AHA Selects Siemens to Provide Health Care Leaders Education and Services On HIPAA Rules.

Business Editors, Health/Medical Writers

WASHINGTON--(BW HealthWire)--Aug. 6, 2001

The American Hospital Association (AHA) has selected Siemens Medical Solutions Health Services Corporation (Siemens) as their core partner to provide a full offering of education and consulting services to help the nation's health care providers meet the newly enacted Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy regulations.

In 1996, Congress passed HIPAA, which called for health plans, hospitals and clearinghouses to meet new requirements for protecting the confidentiality of health information. While hospitals strongly support efforts to protect patient's medical records, the new rules will be costly and burdensome to implement. The AHA is urging the Bush Administration and Congress to fix and fund the rules.

To help members implement the rules, the AHA is working with Siemens to customize a full range of services from inexpensive webcast events to comprehensive on-site assessments and consultations. The AHA chose Siemens because of their wealth of experience in this area, along with their ability to provide standardized and streamlined services.

"This relationship will provide a powerful set of tools and resources to help our members to implement these new requirements as efficiently and effectively as possible. Based on our members' input--those on the front lines of care -- as well as our exhaustive market assessment process, we have created a program specifically tailored to address the privacy requirements of HIPAA," said Neil J. Jesuele, AHA executive vice president.

"Our goal in this collaboration is to provide AHA members with a clear path toward HIPAA compliance -- the 'what to do,' 'how to do it' and 'how to manage it.' This relationship will truly provide value to AHA members," said Ron Spoltore, group vice president of Siemens Health Services.

    Among the services being offered to members are:

    --  Overall HIPAA education (via HIPAA University) such as on-line
        seminars, self-assessment workshops and training.
    --  Services such as cost impact analyses or needs assessments to
        gauge the level of HIPAA compliance readiness.
    --  Web-optimized HIPAA policies and procedures templates
        (GroupWare) that can be customized for each organization.

In the next few weeks, AHA members will receive more information regarding the resources available to them through this relationship.

For specific information regarding the AHA/Siemens collaboration, contact Tony Spohn, vice president of Risk Management 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 more than 4,800 hospitals, health care systems, networks, and other providers of care, and 37,000 individuals. 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, visit the AHA Web site at www.aha.org.

About AHA Financial Solutions, Inc.

AHA Financial Solutions, Inc. (AHA-FSI) is the insurance- and financial-product marketing subsidiary of the American Hospital Association. It functions as a resource agency to AHA-member hospitals and other health care organizations. AHA Financial Solutions evaluates the marketplace and collaborates with companies to create strategic financial and insurance products and services for health care professionals. AHA Financial Solutions has an exclusive sponsorship from the Health Care Financial Management Association (HFMA), a professional association that includes more than 30,000 health care financial executives. For more information, visit the Web site at www.ahafinancialsolutions.com.

About Siemens Medical Solutions Health Services

Siemens Medical Solutions, Erlangen, Germany, is one of the largest suppliers of medical technologies in the world, offering complete integrated solutions comprising innovative medical devices, advanced information technology as well as consulting services that increase efficiency of the healthcare system while improving the quality of care to patients worldwide. The company develops and manufactures a broad range of medical equipment including imaging systems for diagnostics, radiation therapy equipment for treatment, audiological products, life support and patient monitoring systems, anesthesia equipment and information technology solutions. Employing 28,000 worldwide, in fiscal 1999/2000, the Company reported new orders of 5.3 billion Euro and sales of 5.1 billion Euro. For more information visit www.siemensmedical.com.

Based in Malvern, PA, Siemens Medical Solutions Health Services Corporation, an integrated part of Siemens Medical Solutions, offers a broad range of clinical, financial, and management applications and outsourcing and professional services to support health providers across the continuum of care. The group operates the health industry's largest Information Services Center (ISC) and Health Information Network for application hosting, e-commerce, enterprise systems management, and managed Internet and infrastructure services. As the premier Application Service Provider (ASP) in healthcare, the company operates health applications for over 1,000 health providers with connections to over 500,000 customer workstations, and processes 95 million transactions each day. More information can be found at www.smed.com.