Imaging e-Ordering Coalition Formed to Promote Evidence-based Solutions for Ordering Appropriate Diagnostic Tests

Healthcare Leaders Promote HIT enabled Decision Support Tools to Assure
Medically Appropriate Imaging Tests for All Patients: The Right Test, at The
Right Time
WASHINGTON--(Business Wire)--
An alliance of leading healthcare providers, technology companies and diagnostic
imaging organizations have joined forces to form the Imaging e-Ordering
Coalition (The Coalition). This national initiative will promote Health
Information Technology (HIT) enabled decision-support (e-Ordering) as a solution
to assure that all patients receive the most medically appropriate diagnostic
imaging test for their specific condition. Members of the Coalition are devoting
their energies to help educate policy makers and healthcare providers about the
patient-centered efficiencies of e-Ordering, as well as recommending to
lawmakers that the efforts to build incentives for prescribing medications
electronically (e-Prescribing) should be broadened to include diagnostic imaging
e-Ordering solutions.

"As the healthcare industry, federal government and various regulatory bodies
evaluate strategies to contain the rising cost of healthcare, e-Ordering is
increasingly recognized as a cost-effective and data-driven approach to assure
clinical best practices are applied to all ordering decisions," said Bibb Allen,
M.D., of the American College of Radiology, and founding member of the Imaging
e-Ordering Coalition. "Expanding on the e-Prescribing model, e-Ordering will do
for diagnostic imaging what e-Prescribing has done for the drug prescription
process - simplify the way physicians` decisions for patient care are verified
as medically appropriate and safe without compromising the physician-patient
relationship."

There are a variety of active legislative and regulatory proposals that attempt
to address the utilization of imaging services for publicly subsidized programs
such as Medicare and Medicaid. The Coalition is focused on the following
components and has achieved measured progress within each:

* Promote existing HIT legislative concepts to inform policy makers on the value
of e-Ordering to enable the appropriate use of imaging.
* Ask lawmakers to include e-Ordering in the development of healthcare system
efficiency incentives.
* Act as a resource for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on
its Medicare Imaging Demonstration Project established by Congress in Section
135(b) of the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008
(MIPPA).
* Work with policy makers to have the Coalition`s e-Ordering proposal for CMS
scored to validate long-term value and savings for the healthcare industry.
* Work with stakeholders to establish standards to accelerate e-Ordering as a
meaningful and valuable application with EHRs.

According to the Coalition, e-Ordering prevents many of the potential issues
associated with radiology benefit managers (RBMs), which are organizations
employed by some healthcare insurers to manage utilization and costs associated
with high-tech diagnostic exams. Concerns with the RBM model, include regulatory
oversight and a manually burdensome "prior authorization" system whereby
physicians must receive approval before ordering an imaging service. Under prior
authorization, patients are often denied the imaging studies their physicians
believe are warranted, are steered towards lower-precision tests that may not
provide needed clinical information, or are forced to wait days or weeks to
receive vital imaging services. e-Ordering, on the other hand, provides
physicians real-time, electronic access to pre-exam, case-by-case decisions that
are linked to published, evidenced-based clinical studies and are tailored to a
patient`s specific circumstances.

"The growing emphasis at all levels of the federal government to encourage
adoption of HIT presents an opportunity for the Coalition to elevate e-Ordering
as a much more provider-friendly, patient-centered alternative to the radiology
benefit managers (RBM) model," said Liz Quam, Director, Center for Diagnostic
Imaging Institute, and founding member of the Imaging e-Ordering Coalition. "As
a provider of diagnostic imaging services in nine states, my company has seen
the inconsistencies in insurers` utilization efforts. None of those efforts are
without hassle for the healthcare providers striving to offer patient-centered
care. Using an electronic decision support tool offers regulators and insurers
the assurance that the patient is receiving appropriate care without adding
unnecessary time or administrative expense."

The Imaging e-Ordering Coalition is represented by legal authority and lobbying
firm, Holland & Knight. For information on membership please call +1 (202)
457-7004. To date, the following organizations are members of the Imaging
e-Ordering Coalition: American College of Radiology (ACR), Center for Diagnostic
Imaging (CDI), GE Healthcare, Medicalis, Merge Healthcare and Nuance
Communications, Inc.

