Altru Health System Awards QuadraMed CPOE Contract; Takes Next Step in Patient Safety Improvement.

Business Editors/Health/Medical Writers

RESTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 2, 2004

QuadraMed(R) Corporation (OTCBB:QMDC.OB) today announced that Altru Health System, Grand Forks, North Dakota, in the fourth quarter of 2003 selected the Company to implement its next generation Affinity(R) Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) product. To date, QuadraMed has secured agreements to implement its CPOE in more than 25 facilities nationwide. Altru includes a 277-bed acute care hospital, a 50-bed rehabilitation center, and a medical group and regional clinics that serve North Dakota and northwest Minnesota.

"Our goal is to become one of the premier health systems in the country," said Dave Molmen, Chief Operating Officer, Altru Health System. "We're using a step-by-step program to build an integrated information system that will support all clinical and business processes within the Altru Health System as an important enabler to achieve this goal. Altru has placed particular emphasis on using technology to improve patient safety and outcomes, and our clinicians have enthusiastically supported this concept.

"CPOE is a critical part of an end-to-end clinical information system. It's also one of the most complex applications in the mix. We've been working with QuadraMed to implement a stepped approach to improving patient safety; our physicians have successfully been using Affinity Clinician Access and the next logical step was to implement Affinity CPOE. The technology will give us both context and patient centric knowledge management in real time, and a vendor we can depend upon as a long-term partner. From experience, we knew QuadraMed could meet those requirements, because our existing relationship had already reached a number of significant HIS milestones."

When fully implemented, the Altru health information system is envisioned to provide clinical and financial information throughout the Altru Health System region-wide to HIS users and patients alike. Altru Health System currently employs over 3,350 staff and more than 180 physicians.

"QuadraMed took a unique approach when we developed our Affinity CPOE. This has better positioned us to meet the needs of forward-looking organizations such as Altru," said QuadraMed's Chief Medical Officer Joseph I. Bormel, MD, MPH. "Rather than using the standard methodology, which attempts to force-fit users into inflexible applications, we went to clinicians and asked them what they expected from a CPOE product.

"What we learned is that clinicians want four basic things from CPOE: a simple process to organize work; a convenient way to review information, make decisions, and enter orders; assistance to become better at their profession; and a dependable methodology to improve patient outcomes. The first two are not difficult to provide, but items three and four require intelligent knowledge management with just in time functionality.

"To meet these needs, we left 20th Century thinking behind and developed a next generation product using what we call Intelligent Care Sets(TM). Intelligent Care Sets enables clinicians to know the right things at the right time in order to make the right decisions. It embeds relevant diagnostic and therapeutic content into a comprehensive checklist of things that the clinician should be aware of and should look for in a given situation.

"This knowledge management is not based solely upon third party provided standards. Instead, it incorporates the dynamic experience of individual clinicians and the policies of their institution into a highly intuitive system that learns from its users. The result is that Affinity CPOE enables every clinician to know what the best of them knows in real time from a central database containing real world, customized information. This invariably leads to improved patient safety and positive outcomes."

Affinity CPOE was designed by QuadraMed as a part of the Company's extensive research and development program. This program continues to design breakthrough products by combining internal expertise with the significant recent accomplishments of HL-7, which introduced enhanced standards like the HL-7 Reference Information Model. Additionally, the Company is keenly sensitive to the research conducted by industry analysts who have identified and published important papers on such subjects as patient safety, knowledge management, e-HIM, revenue cycle management, and high reliability practices.

Further information is available about all QuadraMed Affinity HIS and Quantim(R) HIM products and services by visiting the web site at www.quadramed.com.

About QuadraMed Corporation

QuadraMed is dedicated to improving healthcare delivery by providing innovative healthcare information technology and services. From clinical and patient information management to revenue cycle and health information management, QuadraMed delivers real-world solutions that help healthcare professionals deliver outstanding patient care with optimum efficiency. Behind our products and services is a staff of more than 850 professionals whose experience and dedication to service has earned QuadraMed the trust and loyalty of customers at more than 1,900 healthcare provider facilities. To find out more about QuadraMed, visit www.quadramed.com.

QuadraMed, Affinity, and Quantim are registered trademarks of QuadraMed Corporation. Intelligent Care Sets is a trademark of QuadraMed Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.