National Electronic Disease Surveillance System Initiative Identifies Orion Health Rhapsody Integration Engine as Key Component for Interoperable Surveillance Systems.

National Preparedness Effort Counts on Integrated Health Data

ATLANTA -- Orion Health, a leading provider of clinical workflow and integration technology for the healthcare sector, announces that the National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (NEDSS) Initiative has selected Orion Health's Rhapsody [TM] Integration Engine as a solution to further interoperable surveillance systems for disease tracking on the state, local and federal levels.

NEDSS promotes the use of data and information system standards to advance the development of efficient, integrated, and interoperable surveillance systems at federal, state and local levels. It is a major component of the Public Health Information Network (PHIN) and contributes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) BioSense bioterrorism and disease detection program.

"Rhapsody has helped us streamline and automate the process for messaging laboratory data into our disease surveillance system, increasing the accuracy of the data within that system as well as saving us money and a lot of time," said Doug Hamaker of the Texas Department of State Health Services, a beta site for the NEDSS project.

"It also offers us the ability to customize data for state reporting requirements, enabling us to integrate data into our legacy systems which have very specific and differing data requirements without replacing our existing software to achieve interoperability," Hamaker continues.

NEDSS addresses the limitations of existing surveillance systems through the use of off-the-shelf and standards based software. Solutions such as Orion Health Rhapsody Integration Engine help overcome obstacles such as multiple incompatible disease-specific systems, incomplete and delayed data, sheer volume of data and overwhelming volume of data to be managed by health departments.

"Rhapsody contributes to the national preparedness efforts of CDC by facilitating direct electronic data exchanges between sources of data - health care providers or laboratories - and public health agencies, the states & the CDC," said Paul Viskovich, President of Orion Health North America.

The United States Department of Agriculture, Animal Plant Health Inspection Services, Veterinary Services has also selected Orion Health's Rhapsody Integration Engine to help its National Animal Health Laboratory Network (NAHLN) integrate test results and track animal diseases. The CDC has also selected the solution to manage data transmission and brokering for BioSense bioterrorism detection program.

About Rhapsody Integration Engine

Consistently rated the number one healthcare integration engine by KLAS, Rhapsody has been designed to meet the present and future needs of health integration.

The Rhapsody Engine manages and streamlines message exchange between hospital applications, databases and external systems.

Rhapsody delivers an integration solution with the lowest cost of ownership and highest return on investment.

More information regarding the National Electronic Disease Surveillance System can be found at http://www.cdc.gov/nedss/.

About Orion Health

Orion Health's easy-to-use applications and tools integrate and enhance existing healthcare information systems and deliver secure, universal access to information. The innovative company delivers an end-to-end information technology (IT) integration platform that brings together clinical content to improve clinician effectiveness and the quality of patient care.

Orion's partners include leading health and IT vendors such as Oracle Corporation, Philips Medical Systems, LogicaCMG, Hewlett Packard, McKesson, and Sierra Systems. Orion also has more than 1,000 clients worldwide including Johns Hopkins Hospital, New York State Department of Health, Central Washington Hospital, US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and many more. More information can be found at www.orionhealth.com.