Collaboration Made Easier: Hospitals Extend Centricity(R) Electronic Medical Records to Their Communities.

Linking outpatient and inpatient records will help reduce medical errors, improve efficiency, decrease costs and enhance overall quality of patient care

BARRINGTON, Ill. -- GE Healthcare, a leading provider of healthcare information technology solutions, announced today several new efforts by Centricity[R] Electronic Medical Record (EMR) users, to facilitate safer more efficient healthcare by connecting islands of information throughout today's integrated delivery networks.

Recent studies have estimated that preventable medical errors account for as many as 100,000 deaths every year, and an untold number of serious injuries. Use of healthcare information technology solutions has not only been proven effective in the prevention of medical errors, but has also demonstrated significant cost savings. A recent study by the RAND Corporation estimated that the use of EMRs to exchange select patient data across an interconnected U.S. health system could save more than $80 billion a year in healthcare costs.

However, for many healthcare organizations and especially the vast majority of small practices, costs remain a significant barrier for EMR adoption. Without assistance, they often do not have the resources to implement these systems, stifling universal EMR adoption.

Organizations such as Inland Northwest Health Services in Washington, Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network (LVHHN) in Pennsylvania, ProHealth in Wisconsin, and Valley Baptist Health System in Texas are just a few of the GE customers extending use of Centricity EMR beyond the inpatient setting and connecting providers across the continuum of care.

Inland Northwest Health Services (INHS), one of the largest healthcare networks in the country, enables physicians in 38 hospitals and more than 450 clinics and offices throughout the West to securely access more than 2.6 million electronic medical records.

"It all comes down to collaboration between physicians and doing what is in the best interest of the patient," said Tom Fritz, INHS chief executive officer. "With more than 1,500 users securely accessing data for over 405,000 patients, GE's Centricity EMR allows hospitals, clinics and private practice doctors to increase efficiencies, save costs and ensure that patients receive the care they need, when they need it."

Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network (LVHHN), one of the nation's first digital hospitals and the largest academic community hospital system in Pennsylvania, is rolling out GE's Centricity[R] Electronic Medical Record (EMR) solution to up to 1,000 local primary care physicians and specialists.

Transitioning physician clinical practices from paper to digital records will allow physicians to share critical patient information securely across the entire continuum of care. Full integration and simplified single sign-on access to other Centricity applications, such as GE's Centricity Enterprise, Radiology Information System (RIS) and Business Solutions, will help break down potential barriers to true collaborative patient care.

"Today, the information within the inpatient and outpatient care settings exists in silos, not easily accessible to multiple healthcare providers. In addition to being costly and inefficient, these silos can have a negative impact on patient safety," said Harry Lukens, LVHHN senior vice president and chief information officer. "By partnering with GE Healthcare, we create a true network across the continuum of care. We are bringing together the providers and all of the various health information elements to assure safer and more efficient healthcare."

Prohealth (PHC), an integrated delivery system in suburban Milwaukee, is building a "Virtual Medical Community" with Centricity EMR as the common platform. PHC's two hospitals and 15 primary clinics, as well as independent primary and specialist practices, are providing coordinated care for their mutual patients by utilizing Centricity's unique ability to have one database but many locations of care. The independent physician partners can communicate with their PHC peers, while maintaining their own patient chart. Electronic referrals facilitate patient care across physician practices, while interfaces with a variety of hospital ancillary system are also in place to assist in real-time flow of patient information. In addition, independent physician practices can realize economies of scale using PHC's ASP model for Centricity EMR access, including access to ongoing training and help desk support for Centricity.

"By providing IT support and low cost access to a fully functional EMR we have effectively removed many of the barriers to EMR adoption by the independent physicians in our community," said Peter Geiss M.D., PHC chief medical officer. "This supports our system's mission of efficiently providing high quality care to all of our patients at the most reasonable cost possible."

Valley Baptist Health System is quickly executing on plans to link hundreds of area physicians to its Centricity Electronic network using a subscription model. The 840-bed health system is therefore helping even the smallest physician offices access the latest information technology solutions, increase efficiency and improve patient care by offsetting some of the initial hardware investments that until now had been cost-prohibitive.

"This initiative is about evidence-based medicine, integration, and easier access to healthcare and information," said James G. Springfield, FACHE, president and chief executive officer of Valley Baptist Health System. "We will transform the clinical processes at Valley Baptist with a goal of providing the highest quality of patient services in a seamless and transparent manner."

"GE's Centricity product portfolio is uniquely positioned to support boundaryless care," said Vishal Wanchoo, president and chief executive officer of healthcare information technologies at GE Healthcare. "By integrating core clinical across the enterprise, spanning ambulatory and inpatient care to create a lifelong patient record, our customers are demonstrating true collaboration that will ultimately transform patient care."

About GE Healthcare

GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, performance improvement, drug discovery, and biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies is helping clinicians around the world re-imagine new ways to predict, diagnose, inform, treat and monitor disease, so patients can live their lives to the fullest.

GE Healthcare's broad range of products and services enable healthcare providers to better diagnose and treat cancer, heart disease, neurological diseases and other conditions earlier. Our vision for the future is to enable a new "early health" model of care focused on earlier diagnosis, pre-symptomatic disease detection and disease prevention. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a $17 billion unit of General Electric Company (NYSE:GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employs more than 46,000 people committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website at www.gehealthcare.com.