience with HIEs which globally involve over 35 million patients, and the expertise of the Initiate Catalyst Patient Registry software from Initiate, an IBM Company. The combined solution delivers a complete and accurate view of a patient's health records.

Read full press release here...

Hospitals and Health Systems Have a New Solution for Zero Footprint Image Exchange

At the HIMSS 2010 Conference in Atlanta, Georgia earlier this year, Orion Health announced a new solution to enable physicians to view images from multiple systems without negatively impacting network bandwidth.

Based on Merge Healthcare technology, Concerto Enterprise Image Viewer creates a cost-effective solution to access diagnostic images from multiple databases and share them across an enterprise or a health information exchange (HIE) without high-end hardware expense.

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Vangent Partners with Orion Health to Offer Robust, Scalable Health Information Exchange

Vangent, Inc., a leading global provider of information management and strategic business process services and Orion Health have entered into a strategic partnership for the HIE market.

The partnership leverages Vangent's health IT thought leadership and expertise architecting national solutions for health information exchange, such as the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN), and Orion Health's unparalleled expertise in designing, implementing, and operating an integrated, secure HIE solution. Together, the two companies bring a track record of working collaboratively with health care innovators supporting successful HIE initiatives around the world.

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Orion Health Online Community

Online Documentation for Customers

Did you know? Orion Health now offers Documentation Online for customers to support Orion Health products, for example; Product Manuals, Functional Release Notes, generic UAT Scripts, Training Manuals and product descriptions. Access is provided through support tracker (you must be an existing customer and have an authorized support tracker login for access).

Documentation can be accessed directly via a URL and/or via the products Online Help directly to the User Manual - allowing users to add comments to the documentation.

Orion Health forums are also live, providing you with a place to share best practices, engage with other users and hear about the latest product updates.

Sponsorship

Adventure Racing Team OrionHealth.com

Adventure Racing World Champions, Orion Health welcome another year of excitement, intensity and extreme body and mind challenges in regions around the globe.

This year Team Orion Health has two main goals:

Regain the title of Adventure Racing World Champs
Inspire others to experience and succeed in the outdoors

They plan to achieve these goals by, competing in a number of local and international races to gain experiences racing as a team leading up the Adventure Racing World Championship in Spain (30 September - 9 October).

To follow the team throughout the race season and to learn more about the sport visit their website.

From the team at Orion Health we wish you all the best.

www.orionhealth.com