Siemens Information

October, 2004 – Founded more than 125 years ago, Siemens Medical Solutions of Siemens AG (NYSE: SI) with headquarters in Malvern, Pennsylvania and Erlangen, Germany, is one of the largest suppliers to the healthcare industry in the world. The company is known for bringing together innovative medical technologies and healthcare information systems, as well as management consulting and support services, to help customers achieve tangible, sustainable, clinical and financial outcomes. From imaging systems for diagnosis, to therapy equipment for treatment, to hearing instruments and beyond, Siemens innovations contribute to the health and well-being of people across the globe, while improving operational efficiencies and optimizing workflow in hospitals, clinics, home health agencies, and doctors' offices. Employing over 30,000 worldwide and operating in more than 120 countries, Siemens Medical Solutions reported fiscal year 2004, first through third quarters, sales over $5 billion EUR, and orders of $5.6 billion EUR. With 13,000 U.S employees across the country, Siemens Medical Solutions has Research and Development (R&D), Centers of Excellence in Hoffmann Estates, Ill.; Concord, Calif.; Mountainview, Calif.; Issaquah, Wash.; Piscataway, N.J. and Princeton, N.J.

Siemens continues to strengthen its position as a complete healthcare solutions provider by investing in, or acquiring businesses that support its total solutions provider strategy. This includes the acquisitions of ACUSON Corporation, now an integrated part of Siemens’ Ultrasound division and Shared Medical Systems, which became the worldwide headquarters of Siemens healthcare Information Technology (IT) division in 2000. Siemens has also made investments in Oxford Magnet Technology and CTI PET Systems, as well as developed strategic technology partnerships with companies such as IBM, Cisco, Microsoft, VisEn Medical, Inc., Toshiba, Marconi and Esaoate.

Research and Development
The development of innovative products and new clinical applications serve as the basis for future healthcare. Siemens Medical Solutions invests nearly ten percent of its annual revenue on R&D, and two-thirds of its products are less than three years old. Recent breakthroughs resulting from these efforts include non-invasive colonography and lung viewing applications, 64-slice computed tomography and new generation magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technologies. These technologies include Total imaging matrix (Tim®) technology, the first seamless, whole body surface coil design that combines 76 seamlessly integrated coil elements with up to 32 RF Channels and Espree, the world’s first open bore, 1.5 Tesla, MRI system that combines a larger opening, for obese and claustrophobic patients with the ability to capture high-field quality diagnostic images.

Holding a leadership position in healthcare IT for nearly 35 years, Siemens Medical Solutions’ IT contributions have been widely recognized among industry leaders and healthcare providers. Within the last three years, Siemens customers have been the recipients of the prestigious Nicholas E. Davies Award of Excellence for improving patient safety: The Ohio State University Health System was able to get medication to their patients 33% faster and reduce the time it takes to get radiology reports by 43%; and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center was able to reduce medication errors by 35%.

The most innovative IT breakthrough in the industry is Soarian®, the only seamless and holistic health information solution (HIS) that integrates clinical, financial, diagnostic and administrative processes to support patient-centered care. By bringing together images and data seamlessly from a variety of medical modalities in one location, Soarian helps facilitate more informed decision-making – leading to improved care delivery, increased staff satisfaction, and more efficient business practices. With more than 170 contracts signed to date, the market acceptance of Soarian continues to grow. Siemens is the only major healthcare IT vendor to recently launch an entirely new, built from the ground up (on new technology) HIS with clear market differentiators.

Soarian's key market differentiator is its unique-to-healthcare workflow engine that synchronizes processes across the health enterprise. Bringing Soarian to market has indeed been a massive undertaking for Siemens. The project represents more than $500 million in R&D, leverages the expertise of more than 1400 software developers around the globe, and has more than 60 patents pending.

As a complete solutions provider, Siemens Medical Solutions has developed Soarian specialty solutions for individual departments. For example, Soarian Cardiology was designed for the customer with particular focus on Cardiology. South Carolina Heart Center, a beta customer for Soarian Cardiology, has reduced the time it takes to get a cardiac catheterization (cath) lab report from two days to just 15 minutes. As a result, they are able to perform an average of one more cardiac cath procedure per day, increasing their ability to serve ill patients, as well as provide the potential to generate an additional $720,000 in annual revenue.

Connectivity And Industry Collaboration
In addition to providing in-house IT solutions for healthcare organizations, Siemens is the leading Application Service Provider (ASP) in healthcare, hosting applications and data for over 1,000 of its 5,000 IT customer organizations. This differentiating feature enables Siemens to deliver complete solutions that are custom fit for any healthcare organization’s business model.

The company also operates the health industry’s most sophisticated network operations center for remote hosting of applications from its Information Services Center (ISC), which stores the information of more than 25% of the U.S. population. Offering multiple connectivity options, including high-speed Internet, intranet, and virtual private networks, the ISC provides 24 x 365 reliability and sub-second response time. Technologically advanced security helps to assure regulatory compliance with mandates such as HIPAA legislation. The ISC processes over 144 million transactions daily, stores over 57 terabytes of information – more than double the volume of the Library of Congress, supports approximately 500,000 end-user devices, and manages 500,000 miles of Wide Area Network (WAN) circuits.

It is widely accepted throughout the healthcare IT industry that both a series of local infrastructures and a national infrastructure are critical to increasing the successful adoption and deployment of IT in healthcare. Such infrastructures will drive the availability of secure electronic health records (EHRs) that put pertinent patient data and medical images at a clinician’s fingertips. In addition, a web of local exchanges bound together via a national infrastructure will enable real-time aggregation of health data to detect patterns and protect against bioterrorism. It will also make it possible for consumers to make more informed decisions about their care and better understand costs associated with that care.

As such, Siemens, among other industry leaders, is diligently working with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and its office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to establish a comprehensive knowledge-based network of interoperable systems of clinical, public health and personal health information that will improve decision-making by enabling health information to be available when and where it is needed.

At Siemens, from short-term priorities to long-term goals, all activities begin and end with the customer. Understanding individual requirements and delivering outstanding innovations that respond to – even anticipate – customer needs, is the mission. Delivering leading edge technologies well into the future is mission critical.

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