Microsoft Healthcare Users Group and Microsoft Announce Winners of 2005 MS-HUG Annual Awards

Microsoft Healthcare Users Group and Microsoft Announce Winners of 2005 MSHUG Annual Awards —

Awards Acknowledge Innovative Use of Microsoft Technology by Healthcare Industry Leaders

REDMOND, Wash. — Feb. 15, 2005 — Today at the HIMSS 2005 Conference & Exhibition, Microsoft Corp. and Microsoft Healthcare Users Group (MS-HUG) announced the winners of the eighth annual MS-HUG awards. The awards acknowledge hospitals, clinics, health plans and healthcare providers that demonstrate the best use of Microsoft-based products in patient care as well as independent software vendors (ISVs) that develop solutions on Microsoft technology. The awards recognize the most innovative solutions and implementations in the industry; each winner provides significant business benefits to healthcare organizations that are driving improved patient care.

The honors are awarded by MS-HUG, a membership community of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), in recognition of significant contributions to improve the quality of patient care. An independent panel of judges, including leaders in the healthcare industry and domain experts, selected the winners, which were announced at HIMSS 2005 at the Microsoft booth No. 3035.

“As healthcare technology rises to the forefront of the national consciousness, advancements that improve the overall efficiency and productivity of the healthcare industry become even more critical. We are pleased to honor these organizations and individuals who have demonstrated their commitment to leading the industry in transforming patient care with proven technology,” said Steve Shihadeh, general manager of Healthcare and Life Sciences at Microsoft.

“This year’s MS-HUG winners have impressed us with their use of innovative technology to address key challenges faced by the healthcare industry,” said Drexel DeFord, chairman of the MS-HUG Advisory Committee. “Each winner is using technology to significantly advance the industry’s ability to provide high-quality care.”

The customer winners for 2005 are as follows:

Microsoft Customer Awards Winners

  • Microsoft Clinic of the Year: Ogden Clinic, Ogden, Utah. Ogden Clinic, founded in 1950, is a multispecialty group whose mission is to be the clinic of choice for patients, employees and providers, where needs are met through high-quality care.

  • Microsoft Health Plan of the Year: Partnership HealthPlan of California, Fairfield, Calif . PHC is a nonprofit health plan serving 85,000 Medicaid enrollees. Using Visual Studio .NET, PHC has developed nine secure online applications, allowing it to be provider-friendly and provide member access to specialists.

  • Microsoft Hospital of the Year: Alamance Regional Medical Center, Burlington, N.C . With the approach that computerized physician order entry (CPOE) is the right thing for patients, Alamance Regional Medical Center has transformed patient care using Eclipsys’ Sunrise Clinical Manager.

  • Microsoft Nurse of the Year: Monica Andrews, R.N., Center for Assisted Reproduction, Bedford, Texas . Andrews has been a nurse at the Center for Assisted Reproduction since July 2001. She has been actively using the enterprisewide inpatient electronic medical record system since the beginning of her tenure.

  • Microsoft Physician of the Year: Craig F. Feied, M.D., FACEP, FAAEM, National Institute for Medical Informatics and MedStar Health, Washington, D.C . Dr. Feied has applied technology to overcome many of the barriers medical systems face today. He designed a robust data-acquisition infrastructure that, among other benefits, allows more than 300 interfaces to legacy systems in the hospital, providing 24×7 access to isolated islands of valuable data.

The ISV winners for 2005 are as follows:

Healthcare ISV Winners

Administrative/Financial Systems

  • NextGen Healthcare Information Systems Inc. , NextGen EPM. NextGen Healthcare is a leading provider of practice management (PM) and electronic medical record (EMR) software. Ideal for multiprovider enterprises or solo practitioners, NextGen EPM automates office administration and streamlines registration, scheduling and billing.

Acute Care: Clinical/Patient Information Systems

  • dbMotion Ltd., the dbMotion System . dbMotion, an innovative provider of medical informatics, enables healthcare organizations to securely share patient-centric clinical information, regardless of the format or the geographical and operational distribution of the data.

Ambulatory Care: Clinical/Patient Information Systems*

  • Allscripts, TouchWorks . Allscripts provides clinical software solutions that inform, connect and transform healthcare. TouchWorks, the award-winning electronic health record, is used by thousands of physicians nationwide every day to transform patient care.

  • iMedica Corp. , PhysicianSuite Patient Relationship Management. iMedica’s award-winning PhysicianSuite is a fast, easy-to-use EMR tool. Designed by physicians for physicians, it improves physicians’ workflow and offers extensive practice-specific customization features.

  • MedInformatix Inc. , MedInformatix Acute EMR. MedInformatix’s fully integrated EMR and PM solutions support a full range of practices and specialties. They are designed with the capability to stand alone and integrate with any other PM or EMR software.

  • NextGen Healthcare Information Systems Inc ., NextGen EMR. NextGen Healthcare is a leader in electronic medical record and practice management software. Ideal for multiprovider enterprises or solo practitioners, NextGen EMR helps cut costs, improve quality and reduce risk.

* Because of an unforeseen conflict of interest during the judging, all four finalists have been recognized as winners in this year’s competition.

Enabling Technologies

  • Gold Standard, eMPOWERx . Gold Standard develops drug information databases and software for healthcare. eMPOWERx, a Pocket PC and PCS phone-based secure wireless system, delivers point-of-care access to real-time drug information, interaction and clinical tools, patient prescription histories, PDLs, and e-prescribing.

The customer and ISV winners are highlighted on the HIMSS and MS-HUG Web sites: http://www.himss.org and http://www.mshug.org/awards .

About MS-HUG

Microsoft Healthcare Users Group is a membership community within the HIMSS Users Group Alliance Program, providing technology leadership and knowledge to improve healthcare delivery and efficiency. The alliance provides HIMSS with targeted industry expertise to help broaden its professional and industry contributions, and MS-HUG members with the opportunity to reach new markets with educational and professional development programs. MS-HUG is the leading healthcare industry forum for exchanging ideas, promoting learning and sharing solutions for information systems using Microsoft technologies. MS-HUG works to provide industry leadership, drive appropriate standards, and develop associated requirements in support of healthcare solutions. The diverse membership of MS-HUG is united by a shared interest in implementing vendor- and user-developed software based on Microsoft technology to improve quality and efficiency in healthcare. More information can be found on MS-HUG’s Web site at http://www.mshug.org .

About HIMSS

HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) is the healthcare industry’s membership organization exclusively focused on providing leadership for the optimal use of healthcare information technology and management systems for the betterment of human health. Founded in 1961 with offices in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and other locations across the country, HIMSS represents more than 14,000 individual members and some 220 member corporations that employ more than 1 million people. HIMSS shapes and directs healthcare public policy and industry practices through its advocacy, educational and professional development initiatives designed to promote information and management systems’ contributions to quality patient care. Visit http://www.himss.org for more information.

About Microsoft in Healthcare and Life Sciences

Microsoft provides standards-based products and technology to help the healthcare and life sciences industries break down information barriers between the disparate IT environments across provider organizations and physicians, pharmaceutical and medical device companies, government and private-sector employers, health insurers, and consumers. With Microsoft technology in place, healthcare organizations and individual workers collaborate more effectively, are more productive, and are able to spend less time managing their IT infrastructure and more time delivering quality patient care.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Microsoft and Visual Studio are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

For more information on Microsoft Healthcare: http://www.microsoft.com/healthcare

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