Northern New England Metropolitan Medical Response System and athenahealth Pilot New Emergency Response Model.

Centralized System Will Track Infected Patients across an Entire Geographic Region with New Web-Based Electronic Medical Record System

HANOVER and LEBANON, N.H. and WATERTOWN, Mass. -- Today, an emergency response exercise will be held at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and the surrounding community. The exercise will simulate an infectious disease mass casualty event involving a large number of patients. The exercise will test the hospital's ability to provide surge capacity during large scale events and to effectively distribute additional patients to alternative care facilities in surrounding communities. The exercise is supported by The Department of Homeland Security's Northern New England Metropolitan Medical Response System (NNE MMRS). The NNE MMRS regional office is based out of the New England Center for Emergency Preparedness (NECEP) at Dartmouth Medical School. If successful, the pilot program could act as a new emergency medical response platform for Northern New England.

Based on athenahealth, Inc.'s web-based athenaNet[R] platform, the platform is designed to allow all medical treatment facilities, including hospitals and community based surge capacity facilities to be able to register patients, track them through different facilities and document the care patients receive during a catastrophic public health emergency. For the purpose of today's demonstration, athenaNet will be used to track patient care information for approximately 50 volunteer patients.

This new system would allow health care and emergency response systems to monitor and coordinate efforts in the event of a disaster, as well as to document patient locations and treatments received. During the exercise, the athenaNet system will create a replicable platform that can be accessed from any location, ensure accurate data entry, and include tools to identify medical and patient trends. The system's reporting features will allow health care emergency response systems to assess a patient's health and status of care provided. This is done through athenahealth's electronic medical record service, athenaClinicals(SM), which is hosted on athenaNet. The pilot program will also measure health care utilization during the disaster event while also tracking the complete cost of care.

"The past two national medical emergencies (SARS and Hurricane Katrina) both lacked patient tracking or centralized data gathering capabilities. This severely inhibited our ability to monitor the impact of these events and ensure all patients were adequately treated and complete medical cost was obtained," said Dr. Robert Gougelet, Medical Director Emergency Response, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and Program Director for the NNE MMRS. "athenaNet has a very flexible architecture that we hope will enable us to adapt to the rapidly changing landscape during an emergency medical response, particularly in the face of pandemic event."

About The Metropolitan Medical Response System (MMRS)

The Metropolitan Medical Response System (MMRS) Program began in 1996 and currently is funded by the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS).The primary focus of MMRS is to develop or enhance existing emergency preparedness systems within Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, to effectively respond to a public health crisis, especially a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) event. Through preparation and coordination, local law enforcement, fire, hazmat, EMS, hospital, public health, and other "first response" personnel plan to more effectively respond in the early stages of a public health crisis.

MMRS officially became part of the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on March 1, 2003. Inquiries about MMRS programs, services, and resources can be directed to the MMRS staff. Updates will be posted to the MMRS website at http://mmrs.fema.gov. Further information about the NNE MMRS program can be found at http://dms.dartmouth.edu/~necep, or http://www.nnemmrs.org.

About Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC)

Located in Lebanon, New Hampshire, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center's aim is to provide high-quality healthcare and comfort to the ill, to prevent illness among the well and to advance healthcare through education, research, community service and the improvement of clinical practice. DHMC is comprised of Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital, the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Clinic, Dartmouth Medical School and VA Medical and Regional Office Center in White River Junction, Vermont. DHMC is also home to the Children's Hospital at Dartmouth and Norris Cotton Cancer Center. DHMC is New Hampshire's only academic medical center. For more information visit http://www.dhmc.org/.

About athenahealth, Inc.

athenahealth provides the only physician revenue and clinical cycle management offering that integrates web-based practice management and EMR software, continually updated payer knowledge, and back office processing specialists into a single service. The results are faster payment at lower cost, increased patient care, higher revenue retention and less hassle for the more than 8,000 providers using athenahealth nationwide. The company collects close to $2 billion on behalf of its clients annually. athenahealth is dedicated to helping providers make optimum use of their time, ultimately improving the quality of service delivered and the financial reward for it. For more information about athenahealth, visit our Web site at www.athenahealth.com or call 1-888-652-8200.