Convergence CT Completes Technology Integration at Kettering Medical Center Network; System Consolidates Hospital Data Into a Secure Patient Data Warehouse.

HONOLULU -- Citing its need to support existing research and expand its clinical trial program, the Kettering Medical Center Network (KMCN) has successfully completed the integration of Convergence CT's DB*FOCUS(TM) product suite into its technology infrastructure. DB*FOCUS(TM), an innovative product that consolidates and manages patient health data for medical groups, hospitals, and clinics, affords Kettering and other healthcare providers a secure patient data repository that automatically downloads data from one or more data sources. It separates Protected Health Information (PHI) and de-identified patient data, encrypts the data, and provides researchers and analysts access to this data through a secure, web-based management system.

DB*FOCUS(TM) is designed to address patient confidentiality, healthcare analysis, and patient recruitment issues that research hospitals, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies face when developing new products and conducting clinical trials. The software takes extracted PHI from a wide variety of systems throughout healthcare organizations (for example, pharmacy, admissions, and laboratory systems, etc.) consolidating it into a secure, centralized location. Security features of DB*FOCUS(TM) protect the identities of patients and physicians, while tracking all activity into and out of the patient record. Not only has this product found its niche within healthcare research, but has also gained considerable interest in healthcare organizations' IT departments as a way of controlling and protecting the health information of its patients.

A number of key executives from the Kettering Medical Center Network, including its Chief Executive Officer, Chief Information Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and Vice President of Clinical Services and Research, as well as individuals from key departments such as the Office of Privacy and the Office of Information Technology, were involved in the evaluation of DB*FOCUS(TM) and subsequent purchase and integration of the system.

Kettering Medical Center's CFO Terry Burns said, "We are very excited that the integration of Convergence CT's technology has been completed successfully. The initial reports that have been generated from this data consolidation tool have exceeded our expectations. Not only are we expecting to increase research revenues through the use of this technology, but we anticipate that we will gain significant competitive advantages as we continually evaluate operational factors, treatment patterns, and length-of-stay data that is now readily available to us and is all in a central location. We can easily perform care delivery analysis for internal business optimization."

Recently at Kettering Medical Center, a clinical trial study for critically ill patients was being conducted. The study team had projected an enrollment rate of 1 to 2 patients per month, while it actually only enrolled 1 patient in 11 months. Rick Mace, Kettering Medical Center's Vice President of Clinical Services and Research, observed, "Prior to installing Convergence CT's DB*FOCUS(TM), there was no way to verify the validity or the accuracy of a study team's enrollment projection. However, after applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria in a DB*FOCUS(TM) query against KMCN's last 2.5 years of consolidated patient data, it was shown that the enrollment projection of this particular clinical trial study was greatly overestimated. Had the information DB*FOCUS(TM) uncovered been available when making a decision on whether or not this clinical trial study be initiated at KMCN, the study, in this instance, would not have been initiated, as the evidence would not have supported a projected enrollment number large enough to justify the amount of resources required to conduct the study."

Lambert Onuma, president and CEO of Convergence CT, said, "With the level of detail that DB*FOCUS(TM) can collect from the Medical Center's operational and clinical systems, management can now make more informed assessments of what trial protocols should and should not be pursued. This translates straight down to the bottom line of the organization."

(Contact Convergence CT for a copy of the Case Study which provides additional details on how DB*FOCUS(TM) was utilized to bring a more realistic picture of study enrollment projections to the Clinical Trial team at KMCN.)

The system supports the five hospitals that comprise the Kettering Medical Center Network; Kettering Memorial Hospital, Sycamore Hospital, Southview Hospital, Grandview Hospital, and Kettering Youth Services. The total number of licensed beds in the network is 1,250.

About Kettering Medical Center Network

Located in Kettering, Ohio, Kettering Medical Center is recognized as a major cardiac care center, is noted for its comprehensive cancer program and is known for pioneering advanced medical technology, such as positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. Its neuroscience division, the Wallace-Kettering Neuroscience Institute, has a team of research physicians and scientists who concentrate on diseases of the brain and spine, including strokes, tumors, dementias, movement disorders, and seizures. It is expected that DB*FOCUS(TM) will play an instrumental role in the research that is being conducted at the institute.

About Convergence CT

Convergence CT, headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii, has offices in Pleasanton, California, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Tokyo, Japan, and Berlin, Germany. Founded in Hawaii in 2001, Convergence CT's mission is to establish a large, multi-national network of participating hospitals, clinics, and Medical Groups through partnerships with multi-member healthcare organizations, providing a global Collaborative Data Warehouse for Life Science and healthcare organizations conducting research for the improvement and extension of life, and quality of care advancements. The highly secure, multi-national network of patient health data will provide global patient data research analytics for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and healthcare industries. Emphasizing the "convergence" of rich clinical data with advanced information technology and analysis, Convergence CT is able to offer a fresh and innovative approach to accelerating medical research, clinical development, and departmental analysis, significantly enhancing and improving the ability of healthcare and life science organizations to use patient-level data for research, clinical trial planning and recruitment, and improve the quality and efficiency of healthcare services. The Company's solutions offer improved efficiencies for hospital data management and research for global markets. The Company was recently selected by the American Medical Group Association (AMGA) to build and support a National Collaborative Data Warehouse for its membership, using DB*FOCUS(TM) as the technology base for its solution (see the announcement dated January 17, 2006 -- AMERICAN MEDICAL GROUP ASSOCIATION SELECTS CONVERGENCE CT FOR ITS NATIONAL COLLABORATIVE DATA WAREHOUSE).

Convergence CT also offers data management and data analysis services to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, medical device manufacturers, and healthcare organizations. Convergence CT's experience in working with large databases of detailed patient-level data, including lab results and medication orders (both brand and generic named medications), exhibits a significant level of expertise in dealing with the organization and analysis of this level of data, expertise that is invaluable to pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies, medical device manufacturers, and healthcare organizations. For more information, contact Convergence CT at 808-536-3040 or toll free at 888-222-0024. Visit our website at http://www.convergencect.com.