Exempla Healthcare Signs Agreement with Novo Innovations.

Novo system enables Exempla to deliver patient data directly into practice EMRs

ALPHARETTA, Ga. -- Novo Innovations, the leader in software-agent technologies to improve health information exchange, today announced a three-year agreement with Denver's Exempla Healthcare, a system of three hospitals and a network of clinics.

Exempla Healthcare has implemented Novo's agent-based healthcare exchange solution in all three of its hospitals, which will allow the organization to deliver patient data electronically to the ambulatory electronic medical record (EMR) systems at affiliated physician practices. The data -- including facesheets, lab results and transcribed reports --populates the patient chart in the practice EMR within minutes of being available in the hospital system.

Exempla Healthcare is also using the Novo system to reach practices without EMRs through Novo's "drop box" functionality, which enables practices with a PC and an Internet connection to securely receive patient data in minutes and in a format that reduces the cost and effort of handling paper.

According to Dave Pecoraro, chief information officer of Exempla Healthcare, one of the organization's primary reasons for deploying the Novo Innovations system is to interface with the ambulatory EMR in use by Kaiser Permanente in Colorado. Both Exempla Healthcare and Kaiser Colorado expect to improve patient care and generate administrative efficiencies by connecting their respective EMRs.

"Novo's technology attracted us right away," Pecoraro says. "We believe it represents the future in terms of how disparate, remote systems can communicate with each other. There's a very good design behind the system, which leads to simplicity and cost-efficient scalability. The system deploys rapidly and requires minimal staffing resources--it's virtually a plug-and-play application."

After first learning of the Novo Innovations solution last fall and performing a limited rollout last winter, Exempla has made the Novo system a major part of its IT strategy of strengthening its service offerings to referring physician practices. Physicians have responded very positively, says Pecoraro: "Physicians are raving about the Novo system because of its improvements to patient care. And with the great reduction in the amount of paper coming into the practice, they have realized significant administrative efficiencies. From our perspective, we've been able to strengthen our relationships with our practice partners by delivering a low-cost system that meets a pressing physician need."

"Hospitals and health systems recognize the competitive advantage in providing electronic EMR interfaces to their affiliated practices," says Robert Connely, CEO of Novo Innovations. "Hospitals that are physician-friendly in terms of providing data efficiently, quickly and easily stand to gain market share, and Novo Innovations is gratified to be helping Exempla Healthcare reach that goal."

About Novo Innovations

Founded in 2003, Novo Innovations has pioneered a new approach to health information exchange. Novo's approach is based on the use of intelligent software agents to provide workflow automation and system integration between hospitals, physicians and other providers in the healthcare community. Novo's comprehensive service approach provides all of the necessary integration expertise and technical effort, enabling any hospital or health system to create a community exchange solution at a fraction of the time, cost and effort of other solutions.

As Novo agents are deployed to address tactical interoperability challenges, they form the core of an information grid that will be able to address future strategic challenges. Novo has rapidly become a market leader, currently serving more than 250 hospital communities in the US. Learn more at www.novoinnovations.com or call 1-888-325-NOVO.