API to Provide Staffing/Scheduling Solution to the Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati.

Business Editors/Health & Medical Writers

HARTFORD, Wis.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 21, 2002

Integrated Real-Time Employee Information Allows Healthcare Organizations to Make Proactive Staffing Decisions That Control Costs

and Improve Patient Care

Automating Peripherals Inc. (API) announced today that the Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati has agreed to purchase the company's ActiveStaffer(R) staffing/scheduling solution.

ActiveStaffer automates the time-consuming, labor-intensive manual processes involved in scheduling employees, thereby maximizing resources, controlling labor costs and retaining qualified staff.

The Health Alliance has been using API solutions since 1999. The organization currently uses API's Payrollmation(R) solution to manage time and attendance information for 14,000 employees over six hospitals and a large primary care physician group. Payrollmation automates and simplifies the time and attendance data collection and calculation process, streamlines time card management and helps organizations control labor costs.

"Integrated employee data is the key to our organization realizing enhanced resource utilization management and competitive advantage," said Rita Mitzel, IS&T analyst for the Health Alliance. "API's time and attendance solution has been used so successfully at our facilities that we knew ActiveStaffer would be the right choice when we made the decision to automate our scheduling processes."

With ActiveStaffer, management has the information necessary to make quick staffing changes that improve patient care and proactively control labor costs. This Windows(R)-based application is easy to use, and quickly adapts to an organization's unique staffing environment. Nurse managers and schedulers can quickly determine the right employee for each position and shift. Staffing rules and policies, including complex holiday and weekend rules, are applied automatically and fairly. Healthcare organizations get real-time access to labor information, which helps managers and administrators make better-informed staffing decisions and control labor costs proactively. Employees are empowered with the ability to request time off and check work schedules online.

API's integrated systems offer healthcare organizations many benefits, including:

-- Real-time information access

-- Systems that are easier and cheaper to implement and maintain because organizations don't have to work through multiple interfaces

-- Improved information that equates to improved reporting, enhanced decision making and elimination of redundant data entry

-- Higher compliance rates and higher employee satisfaction because end-users only need to learn a single system.

"The key to the integrated systems that API provides is real-time information. Access to the most current data available allows shift-by-shift management based on acuity, census and employee absenteeism information," said Luis Garcia, president and CEO for API. "A long-time API client, the Health Alliance will continue to better manage costs and track and report on new staffing effectiveness indicators from JCAHO (Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations), which ultimately improves patient care and enhances staff satisfaction."

About Health Alliance

The Health Alliance is Greater Cincinnati's largest integrated health care delivery system. It includes The Christ Hospital, The University Hospital, The St. Luke Hospitals, The Jewish Hospital, The Fort Hamilton Hospital and the physicians of Alliance Primary Care. The organization's Web site address is http://www.health-alliance.com/.

About API

API is a leading provider of time and attendance, staffing/scheduling, payroll, human resource, education tracking and access control software for healthcare organizations. Founded in 1982, API has more than 350 installations in the United States, with customers ranging in size from 500 employees to more than 30,000 employees. The company has a strategic alliance with Microsoft Corporation and is a Microsoft Certified Solution Provider. The company's Web site address is www.api-wi.com.