1st Statewide Bio-Surveillance and Anti-Terrorism Project Optimized with Advanced Concept-Indexing Software.

Business Editors/Health/Medical Writers

AURORA, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 15, 2004

Health Language(R) software identifies underlying concepts in

patient data to provide faster and more accurate recognition

of potential bio-terrorism activities or disease outbreak

Health Language, Inc., (HLI) the world's leading supplier of medical vocabulary and concept-based software server technology, today announced a new relationship with the State Of Missouri. HLI's Language Engine(TM) software technology will be used for implementing concept-based indexing of patient visitation data gathered across the state for purposes of disease and terrorism activity pattern surveillance.

"Rapid identification of bio-terrorist activity and disease outbreak is the key to managing and minimizing their consequences," said George T. Schwend, President and CEO of Health Language, Inc. "Using our state of the art technology allows government agencies and health ministries to transform a traditionally error-prone and labor intensive, complicated process into a real-time activity. HLI is very pleased to be a participant in this important effort."

Surveillance systems for bio-terrorism-related activity or for disease outbreaks rely on the gathering of patient visitation data at a multitude of medical facilities in a dispersed area, such as a city, a state, or a nation. This data is collected and submitted to a government entity in a large variety of formats such as pick-list entries, free-text, varying code set formats such as ICD-9, CPT, SNOMED-CT, LOINC and many others, as well as in notation form. A single medical facility will generate significant volumes of healthcare and related data to be submitted daily.

Rapid analysis is essential to identifying and managing disease outbreak of any type. Such analysis is often slow and laborious in practice, however, given the difficulty of identifying and then extracting the underlying medical information contained in such significant quantities of heterogeneous data. This problem is addressed by the use of the Health Language(R) Language Engine(TM) software.

Health Language, Inc., provides domain expertise in clinical terminology and clinical concept management products. State officials will collect patient visitation data from emergency rooms and other medical facilities located throughout the state. All data are pooled for statistical analysis.

Officials will then use the Language Engine(TM) software to convert this raw data into information tagged by concept. Thus, the myriad of ways in which rashes, fevers, maladies, or other potentially symptomatic afflictions are recorded in clinical settings are automatically condensed down into the underlying medical concepts.

HLI's technology will ensure dramatically faster and significantly more accurate statistical analysis of bio-activity patterns in the aggregate patient visitation data.

"As a health care provider, it is gratifying to see the State of Missouri take a pro-active stance in using clinical data to improve the health and well being of its patient population," said Dr. Brian Levy, M.D., Chief Medical Officer of Health Language, Inc. "The powerful features of LE including its concept indexing techniques and extensive updated clinical content enable the transformation of the textual, non-standardized clinical information entered by health care providers from around the state to be transformed into codified clinical concepts. Once codified, this information will be invaluable for detecting outbreaks for diseases and bio-terrorism much earlier than ever possible before."

The Health Language(R) Language Engine(TM) is a revolutionary technology that enables interaction and sharing of medical information at a deep relational level despite varying terminologies. The server software is based on a patent-pending knowledge management model and is currently the only product available to the healthcare industry that can accurately relate complex medical terminology from disparate databases of controlled medical vocabularies in both a real-time and off-line fashion.

About Health Language Inc.

Health Language, Inc. is a software infrastructure company that services the healthcare industry worldwide. LE, the company's language engine product, creates a common medical index across disparate standards and healthcare information systems, allowing for comprehensive integrated and intelligent management of all health data. Health Language, Inc., is based in Aurora, Colorado. Further information on Health Language, Inc is available at www.healthlanguage.com or by calling 303-307-4400.

Health Language, We Speak the Language of Healthcare, and Language Engine are trademarks of Health Language, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies.