REDMOND, Wash., April 11, 2000 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that major software developers, hardware-makers and industry participants in the health-care and health-insurance fields are moving rapidly to adopt the Microsoft® Windows® operating system and the broader Microsoft end-to-end platform and technologies for their enterprisewide, mission-critical applications.
Industry software providers, including Erisco Managed Care Technologies and Eclipsys Corp., announced that upcoming major versions of their popular health-care solutions will support Windows 2000. And QCSI’s QMACS health-care software solution has now demonstrated industry-leading scalability and performance on Windows 2000 and the Microsoft SQL Server TM 7.0 client-server database management system running on Compaq ProLiant hardware.
In addition, health-care industry companies now can extend their Windows 2000-based solutions from the server all the way to the palmtop with new Windows CE-based devices such as the Physicians Prescription and Referral Information System (PPARIS) from ParkStone Medical Information Systems Inc.
Erisco’s Facets Software Expands Support for Windows
Erisco’s Facets Software, an industry-leading client/server solution for payor and client-care administration, supports Facets 2.91 on Windows and is moving to support Facets 3.0 on Windows 2000.
“We are pleased to be able to offer our customers the ability to run Facets software on a Windows platform,”
said Bruce Kaurene, vice president of advanced technology solutions at Erisco, an IMS HEALTH company based in New York City.
“Moving forward, our customers will be able to take advantage of the tremendous reliability, scalability, performance and cost-effectiveness that Windows 2000 offers.”
Great West Life, a Colorado-based health plan, has chosen to deploy Erisco’s Facets on Windows, making it the largest health plan to date to run mission-critical BackOffice® -based claims administration on the Microsoft platform.
“We need a health-care management solution that will support our 3.5 million members, and we chose Microsoft Windows and SQL Server as core products to meet our long-term strategic needs for reliability and scalability,”
said Craig Dahl, IT director at Great West Life in Englewood, Colo.
“We are very excited about using Microsoft technology to integrate previously stove-piped applications, to quickly develop Web-enabled applications and enhance the operation of our IT infrastructure.”
Eclipsys Sees Sunrise Solutions Boosting Power With Support for Windows 2000
“Health-care delivery organizations can gain the biggest benefit from Eclipsys’ Sunrise family of outcomes-enhancing information solutions by deploying them throughout their enterprises,”
said Sam Robinson, Eclipsys’ chief technology officer.
“Solutions such as our knowledge-based Sunrise Clinical Manager put information needed by physicians, caregivers and other health-care providers at their fingertips when it’s needed most – at the point of care delivery. These integrated solutions are tremendously powerful on other versions of Windows today and will become even more powerful on Windows 2000.”
Eclipsys customer Fairview Health Services, a Minneapolis-based integrated health network, is implementing Sunrise information solutions throughout its network of seven hospitals, 96 clinics, home-care and hospice services, retail pharmacies and long-term care facilities. The adoption of Sunrise is part of an aggressive, enterprisewide physician-integration strategy that seeks to improve patient care and satisfaction while minimizing the occurrence of medical errors and cutting costs.
Eclipsys customer Medcenter One Health Systems, one of the nation’s largest integrated health-care networks, based in Bismarck, N.D., also is implementing the Sunrise information solutions throughout its enterprise. The move will help Medcenter One coordinate care-delivery across all its services and facilities as well as reduce the possibility of medical errors.
Windows Provides Backbone for End-to-End Health-Care Platform Solution
“Microsoft provides the technology infrastructure across the wide range of demanding health-care scenarios, from handheld devices to enterprisewide, mission-critical applications, and few applications are more mission-critical than health-care management solutions,”
said Richard Noffsinger, group manager for health care at Microsoft.
“We are working closely with health-care applications providers and customers to ensure that Windows 2000 is the ideal backbone for an end-to-end Windows platform solution for health care that extends through the desktop to exciting new Windows-powered Palm-size devices.”
Built for the Palm-size PC and Windows CE kernal, ParkStone’s information management system enables physicians to manage and write prescriptions, and generate and track diagnostic test orders and referrals in compliance with insurance company guidelines. Physicians using ParkStone’s wireless or cradle-based solutions receive information and software updates from ParkStone’s Windows- and SQL Server 7.0-based system, ensuring that the most up-to-date information is available to physicians when at the office, at home, or anywhere else they need access to critical patient information.
QCSI Proves the Scalability, Reliability of Windows 2000 for Health Care
The QCSI benchmark, released last month, confirms that the QMACS application running on Windows 2000, SQL Server 7.0 and Compaq ProLiant servers can support the growth and complex processing requirements of large commercial health-care insurance plans. Results confirmed that QMACS, running with three servers, was scalable from 100,000 covered lives to more than 9 million covered lives, with a user base of between 10 and 4,000 concurrent users.
In addition, the independently audited benchmark tests, using live health-plan data, showed that QMACS is a significantly more cost-effective, flexible solution than traditional solutions available to the health-insurance industry. The average processing cost per claim will be reduced significantly and the time needed to process large claim volumes will be hours instead of days, providing crucial business benefits to health-insurance companies.
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http://www.microsoft.com/industry/health/
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/
http://www.microsoft.com/
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