Baylor Health Care System Chooses Action Technologies and Netscape for Intranet-Based Healthcare Applications; Action Metro, Netscape Navigator and Netscape Commerce Server Software Coordinate Work Via the Web, Cut Cycle Times and Pharmaceutical Costs for Eight-Hospital System.ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 20, 1996--Action Technologies Inc., and Netscape Communications Corp. (NASDAQ NASDAQ in full National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations U.S. market for over-the-counter securities. Established in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an automated quotation system that reports on :NSCP NSCP National Schistosomiasis Control Program NSCP National Space Communications Program NSCP Native (Mode) Service Control Point (Tandem) ) today announced that Baylor Health Care System (BHCS BHCS Baylor Health Care System (Texas) BHCS Bore Hole Compensated Sonic (well logging tool for oil & gas) BHCS Big Head Club Society ) of Dallas has deployed an Intranet-based coordination application for internal contract review created with Action Technologies' Action Metro, Netscape Navigator An earlier Web browser for Windows, Macintosh and X Windows from Netscape that provided secure transmission over the Internet. Soon after its introduction in 1994, Navigator, or just "Netscape," as it was commonly called, quickly became the leading browser on the Web. client software and Netscape Commerce Server software. The Metro application enables BHCS' eight hospitals to radically accelerate its review of contracts with pharmaceutical suppliers. By shortening the cycle times previously required to have each of the eight hospitals review these contracts, BHCS is able to execute volume discounts sooner. This first Metro application is expected to save BHCS $120,000 in its first year of operation. BHCS expects to deploy other administrative and purchasing applications, such as clinical policy and procedures, in the near future. "In the highly competitive healthcare market, we will differentiate ourselves by our connection to customers, physicians and community via our Internet and Intranet applications," said Bob Pickton, senior vice president and chief information officer for BHCS. "Action Metro provides us with the technology to realize the potential of our Intranet by allowing us to develop and deploy Intranet applications in a highly compressed period of time, and see a return on investment quickly." The Goal: Satisfying Business Requirements Healthcare has become a very competitive, margin-sensitive industry as indicated by the wave of consolidations in the early 1990s. As BHCS grows through acquisition, the new organization is challenged to communicate and coordinate effectively. Business processes are being reengineered and standardized to support a larger organization so that BHCS affiliates can take advantage of their collective bargaining collective bargaining, in labor relations, procedure whereby an employer or employers agree to discuss the conditions of work by bargaining with representatives of the employees, usually a labor union. power. Healthcare organizations are looking to coordination software on Intranets as one of the best ways to manage certain interactions and bring constituents such as physicians into critical business processes. "We wanted to address processes and not just be involved in a technology project," said Pickton. "The business requirements had to be at the design center. Action Technologies' Metro and Netscape products satisfied this objective." Metro Applications Developed Within Weeks Metro is a Web-based environment for delivering work coordination applications that help manage work activities both within and between organizations. Metro includes a suite of ready- to-run, extensible and integrateable Intranet applications as well as development and deployment tools. Metro is powered by a work coordination engine that manages processes, tracks status and administers the business rules. Metro includes: --Application Center: A set of 20 pre-built application templates that span the functional activities of an enterprise including sales, marketing, administration, human resources The fancy word for "people." The human resources department within an organization, years ago known as the "personnel department," manages the administrative aspects of the employees. , and engineering. The applications can be used out-of-the-box or extended, using Action's rapid application development tools. --Development Center: An environment to develop and deploy robust custom workflow-enable Intranet applications. Healthcare systems integrator Integrated Healthcare Solutions (IHS IHS (I.H.S.) first three letters of Greek spelling of Jesus; also taken as acronym of Iesus Hominum Salvator ‘Jesus, Savior of Mankind.’ [Christian Symbolism: Brewer Dictionary, 480] See : Christ IHS ) of Marietta, Ga., developed the contract negotiation application remotely for BHCS. IHS, which has developed other healthcare applications with Metro for customers such as Promina Health System (Atlanta), was able to deliver to BHCS a pilot application one month after their first meeting. The contract negotiation application was deployed by the end of the second month. "Metro's rapid development capabilities, such as pre-built HTML HTML in full HyperText Markup Language Markup language derived from SGML that is used to prepare hypertext documents. Relatively easy for nonprogrammers to master, HTML is the language used for documents on the World Wide Web. forms and business rules, allowed us to very quickly present BHCS with a business application that adds real value to their hospitals' Intranet investment," said Dave Dasinger, head of Intranet/Internet development for IHS. "In addition, the fact that Metro runs on open system software allowed BHCS to rapidly and cost-effectively deploy this application to its eight hospitals." Once developed for internal use, a secure Metro Intranet application can easily be expanded to support external Internet access See how to access the Internet. . Therefore, it can serve as a springboard for connecting physicians and even patients to BHCS' virtual enterprise. Significant ROI (Return On Investment) The monetary benefits derived from having spent money on developing or revising a system. In the IT world, there are more ways to compute ROI than Carter has liver pills (and for those of you who never heard of that expression, it means a lot). Expected Within Months BHCS' hospitals bargain collectively for the best pharmaceutical prices. Before Metro, this process could take up to six months as representatives from the participating hospitals would meet monthly to assess, discuss and take action on the individual contracts. Now specification reviews are coordinated online via BHCS' Intranet, with time needed to reach consensus and finalize agreements reduced to only one or two meetings. With Metro, BHCS' hospitals will be able to reduce the negotiation cycle by one to five months, with an average reduction of approximately two months. Each negotiated contract can save BHCS $3,000 per month, or up to $36,000 annually. Therefore, the savings for one contract is roughly $3,000 at 2 months = $6,000 per year. As BHCS negotiates about 20 contracts per year, it plans to save about $120,000 per year for pharmacy contracts alone. Once the Metro application is expanded to include other types of contracts, more hard dollar value will be realized. BHCS expects to see return on their initial investment within a few months. "Baylor Health Care System's selection of Metro and Netscape client and server software provides another example of how organizations are harnessing the collaborative power of the Web for cost-effective business applications," said Mike Homer, senior vice president of marketing at Netscape. "We see Action Technologies as a valuable partner in delivering business-ready Intranet solutions to industries such as healthcare." "We are pleased that Baylor Health Care System has joined the growing ranks of Action's customers who are realizing the benefits provided by coordination applications on the Intranet," said Sumi SUMI Software Usability Measurement Inventory (measures software quality from the user's point of view) Shohara, vice president of marketing for Action. "These organizations are putting the Web to work by using Metro to build high-value applications that allow employees throughout the enterprise -- as well as customers, partners and suppliers -- to work together effectively. The combination of connectivity afforded by Intranets and coordination provided by Metro makes possible the delivery of this new breed of applications." "With Metro applications and Netscape client and server software based on the open standards Specifications for hardware and software that are developed by a standards organization or a consortium involved in supporting a standard. Available to the public for developing compliant products, open standards imply "open systems;" that an existing component in a system can be replaced of the Internet, organizations can expect to see immediate improvement in productivity and customer satisfaction, lower maintenance costs and rapid payback," Shohara added. About Baylor Health Care System Baylor Health Care System (BHCS), founded in 1981 as a not-for- profit health care system, is a regional network of acute care facilities, community hospitals, family health centers, senior health centers and contract affiliations. BHCS is a horizontally and vertically integrated delivery network servicing North Texas through its flagship hospital, Baylor University Medical Center Baylor University Medical Center (BUMC) is located at 3500 