Verispan Announces Availability of Its 2004 Hospital Procedures & Diagnoses Offering.

YARDLEY, Pa. -- Verispan announces the release of its 2004 Hospital Procedures & Diagnoses (HPD) offering, which contains 2003 inpatient data. Based on selected ICD-9 diagnosis and procedure codes, HPD allows manufacturers in the healthcare industry to target hospitals that are treating their patient populations.

HPD provides:

--inpatient discharge activity, including principal, secondary and total encounters

--average lengths of stay

--patient distribution by male/female and age groups

--payer breakouts

--discharge destination and more

Discharge information collected from more than 20 states and federal MEDPAR and Veterans Administration data allows Verispan to project activity by ICD-9 code for each U.S. Hospital. HPD outpatient activity also allows clients to look at total outpatient visits for the given diagnosis or procedure codes.

In addition to diagnosis or procedure data, clients can integrate any or all of the more than 300 hospital profile elements collected through the Verispan Hospital Market Profiling Solution, the most comprehensive hospital database available. Basic information like bed size, utilization, financials and specialty can be included with any HPD deliverable, in addition to newly collected data elements like urban hospital, rural hospital, disproportionate share hospital and critical access hospital designations. Clients can also roll up hospitals by "parent" in order to look at overall diagnosis or procedure activity by multi-hospital systems, integrated healthcare networks or group purchasing organizations.

Verispan releases its updated offering each fall and fulfills orders on a custom basis using the most recent information available as data from additional states becomes accessible throughout the year. Also available at this time is the 2002 HPD for outpatient data.

In addition to HPD, Verispan offers national-level activity reflecting the most current information available through its Diagnosis & Procedure Analyzer (DPA). DPA allows users to look at hospital industry trends that are less than 2 months old at a national and regional level for patient ICD-9 diagnoses and ICD-9, CPT-4 and HCPCS procedures across all hospital settings. DPA is based on Verispan's unique database of hospital claims, received daily and projected monthly; manufacturers and suppliers now have access to detailed reports months earlier than delivered by other providers.

With over 20 years of experience in delivering hospital diagnosis and procedure information to leading manufacturers in the healthcare industry through the former SMG offerings, Verispan is the market leader both in quality and experience in helping to accurately and appropriately target healthcare institutions.

For more information, please contact Therese Zanglin at 773-348-8279 or [e-mail].

Verispan: The True Measure of Healthcare

Verispan, a healthcare informatics joint venture of Quintiles Transnational Corp. and McKesson Corp., provides a broad array of information products and services to the healthcare industry, including sales targeting and compensation products; market research audits; healthcare profiles; comprehensive managed care offerings; primary market research; opinion leader mapping; data integration, warehousing and mining; data analysis and consulting; direct mail; list services; disease management studies; clinical trial investigator targeting and protocol recruitment evaluation; healthcare outcomes; and cost/benefit analyses, among many others. Verispan is also the nation's leading provider of patient-centric longitudinal data, with dozens of products used by clients spanning the industry.

Headquartered in Yardley, Pa., Verispan comprises over 500 dedicated healthcare information professionals. The company's Web site is www.verispan.com.