NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 7, 2001 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that the Microsoft® Windows® 2000 operating system is quickly becoming the platform of choice for ISVs, who recognize the value the platform brings to their customers in the healthcare industry. To date, more than 50 ISVs are developing healthcare applications for the Windows 2000 platform, including industry leaders such as Medtronic Inc., Siemens Medical Solutions Health Services Corp., Superior Consultant Company Inc., Millbrook Corp., Alteer Corp., Erisco Inc., Eclipsys Corp., Quality Care Systems Inc. and AllScripts Healthcare Solutions. The announcement was made at the 2001 Annual Conference and Exhibition of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (2001 HIMSS).
Eclipsys, an ISV based in Delray Beach, Fla., is using Windows 2000 as the foundation for its new offering of Sunrise Clinical Manager, an enterprisewide information solution that enables physicians and other caregivers to enter orders, with rules-based clinical decision support, and gain instant access to comprehensive patient information such as medical history, allergies, chronic conditions and test results.
“Eclipsys relies on the stability of Windows 2000 to provide a solid foundation for Sunrise Clinical Manager,”
said Randy L. Thomas, senior vice president of strategy and market development for Eclipsys.
“Windows 2000 provides the reliability required for the rigors of the healthcare environment, which is 24×7, 365 days a year. Windows 2000 also positions us well to evolve to the latest Web technologies, through participation in the Microsoft .NET program.”
In addition to providing the reliability and the scalability necessary to meet the needs of the increasingly complex healthcare delivery system, the Windows 2000 platform also offers organizations significant cost savings by integrating with existing IT applications.
“Using an infrastructure based on Windows 2000 enables an organization to add new functionality without having to discard existing systems, and that’s important to healthcare providers during a time of decreasing reimbursement rates and increasing costs of providing care,”
said John Carpenter, healthcare industry manager at Microsoft.
“I am finding that hospitals and health systems are demanding an operating system on which to standardize their operations. Windows 2000 servers and desktop operating systems meet that demand. Equally important is the fact that the Windows 2000 platform enables ISVs and healthcare organizations to build solutions that are compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.”
HIPAA mandates industrywide standardization of administrative processes to reduce paperwork and increase efficiency. The Windows 2000 platform offers a fast, seamless path to the robust security, auditing and access control systems required by the new HIPAA standards.
“The agility of Windows 2000 allowed us to use the cohesive technical infrastructure to design our HIPAA schemas,”
said Lisa Miller, chief technical officer for Washington Publishing Co.
“ISVs, data clearinghouses or healthcare organizations can use the BizTalk™ server HIPAA Accelerator to integrate the schemas with their systems to assist their implementation and meet the requirements of HIPAA transaction sets.”
Microsoft is committed to helping the healthcare industry quickly and economically address the broad security issues raised by the HIPAA initiative. Windows 2000 offers healthcare organizations the most comprehensive end-to-end platform with a unified architecture that is easily deployable and cost-effective.
Healthcare organizations are turning to Windows 2000 to meet the increasingly complex demands of the healthcare industry. For example, Sisters of Mercy Health System-St. Louis, which operates hospitals, physician practices, outpatient clinics, health plans, and related health and human services in an eight-state area, is planning a systemwide upgrade to Windows 2000.
Skip Hubbard, vice president and corporate chief information officer for Sisters of Mercy Health System, said his company chose Windows 2000 because many market leaders are taking advantage of Microsoft technology and because the Windows 2000 platform will allow his company to take full advantage of the Microsoft vision of computing any time, any place, and on any device.
“As people move toward an e-commerce, e-business strategy and an environment where Web-enabled devices play a key role, a lot of the platforms are already being written based on Windows 2000,”
Hubbard said.
“That was a big part of our reason for leveraging our resources and signing an enterprise agreement with Microsoft.”
As more healthcare organizations adopt Windows 2000, Microsoft renews its commitment to providing the best possible solutions across the industry.
“Healthcare is something that affects all of us,”
Carpenter said.
“Microsoft is dedicated to developing technologies that offer smoother processes, a more efficient means of transmitting data and, ultimately, a means for delivering better care.”
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