AHA Endorses Mitretek's National Patient Safety Alert and Recall Tracking Service; Web-Based Service to Report, Track, and Manage Alerts and Recalls.

Business Editors/Health/Medical Writers

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 15, 2004

The American Hospital Association (AHA) has awarded its endorsement to Mitretek Systems' Risk and Safety Management Alert System (RASMAS) web-based subscription service. The service will help the nation's health care providers efficiently manage important health care product and safety alerts that are impacting key issues in health care today such as patient safety and workforce resources. Mitretek Systems, a non-profit scientific and engineering research company, was selected after a careful review process.

Each year health care organizations receive more than 4,000 paper-based alerts generated from both public and private sources. The manual procedures currently used for processing product and safety alerts have many shortcomings. RASMAS provides the first comprehensive system to report and track product and safety alerts for virtually all products used within health care organizations. Mitretek has been working closely with Johns Hopkins Health System in Baltimore to refine and improve RASMAS to alleviate inefficiencies in the alert and recall process that led to the death of two patients and severe illness in hundreds of others after a bronchoscope recall was issued in 2001. Recent innovations in information technology and systems engineering now offer great potential to restore a higher level of confidence to professionals working in the health care community.

Mitretek developed RASMAS to improve the content and readability of alerts and safety notices, create more efficient workflow processes, provide management oversight tools and information, satisfy JCAHO, FDA, and other audit requirements, and ultimately reduce staffing costs. RASMAS requires no software implementation and minimal training time.

"RASMAS is the culmination of a three-year effort by Mitretek. We have developed a national system to improve patient safety by streamlining how health care organizations respond to the thousands of product alerts and safety notices that are sent to them each year," said Dr. Lydia Thomas, president and CEO of Mitretek Systems.

"The American Hospital Association is pleased to be able to work with Mitretek to make this important tool available to our members. We feel RASMAS can have significant influence on a health care organization's alerts and recalls processes--ultimately impacting their risk management and patient safety practices, as well as freeing up resources for other mission-critical needs," said Tony Burke, president and CEO of AHA Financial Solutions (the AHA subsidiary responsible for reviewing solutions and awarding AHA's endorsement).

According to Wayne Sparkes, senior projects administrator at Johns Hopkins, "While RASMAS has greatly reduced the labor requirements of dealing with alerts and recalls, more importantly we believe it will reduce medical errors by quickly identifying alerts and communicating them to the proper staff. RASMAS gives Johns Hopkins a system-wide, organized approach that eliminates paper and gives us a reliable way to track and mange each alert. RASMAS delivered results within the first week of its implementation at Hopkins."

In the coming weeks, AHA members will receive detailed information regarding how the RASMAS service can benefit them. For more information regarding this alert and recall web tool or to schedule a demonstration, contact Jim Wadzinski, vice president for AHA Financial Solutions at 800-242-4677 or via e-mail at [e-mail].

About AHA

The American Hospital Association (AHA) is a not-for-profit association of health care provider organizations and individuals that are committed to the health improvement of their communities. The AHA is the national advocate for its members, which includes approximately 4,800 hospitals, health care systems, networks, other providers of care and 27,000 individual members. Founded in 1898, the AHA provides education for health care leaders and is a source of information on health care issues and trends. For more information, please visit the AHA Web site at www.aha.org.

About AHA Financial Solutions, Inc.

AHA Financial Solutions, Inc. (AHA-FSI) is the subsidiary of the American Hospital Association that collaborates with companies to create strategic financial, technology, regulatory, employee benefit, and insurance products and services for health care professionals. It functions as a resource agency to AHA-member hospitals and other health care organizations. For more information, contact AHA-FSI at [phone] or visit the Web site at www.ahafinancialsolutions.com.

About Mitretek

Mitretek Systems is a non-profit scientific research and systems engineering organization that works in the public interest to solve complex technological problems in the areas of criminal justice, environment, health, homeland security, transportation, and telecommunications. Within the healthcare arena, Mitretek performs information technology and operations consulting, evaluation and design as well as strategic, clinical services and facilities planning. For more information about Mitretek, contact Corporation Communications, [phone] or [e-mail] or visit the RASMAS Web site at http://rasmas.mitretek.org.