Siemens Supports Rural and Community Health Providers

Twenty-One New Customers Grow IT Investments by Signing with Siemens for MedSeries4(R) Product; 40 Existing Customers Add MS4 Clinicals Modules

Siemens Medical Solutions continues to support rural and community healthcare providers in their efforts to adopt information technology solutions with its functionally rich MedSeries4 (MS4) health information system (HIS), which was designed specifically for these types of providers. In 2006, Siemens added 21 new hospitals to its growing list of customers. In addition, 40 existing customers received a stream of enhancements through the purchase of MS4 Clinicals modules.

The competitive environment in healthcare is placing increasing importance on IT solutions. According to a technical market research report from BCC Research, the U.S. healthcare IT market was $16.38 billion in 2005 and estimated at $18.5 billion in 2006. By 2011, the market is expected to reach $34.7 billion in sales, which translates to a 13.4 percent average annual growth rate. Hospitals that do not invest in IT will struggle to survive and compete against those that do. But for rural and community health providers that have smaller budgets than their big-city counterparts, realizing the capital to make such investments can be challenging. Siemens Medical Solutions' highly integrated MS4 product was designed with the needs of rural and community hospitals in mind, and is providing a means for these providers to achieve state-of-the-art functionality while staying within their budgets.

"We simply can't allow small and rural providers to remain stagnant on the IT adoption curve," said Janet Dillione, president, Healthcare IT Division, Siemens Medical Solutions. "Cost and quality concerns are not reserved for metropolitan areas alone. Siemens is committed to providing affordable, feature-rich solutions like MedSeries4 to meet the needs of small hospitals."

A Web-based product, MS4 is flexibly designed to adapt to any community hospital's needs, whether a single facility with as few as 20 beds or a multi-entity enterprise with more than 1,000 beds. Positive outcomes and efficiencies delivered by MS4 include: addressing patient safety initiatives with tools that allow greater access to patient information; optimizing the revenue cycle with proactive account management, improved scheduling and timely collections; and improving resource management by accurately capturing financial information and strategically managing the flow of supplies.

Many existing Siemens customers who have been using the MS4 Financials applications have realized the value of the technology and have added MS4 Clinicals modules to meet their growing IT needs. These customers include Neosho Memorial Regional Medical Center, a 25-bed critical access facility in Chanute, Kan.; Nacogdoches Memorial Hospital, a 216-bed general medical and surgical care facility in Nacogdoches, Texas; East Texas Medical Center Regional Healthcare System, a system of 14 hospitals that serves East Texans; as well as Valley General Hospital, a 72-bed facility in Monroe, Wash. and Caldwell Memorial Hospital, a 110-bed community hospital in Lenoir, N.C.

Caldwell Memorial Hospital has used MS4 Financials applications since 1994 and recently decided to add the MS4 Clinical Suite. "You can't kill MS4," said Don Gardner, chief financial officer, Caldwell. "It's just a sturdy, hard platform that's always there. I can't even remember a time when the system was down other than for planned upgrades. If we were going to be successful in the future we knew that we needed to build on MS4 by adding clinical applications. Siemens has proven that it will continue to invest in and support MS4, so adding the MS4 Clinical Suite was the perfect option for us."

Additionally, Platte Valley Medical Center, a growing community hospital in Brighton, Colo., has taken advantage of the MS4 Remote Computing Option (RCO) configuration and was able to deploy browser-based nursing applications without incurring the additional cost of system upgrades and hardware. Platte Valley nurses were able to rapidly roll out an intuitive, easy-to-use nursing documentation system that will help provide efficiencies in documentation and auditing - Siemens.