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Imaging e-Ordering Coalition

The Imaging e-Ordering Coalition has been established to proactively interact
with policymakers and health care providers on certain issues related to imaging
services. In particular, the Coalition proposes to advance the use of electronic
decision-support technologies that provide clinicians with guidance regarding
the ordering of patient-appropriate imaging services.

American College of Radiology

The 32,000 members of the American College of Radiology include radiologists,
radiation oncologists, medical physicists, interventional radiologists and
nuclear medicine physicians. For over three quarters of a century, the ACR has
devoted its resources to making imaging safe, effective and accessible to those
who need it. The mission of the ACR is to serve patients and society by
maximizing the value of radiology, radiation oncology, interventional radiology,
nuclear medicine and medical physics by advancing the science of radiology,
improving the quality of patient care, positively influencing the
socio-economics of the practice of radiology, providing continuing education for
radiology and allied health professions and conducting research for the future
of radiology.

CDI

Headquartered in Minneapolis, Center for Diagnostic Imaging (CDI) has been a
leader in high-quality, cost-effective, outpatient radiology imaging services
since 1981, and currently owns and/or operates 51 diagnostic imaging centers in
nine states, including Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas,
Missouri, Washington and Florida. CDI partners with hospitals and health systems
to offer physician-led, outpatient radiology services and the expertise of
sub-specialized radiologists focused on neurological, spine, musculoskeletal,
body and cardiovascular imaging, in addition to advanced diagnostic injections
and pain management procedures. CDI is owned by CDI physicians and management
along with Onex Partners, a subsidiary of Onex Corporation in Toronto, Canada.
For more information, visit CDI`s Web site at www.CDIrad.com.

GE Healthcare

GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that
are shaping a new age of patient care. Our broad expertise in medical imaging
and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems,
drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies, performance
improvement and performance solutions services help our customers to deliver
better care to more people around the world at a lower cost. In addition, we
partner with healthcare leaders, striving to leverage the global policy change
necessary to implement a successful shift to sustainable healthcare systems. Our
"healthymagination" vision for the future invites the world to join us on our
journey as we continuously develop innovations focused on reducing costs,
increasing access and improving quality and efficiency around the world.
Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a $17 billion unit of
General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employs more than
46,000 people committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients
in more than 100 countries. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our
website at www.gehealthcare.com.

Medicalis Corporation

Medicalis is a leading provider of healthcare information technology and
Clinical Decision Support for diagnostic imaging. Medicalis delivers web-based
clinical and integration services to physicians, providers and health plans to
provide advanced diagnostic imaging solutions that improve quality and
efficiency of diagnostic services. Medicalis delivers solutions that provide
clinical guidelines for use at the point-of-care, point-of-service and
point-of-analysis that address the issues of unnecessary testing, resource
utilization and patient safety. For more information visit www.medicalis.com.

Merge Healthcare

Merge Healthcare Incorporatedbuilds software solutions that automate healthcare
data and diagnostic workflow to build a better electronic record of the patient
experience. Merge products, ranging from standards-based development toolkits to
fully integrated clinical applications, have been used by healthcare providers
worldwide for over 20 years. Additional information can be found at
www.merge.com

Nuance Communications, Inc.

Nuance Communications, Inc.`s (NASDAQ: NUAN) healthcare portfolio includes
closed-loop radiology management solutions to support the radiology practice
from start to finish. Nuance`s solutions significantly improve the diagnostic
imaging workflow by adding radiology decision support (RadPort) to enable data
driven, real-time e-Ordering, speech recognition reporting (PowerScribe and
RadWhere), critical test result management (Veriphy) communication, and a
business intelligence solution (RadCube) for utilization management, patient and
outcomes analysis, as well as clinical and operational trending.

Coalition Contact:
Holland & Knight
Robert Bradner, 202-457-7004
robert.bradner@hklaw.com
or
Media Contact:
Nuance Communications, Inc.
Holly Dewar, 781-565-4893
holly.dewar@nuance.com

Copyright Business Wire 2009