CareScience Hosts Prominent Healthcare Leaders to Discuss Public Reporting on Quality and Hospital Performance.

PHILADELPHIA -- CareScience 2005 Fall Symposium Will Address Industry Movement Toward Increased Public Reporting, Pay for Performance and Strategic Approaches to Improving Quality Performance

CareScience, a division of Quovadx, Inc. (Nasdaq: QVDX) providing care management, clinical analysis and clinical quality improvement solutions, will host industry speakers from the Center for Medicare and Medicare Services (CMS), HealthCare 21 Business Coalition and prominent provider organizations from across the country at its 2005 Fall Symposium, entitled "Public Reporting: What Every Hospital Should Know." The event will be held on Friday, October 21, 2005, at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Philadelphia, PA.

The 2005 CareScience Symposium will provide a forum for the nation's leading healthcare executives, physician leaders and quality improvement practitioners to discuss public reporting and quality standards, with the goal of ultimately improving the quality of care across their respective organizations.

"The rapidly growing movement toward increased public reporting on hospital performance, coupled with the trend toward pay for performance has generated a business imperative for healthcare organizations to redouble their efforts to improve clinical processes and outcomes," stated Thomas Zajac, president of CareScience and executive vice president for Quovadx. "We've assembled a panel of leading experts representing key dimensions of the public reporting arena, from providers on the front line of care delivery, to leaders at key government agencies and innovators in prominent business coalitions. We believe this symposium will help clinician executives meet the increasing challenge of understanding new reporting requirements and quality standards, and prioritizing these needs."

The CareScience 2005 symposium will include shared experiences and insight by industry leaders, including:

--CMS' experiences to date in relation to its Hospital Compare program and the future of public reporting.

--Knowledge gained by a business coalition that, over the past 8 years, has worked collaboratively with the provider community to share comparative hospital performance information with consumers, health providers, employers and others to improve the quality and cost of healthcare. This presentation will highlight the alliance fostered with the provider community in a specific region to improve the outcomes for a targeted patient population.

--An industry update on the current and future activities of organizations such as JCAHO, CMS, NQF, Leapfrog, IHI, NPSF and more, as well as how they will impact provider organizations.

--Efforts to implement electronic medical record (EMR) and computerized physician order entry (CPOE) systems that build quality reporting requirements directly into system designs. This discussion will include lessons learned and best practices and provide guidance for those organizations at the beginning, middle or end of an EMR or CPOE implementation.

--One organization's strategic approach to improve publicly reported performance data (e.g., service line development, evidence-based medicine focus, etc.).

--The critical need for healthcare organizations to be involved in the current industry movement to set standards of care by NQF, JCAHO, etc. and discuss the appropriateness of established standards and mandated reporting requirements.

"Uncertainty surrounding measurement standards and reporting requirements makes it difficult for hospitals to project and evaluate what will be reported, as well as to collect the required data, prioritize improvement activities and report results to their medical staff and management," said Ronald A. Paulus, MD, MBA, chief venture officer, Geisinger Health System and chair of the CareScience Clinical Advisory Board. "In the face of these challenges many hospitals hope that new clinical information systems will reduce data collection needs and support real-time compliance with standards of care. This help will not materialize, however, unless hospitals consider specialized requirements in designing these systems, to enable the generation of useful reports as smoothly as they support decisions at the point of care."

Speakers at the forum will present individually, as well as participate in a panel discussion on the impact and actions necessary to deliver and demonstrate quality care. The scheduled faculty for the session includes:

--Jerry W. Burgess, MBA, Chief Executive Officer and President, HealthCare 21 Business Coalition

--Karen Pryor, RN, MSN, Nurse Manager, University of Tennessee Medical Center

--David R. Hunt, MD, Medical Officer, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services: Quality Measurement and Health Assessment Group

--C. Martin Harris, MD, MBA, Chief Information Officer, The Cleveland Clinic

--Ronald A. Paulus, MD, MBA, Chief Venture Officer, Geisinger Health System

--Simon J. Samaha, MD, MBA, Senior Vice President, Clinical Operations, Cooper Health System

--Sherry Kwater, BSN, MSN, Executive Director, Clinical Excellence, Sisters of Mercy Health System

--Steve Durbin, MPH, System Director, Quality, Providence Health System

--Kristine Martin Anderson, MBA, Vice President, Operations and Strategy, CareScience

The 2005 CareScience Symposium event is open to the public and to the media. To learn more about the event, including how to register to attend, please visit http://www.carescience.com/symposium.

About CareScience

CareScience, a division of Quovadx, Inc. (Nasdaq: QVDX), is one of the nation's leading providers of care management services and analytical solutions to hospitals and health systems and a pioneer in community-wide clinical data exchange. CareScience supplies the people and technology to help its customers ensure that high-quality care is delivered, throughout the healthcare system, through clinical data access and clinical process transformation. For more information, please visit www.carescience.com.

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