West Dorset General Hospital NHS Trust Goes Live with CoPathPlus from Misys.

RALEIGH, N.C. & BURGESS HILL, United Kingdom -- Misys Healthcare Systems, a market leader in healthcare information technology, is pleased to announce that West Dorset General Hospital NHS Trust is in live production with CoPathPlus(TM) from Misys(TM), the market leading anatomic pathology module.

West Dorset, a Misys Laboratory(TM) and Misys Radiology(TM) systems user since 1994, is a 500-bed acute general hospital based in Dorchester, Dorset. A beacon site and one of eight Exemplar hospitals in the U.K., recognised by the NHS for its excellent patient environment, the Trust serves a population of 220,000. The Trust's pathology department handles all hospital-wide test activity including 11,000 surgical histology, 16,000 gynaecology and 3,500 other types of cytology tests in the Histopathology/Cytology Department alone.

CoPathPlus' highly intuitive Windows-based user interface enables patient and specimen data to be viewed in a wide variety of formats. It includes images and diagrams and has an integrated report writer with more than 200 report templates including KC61 cytology screening statistics. Other features include histology protocols and HL7 compliance, enabling integration with Misys CPR(TM) and other mainstream electronic patient record systems.

When the decision arose whether to upgrade its histology and cytology information systems, West Dorset chose CoPathPlus largely because of its existing partnership with Misys. Katherine Mounce, system manager, explains: "Our 10-year implementation of the Misys Laboratory system has proved extremely reliable. We encountered only 15 seconds of unscheduled downtime in 2003. Because our hospital laboratory is charged with sending results direct to the wards, consultants and GPs, incurring downtime means delays in getting vital results to the point of care."

Misys expedited the process of migrating West Dorset's data from its pathology system to CoPathPlus within six months, from planning and testing to activation. "The pathology data integration was completed sooner than expected," says Mounce, "since it can easily take up to a year installing a system in a large hospital." Beating the planned 'go-live' deadline was especially impressive since West Dorset was the first Misys site to migrate all of its cytology data from the existing system to CoPathPlus, a task which required customised data conversion work and was performed by the Misys support team in Arizona.

A key benefit of CoPathPlus is its ease of use. "Information is written in plain English and each field is clearly labelled. It is simple to conduct searches and find what you're looking for even if you don't know the actual clinical codes," continues Mounce. "It's also extremely flexible, offering many different ways to achieving the same thing. Our clinicians and biomedical scientists love this because it speeds up the time it takes to enter and retrieve test data. Reports generated with layout and desktop publishing functionality not only look extremely professional but are easier to read."

Says Duane Lawrence, general manager of Misys Healthcare Systems in West Sussex, U.K: "Many new and existing customers are now choosing to upgrade to our Windows-based CoPathPlus from Misys because it is quick to install, easily customisable, HL7 compliant and supports regulatory requirements such as KC61. We are very proud that West Dorset, a long-standing partner and one of Britain's most prestigious healthcare facilities, has chosen to continue its partnership with Misys."

About West Dorset General Hospitals NHS Trust

The Trust looks after the health needs of people throughout West Dorset, serving a largely rural population of 220,000 and employing around 2,500 staff. It manages Dorset County Hospital in the county town of Dorchester, and some services at Weymouth Community Hospital. Staff also work at other local hospitals, in schools and residential homes, family doctor surgeries and in patients' own homes. The Trust has gained the top score of Three Stars in the Government's annual ratings two years in a row and waiting times continue to be among the shortest in the country. The Trust also holds an NHS Beacon, recognising excellence in the management of waiting lists.

Dorset County Hospital is a 500-bed modern hospital that has been recognised as an Exemplar Site by the Department of Health. There are only eight such sites in the country - chosen because of the high quality of the patient environment.

About Misys Healthcare Systems

Misys Healthcare Systems, one of the top five healthcare IT companies in North America, develops and supports reliable, easy-to-use software and services of exceptional quality that enable physicians and caregivers to more easily manage the complexities of healthcare. Its Misys Optimum solutions, a family of best-in-class products and Web-based technologies, enable patient information sharing across all medical care settings, thus connecting community-based physicians to the acute care enterprise and enabling increased efficiencies, better decision making and improved hospital-physician relations. With 25 years of experience in the industry, Misys currently serves more than 92,000 physicians in 18,000 practice locations, 1,250 hospitals, 600 home care providers and hundreds of commercial laboratories, clinics, managed services and other related organizations. For more information, visit www.misyshealthcare.com.

About Misys plc

Misys plc, the global software products and solutions company, serves customers in the international banking and securities, international healthcare, and UK retail financial services sectors. The group partners with its customers to deliver outstanding IT solutions to essential industries. For the year ended May 31, 2003, Misys reported revenues in excess of $1.5 billion. Misys employs more than 6,000 people internationally. For more information, visit www.misys.com.

Misys CPR, Misys Laboratory and Misys Radiology are trademarks of Misys Hospital Systems, Inc. d/b/a Misys Healthcare Systems. CoPathPlus(TM) is distributed by Misys under license.