Gaston Avenue in east Dallas, Texas (USA). Its medical services are often listed in the annual U.S. News & World Report compilation of Best Hospitals. , a five-hospital complex located in Dallas. BHCS is one of the major tertiary care tertiary care Managed care The most specialized health care, administered to Pts with complex diseases who may require high-risk pharmacologic regimens, surgical procedures, or high-cost high-tech resources; TC is provided in 'tertiary care centers', often teaching and referral centers in the region offering primary, secondary, tertiary and subspecialty subspecialty, n a limited portion of a narrowly defined professional discipline. E.g., surgery is a specialty of medicine and pediatric vascular surgery is a subspecialty. services. Tertiary services include organ transplantation The transfer of organs such as the kidneys, heart, or liver from one body to another. The transplantation of human organs has become a common medical procedure. Typical organs transplanted are the kidneys, heart, liver, pancreas, cornea, skin, bones, and lungs. , high-risk neonatology neonatology /neo·na·tol·o·gy/ (ne?o-na-tol´ah-je) the diagnosis and treatment of disorders of the newborn. ne·o·na·tol·o·gy n. , cardiology cardiology Medical specialty dealing with heart diseases and disorders. It began with the 1749 publication by Jean Baptiste de Sénac of contemporary knowledge of the heart. Diagnostic methods improved in the 19th century, and in 1905 the electrocardiograph was invented. , gastroenterology gastroenterology Medical specialty dealing with digestion and the digestive system. In the 17th century Jan Baptista van Helmont conducted the first scientific studies in the field; William Beaumont published his own observations in 1833. , orthopedics, oncology and women's health Women's Health Definition Women's health is the effect of gender on disease and health that encompasses a broad range of biological and psychosocial issues. services. BHCS employs approximately 11,347 people in the North Texas area. Boone Powell Jr. has served as president and chief executive officer of the system since its formation in 1980. Joel Allison is the chief operating officer Chief Operating Officer (COO) The officer of a firm responsible for day-to-day management, usually the president or an executive vice-president. and deputy chief executive officer of BHCS. About Netscape Netscape Communications Corp. is a premier provider of open software for linking people and information over enterprise networks and the Internet. The company offers a full line of clients, servers, development tools and commercial applications to create a complete platform for next-generation, live online applications. Traded on NASDAQ under the symbol "NSCP," Netscape Communications Corp. is based in Mountain View, Calif. Additional information on Netscape Communications Corp. is available on the Internet at http://home.netscape.com, by sending email to info@netscape.com or by calling 415/937-2555 (corporate customers) or 415/937-3777 (individuals). About Action Technologies Action Technologies Inc. is the leading provider of Internet/ Intranet and client/server-based work coordination software for business process and workflow automation See workflow. . Action offers complete applications as well as tools for the rapid design, development and deployment of business applications that coordinate work within and between organizations. Headquartered in Alameda, Action sells its products worldwide through a direct sales force as well as through systems integrators, VARs and distributors in 25 countries. Additional information and product demonstrations are available on Action Technologies' web site at http://www.actiontech.com. -0- Note to Editors: (C) 1996 Action Technologies Inc., Action Workflow, Action Workflow Process Builder, Action Workflow Process Manager are registered trademarks of Action Technologies Inc. Metro is a trademark of Action Technologies Inc. Netscape, Netscape Navigator and Netscape Enterprise Server A Web server from Netscape that runs under NT, Solaris and HP-UX. It supports JavaServer Pages (JSP) technology, Java servlets and Server-Side JavaScript (SSJS). It was superseded by iPlanet Web Server and renamed again in 2002 as Sun ONE Web Server. are trademarks of Netscape Communications Corp. All other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective holders. Graphics available at http://www.actiontech.com/market/press.htm CONTACT: Action Technologies Inc. Sumi Shohara, 510/748-1045 sumi_shohara@actiontech.com or Netscape Communications Corp. Jody Kramer, 415/937-3989 kramer@netscape.com or Integrated Healthcare Solutions Patty McKinney, 770/423-8419 patty.mckinney.@hie.com or Baylor Health Care System Jamie Rambo, 214/820-1927 jj.rambo@baylordallas.edu |
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