Rural Healthcare Providers Use Innovative Information Technology Solution to Improve Patient Care

Rural areas of Canada and Vermont see extended benefits of RHIOs using Orion Health solutions as their core technology

Rural Healthcare HIT Meeting, KANSAS CITY, MO.- September 20, 2006 From the first-ever national meeting on rural health information technology (HIT), Orion Health, a leading provider of clinical workflow and integration technology for the healthcare sector, announces that rural-based Regional Health Information Organizations (RHIOs) in Canada and Vermont choose Orion Health technology and solutions to integrate and improve patient care delivery in their unique environments.

Sharing of personal health information is especially important in rural situations for many reasons. The populations generally in greater need of care are poorer and more likely to receive care from multiple physicians due to increased mobility, and a shortage of healthcare providers. They often need to travel great distances to receive care.

In the US, an estimated 25 percent of the population lives in a rural community, but only about ten percent of physicians practice in those same areas.

Orion Health solutions extend existing solutions where they exist and add new capability where none existed previously. Physicians can use the system to refer patients to other doctors or discuss clinical management, even when they are in different organizations and different parts of the state.

Orion Health's Web-based clinical portal and integration solutions provide rural physicians with lower-cost access to broader information stores such as lab results, diagnoses, patient histories and medications information. The system integrates information from multiple information sources, enabling better, more complete diagnosis and therefore better clinical care.

"Although cost is frequently an issue in rural situations, Orion Health's solutions provide a very affordable model for implementation of a RHIO and its attendant benefits" said Paul Viskovich, President, Orion Health North America.

"Orion Health's solutions deliver an ideal model for rural areas - improving patient care and clinical outcomes, reducing costs and utilization such as from emergency admissions."

Healthcare providers can access data securely through the Internet using a standard browser. Orion Health's portal based solutions mean that existing technology investments are preserved, avoiding costly investments in all new software and hardware infrastructure. Adding additional providers and functionality to the system is a marginal cost to existing networks and systems.

Orion Health's disease management and medications management applications provide the answer to long term financial viability of a RHIO.

"The challenge is to effectively share patient information with caregivers across our facilities
and in the community, providing secure access when and where required," said Donna Strating, CIO of Capital Health, Edmonton, Alberta.

"With the help of Orion technology, we will be able to offer our 2,000 physicians and over 6,500 other authorized health care staff access to an unparalleled range of patient lab results, medication information, clinical notes and demographic information."

A case study regarding the Capital Health region-wide electronic health record for Edmonton can be found at http://www.orionhealth.com/casestudies.

Worldwide, Orion Health is implementing health information communities involving over 35 million patients with tens of thousands of active users.

About Orion Health
Orion Health's easy-to-use applications and tools integrate and enhance existing healthcare information systems and deliver secure, universal access to information. The innovative company delivers an end-to-end information technology (IT) integration platform that brings together clinical content to improve clinician effectiveness and the quality of patient care.

Orion Health's partners include leading health and IT vendors such as Oracle Corporation, Philips Medical Systems, LogicaCMG, Hewlett Packard, McKesson, and Sierra Systems. Orion also has more than 10,000 clients worldwide including Johns Hopkins Hospital, New York State Department of Health, Central Washington Hospital, US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and many more. More information can be found at www.orionhealth.com.