New Version of Microsoft Amalga Now Available to Hospitals and Health Systems



Microsoft Amalga gives clinicians and executives quick access to valuable, up-to-the-minute information across their health enterprise.

REDMOND, Wash. — April 9, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the availability of Microsoft Amalga, the new unified intelligence system that allows hospital enterprises to unlock the power of all their data sitting in isolated clinical, financial and administrative solutions. Amalga is part of the Microsoft Amalga Family of Health Enterprise Systems, a portfolio of enterprise-class health solutions that provides rich integration, giving clinicians and executives quick access to valuable, up-to-the-minute information across their health enterprise. Microsoft also announced the availability of the Amalga family of health enterprise products across Europe at conhIT 2008, a healthcare IT conference being held in Berlin this week (http://www.microsoft.com/emea/presscentre).

“This is an important milestone for Amalga,” said Steve Shihadeh, vice president, Microsoft Health Solutions Group. “This release benefits from over 10 years of development at Washington Hospital Center and feedback from some of the world’s most reputable health organizations. Amalga fulfills its promise to unify information across the health enterprise and open up new opportunities to improve patient care, organizational quality and operational efficiency. We look forward to demonstrating the value these leading organizations are realizing from the use of Amalga.”

The goal of the Wisconsin Health Information Exchange, for example, is to improve the quality of care, reduce errors and enhance cost effectiveness by using Amalga to provide emergency physicians with rapid access to patients’ past medical history.

“With Amalga, we’ll be able to manage queries across massive amounts of data, helping providers to improve patient care and helping our organization to become a full-service regional network,” said Dr. Edward Barthell, co-founder of the Wisconsin Health Information Exchange.

Other Amalga early adopters include hospitals at academic medical centers such as Johns Hopkins Health System and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital; large health systems such as MedStar Health, Novant Health and St. Joseph Health System; and research leaders such as H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute.

Amalga addresses a common and critical challenge of healthcare providers — integrating vast amounts of clinical, administrative and financial information that flow in and out of disparate information systems, and tailoring that information for use by physicians, analysts, laboratory technicians, nurses and administrators. Amalga takes advantage of health enterprises’ investments in existing health IT solutions and makes it possible for the entire organization to gain quick access to data and turn that information into critical knowledge that facilitates better decision-making and improved patient outcomes.

The new Amalga system is built on widely used and supported Microsoft products to deliver important benefits, including security features, high availability, scalability and full audit capabilities. Amalga also offers simplified deployment and improved supportability through streamlined administration, configuration and self-provisioning tools for users.

The Amalga Family of Health Enterprise Systems includes the following:

  • Microsoft Amalga. Amalga is part of a new software category called Unified Intelligence System that allows hospital enterprises to unlock the power of all their data sitting in isolated clinical, financial and administrative systems. Without replacing current systems, it offers an innovative way to capture, consolidate, store, access and quickly present data in meaningful ways for use by clinicians and executives of leading-edge institutions. Amalga is designed for hospitals and health systems that have invested in a diverse set of IT solutions.

  • Microsoft Amalga Hospital Information System (HIS). Amalga HIS is a state-of-the-art, fully integrated hospital information system designed for developing and emerging markets. Amalga HIS is built around an electronic medical record with complete patient and bed management, laboratory, pharmacy, radiology information system and picture archiving and communication system (RIS/PACS), pathology, financial accounting, materials management, and human resource systems.

  • Microsoft Amalga RIS/PACS. Amalga RIS/PACS is available as a stand-alone system in developing and emerging markets as well as an integrated component of Amalga HIS. The integrated architecture means that a radiologist can use a single application to manipulate and study images and access the patient medical record. The workstation interface, which includes support for predefined templates, an intuitive report editor and voice-recognition capabilities, is optimized for radiologist workflow.

More information on the Amalga family is available at http://www.microsoft.com/amalga.

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

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