American Gastroenterological Association and MedAssurant to Develop Outcomes Registries to Improve GI Care.

Leaders in GI Medicine and Healthcare Analytics Combine Capabilities to Advance Evidence-Based Insights into Gastroenterological Care and Outcomes

BETHESDA, Md. & BOWIE, Md. -- The American Gastroenterological Association (AGA), the leading association representing clinicians and researchers who specialize in the digestive tract, and MedAssurant, Inc., a leading provider of data-driven healthcare solutions, announced today the collaborative initiative to develop a set of registries to assist physicians, payors, policy makers, and other healthcare stakeholders in the study and improvement of clinical and quality outcomes, care management, and cost effectiveness of care delivered to Americans with gastrointestinal disease.

"As part of our commitment to advancing the science and practice of gastroenterology, AGA is taking the lead in collecting, aggregating, and analyzing data on gastrointestinal diseases. The AGA Digestive Health Outcomes Registry is a groundbreaking project that will support clinicians in advancing the quality and effectiveness of care, researchers in investigating GI disease, and policy-makers in making decisions based on sound evidence," said Gail A. Hecht, MD, MS, AGAF, president of the AGA Institute, which administers practice, research and education programs of the organization. "The AGA is committed to responding to this need, and doing so quickly and effectively. MedAssurant's experience with the aggregation and analysis of data, and its extensive infrastructure and datasets, will make it possible for AGA to achieve this quickly, and to provide both our members and the broader healthcare community with a set of tremendously valuable registry-based tools. We look forward to partnering with stakeholders on this important initiative."

According to the National Institutes of Health, there are between 60 and 70 million Americans afflicted with digestive diseases. The cost of this burden exceeds $140 billion per year in both direct and indirect expenses. MedAssurant maintains a nationwide clinical and technology infrastructure which enables efficient, large scale, healthcare data aggregation throughout the United States, sophisticated clinical data management platforms, and advanced healthcare data analytic prowess. These toolsets, combined with MedAssurant's MORE2 Registry[TM], a powerful clinical dataset designed around medical outcomes research for effectiveness and economics, enables rapid achievement of advanced insights for healthcare advancement and improvement.

"There is a growing call for evidence-based decision-making at all levels of health care," said Cary Sennett, MD, PhD, Chief Medical Officer at MedAssurant and Vice-Chair of the AMA Physicians Consortium for Performance Improvement. "Physicians are seeking the benefit of evaluating their own results, researchers desire better tools to guide advancement and safety surveillance, and policy-makers need to be able to compare the effectiveness of alternative treatments. Bringing together the unmatched clinical expertise of AGA and the data collection, aggregation, and analytics capabilities of MedAssurant creates a powerful combination that promises to accelerate efforts to gain improved insights into the quality and cost-effectiveness of GI care."

The AGA-MedAssurant initiative will launch a series of registries to address high cost and high variation aspects of care for patients with GI disease, including colonoscopy/colorectal cancer screening, inflammatory bowel disease, GERD, viral hepatitis, and obesity, as well as other conditions and procedures. Areas of interest have been expressed by industry-leading gastroenterological stakeholders and these interests will be used to shape the initiative.

About the American Gastroenterological Association

The American Gastroenterological Association is the trusted voice of the GI community. Founded in 1897, the AGA has grown to include more 17,000 members from around the globe who are involved in all aspects of the science, practice and advancement of gastroenterology. The AGA Institute administers the practice, research and educational programs of the organization. www.gastro.org

About MedAssurant, Inc.

MedAssurant, Inc. is a leading healthcare solutions provider focused on the importance of healthcare data and its ability to drive dramatic, objective improvements in clinical and quality outcomes, care management, and financial performance throughout the healthcare community. Proprietary healthcare datasets, aggregation, and analysis capabilities, combined with a national infrastructure of leading-edge technology, clinical prowess, and deep human resources empowers MedAssurant's advanced generation of healthcare assessment and improvement through highly informed solutions. In partnership with many members of the healthcare community, MedAssurant provides local, regional, and nationwide health insurance plans, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, regulatory bodies, government organizations, physician organizations, and their many covered patients with powerful turnkey solutions to address matters of clinical outcomes analysis, quality of care, cost improvement, risk adjustment, disease management, utilization, and healthcare data verification. Altogether, MedAssurant solutions are provided to more than 200 healthcare organizations, supporting more than 100 million Americans. Driven by a mission to improve today's healthcare landscape, the employees of MedAssurant proudly apply care, ingenuity, and dedication to delivering a new approach to healthcare - one driven by data and insight - one resulting in meaningful action.