Hartford Health Care to Implement Eclipsys' Sunrise Clinical Manager Solution in Three Hospitals.

Business Editors/Health & Medical Writers

DELRAY BEACH, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 11, 2001

Leading-Edge Eclipsys Solution to Enhance Clinical Integration

While Replacing Oacis Data Repository 

Eclipsys Corporation(R) (Nasdaq:ECLP), a leading provider of end-to-end information solutions that enable healthcare enterprises to balance and improve clinical, financial and satisfaction outcomes, today announced that Hartford Health Care Corporation, one of Connecticut's leading full-service integrated healthcare networks, has selected Eclipsys' Sunrise(TM) Clinical Manager solution as the foundation for the organization's go-forward clinical-integration strategy.

Hartford Health Care will implement Sunrise Clinical Manager's order-entry, results reporting and clinical data repository features in its flagship Hartford Hospital facility, which is Connecticut's largest full-service acute-care provider, and in its affiliates MidState Medical Center, a community hospital based in Meriden, Conn. and Connecticut Children's Medical Center, a leading regional pediatric-care facility located on the Hartford Hospital campus.

Hartford Health Care's decision to implement Clinical Manager in its three hospital affiliates will enable the organization to enhance the functionality of its clinical information-management systems, while also preserving and integrating existing patient data from legacy clinical and ancillary systems such as the Oacis data repository now in use at all three hospitals. Adoption of Clinical Manager also will help Hartford Health Care leverage other leading-edge Eclipsys applications currently in use within the organization, including Sunrise Decision Support Manager, Sunrise Concurrent Care Manager and Sunrise Record Manager. Moreover, Eclipsys will help Hartford Health Care obtain greater benefits from Record Manager by implementing this application, now in use at MidState Medical Center, in Hartford Hospital as well.

Hartford Health Care, whose physicians and hospitals serve patients throughout southern New England, will combine the Sunrise solutions with Eclipsys' proven information-management expertise as part of an enterprise-wide drive to improve the quality of patient care as well as the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of clinical processes.

"After thoroughly evaluating and comparing clinical information-management applications offered by leading HIT vendors, we concluded that Sunrise Clinical Manager's feature/functionality, Web interfaces and integration capabilities were best suited to our strategic goal of improving patient outcomes through the development of an IT system that fully integrates both clinical and non-clinical patient information," said Gerald Wilson, vice president of Information Systems at Hartford Health Care. "We were especially impressed by Clinical Manager's electronic data repository and Knowledge-Based Orders (KBO) features."

Sunrise Clinical Manager's KBO includes multiple levels of CDS, ranging from real-time checking of drug-drug and drug-allergy interactions to more-advanced time- and location-specific duplicate order checking. Sunrise KBO also includes expert levels of checking relative to changes in a patient's condition utilizing the full extent of electronic patient information available. In addition to comprehensive knowledge-based ordering capabilities, Clinical Manager features order communication and management, multidisciplinary clinical documentation, physician office documentation and workflow, and disease-management care documentation. Clinical Manager is now in use at more than 55 healthcare facilities in North America and abroad. Sunrise Decision Support Manager provides support for cost accounting, product-line management, departmental budgeting, business development, contract management, resource utilization management and process improvement.

Move enables upgrade while preserving IT investments

The agreement underscores Eclipsys' growing success in helping customers such as Hartford Health Care transition from both Eclipsys and non-Eclipsys products to leading-edge solutions such as Sunrise Clinical Manager. Clinical Manager will serve as Hartford Health Care's enterprise-wide clinical data repository not only for information currently residing on other Sunrise applications, but also for information currently stored in Oacis and other legacy clinical and ancillary systems throughout the organization.

"One of the advantages of partnering with Eclipsys is the flexibility that the company brings to the table," Wilson added. "Newer leading-edge clinical solutions such as Sunrise Clinical Manager enable us to expand and upgrade Eclipsys applications that we're currently using, as well as preserve our investment in non-Eclipsys legacy systems such as Oacis. We were especially impressed by Eclipsys' ability to take patient data currently residing in our Oacis system and successfully convert it to Clinical Manager's data repository."

"Eclipsys will work closely with Hartford Health Care to implement an enterprise-wide clinical-information system that will enable physicians and other clinicians to access patient data from different applications in an easy-to-use format that simplifies and enhances workflow and clinical processes throughout the organization," said Harvey J. Wilson, Eclipsys chairman and CEO. "By taking full advantage of Clinical Manager's integrated KBO, clinical documentation and decision-support capabilities, Hartford Health Care will maximize its existing IT investments while positioning the entire enterprise to achieve enhanced patient-care and satisfaction outcomes, along with substantial cost containment resulting from greater operational efficiencies and system integration."

Clinical Manager promotes cost savings, reduction in medical errors

Among the greatest challenges faced by Hartford Health Care and other large, complex IDNs is integrating physician practice patterns across the network. As advances in medical treatment continue at an ever-increasing pace, physicians must manage a growing volume of information. Hartford Health Care's affiliated physicians are dispersed throughout its affiliated hospitals, clinics and other healthcare facilities. Implementing advanced, Web-based information solutions such as Sunrise Clinical Manager will provide physicians with continuous access to patient records from virtually any location, thus enabling the organization to accomplish a key strategic objective -- enhanced system integration. By selecting Eclipsys as its core clinical solutions vendor, Hartford Health Care not only expects to achieve its goal of improving the quality of patient care, but also to reduce costs as a result of better-coordinated care that helps minimize the possibility of medical errors.

Hartford Health Care's investigation of clinical-information systems included numerous product demonstrations and site visits, including visits to Clinical Manager users Sarasota (FL) Memorial Hospital and Alamance Regional Medical Center (Burlington, N.C.). Sarasota Memorial has documented significant cost and quality benefits from its use of Sunrise Clinical Manager; hospital officials there estimate that the product is saving about $10 million annually, and they project annual savings of between $21 million and $26 million when the system is fully implemented and related IT projects are completed. Brigham and Women's Hospital, a founding member of Boston-based Partners HealthCare System, has documented a 55% reduction in serious medication errors and an 81% reduction in non-missed dose medication errors overall through use of its knowledge-based BICS system, which is the foundation for Clinical Manager's KBO.

The last year has seen growing numbers of healthcare providers turn to sophisticated, computer-based information solutions in response to heightened national concern about the prevalence of medical errors in the U.S. healthcare system. In November 1999, the National Academies of Sciences' Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a 223-page report on the need to dramatically reduce medical errors, the eighth-leading cause of death in the U.S. To achieve the goal of reducing avoidable medical events by at least half within five years, among the IOM report's recommendations is the expanded use of knowledge-based information solutions, one such example being Eclipsys' Sunrise Clinical Manager. And in November 2000, The Leapfrog Group, a consortium of Fortune 500 leading companies, announced its commitment to establishing a policy under which they will only pay for healthcare services provided in organizations that use computerized physician order-entry (CPOE) systems.

About Hartford Health Care System

Hartford Health Care Corporation is a fully integrated, regional healthcare network offering a full range of services to residents of Connecticut and southern New England. Hartford Health Care maintains affiliations and partnerships with numerous healthcare organizations throughout Connecticut. Its wholly owned subsidiaries include Hartford Hospital (and its mental health network, comprising The Institute of Living, Natchaug Hospital and Rushford Center); MidState Medical Center; VNA Health Care, Inc.; Hartford Medical Group; and Connecticut Laboratory Partners, LLC. Hartford Health Care also has formed regional resource partnerships with Charlotte Hungerford Hospital in Torrington; The Hospital of St. Raphael, New Haven; Hospital for Special Care in New Britain; The McLean Fund in Simsbury; Duncaster in Bloomfield; Sharon Hospital in Sharon; Johnson Memorial Corporation, parent company of Johnson Memorial Hospital in Stafford Springs; and a joint venture with Eastern Rehabilitation Network in multiple statewide locations.

About Eclipsys

Eclipsys Corporation delivers end-to-end information solutions to healthcare organizations (HCOs), with one or more of its products installed or being installed in more than 1,400 facilities in the United States and nine other countries. These solutions enable HCOs to balance and improve clinical, financial and satisfaction outcomes. Sunrise(TM), Eclipsys' comprehensive software product line, provides clinical, financial, health information, enterprise resource planning and management information solutions. Eclipsys also provides outsourcing, remote hosting, network services and business solutions consulting to complement its Sunrise solutions and assist its customers in meeting their healthcare information requirements. For more information, see www.eclipsys.com or email [e-mail].

Statements in this news release concerning future results, performance or expectations are forward-looking statements. Because such statements involve risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks include risks described in the filings of Eclipsys with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Eclipsys, Eclipsys Corporation and The Outcomes Company are registered trademarks, and Sunrise and Knowledge-Based Orders are trademarks of Eclipsys Solutions Corp. Other product and company names in this news release are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.