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Soarian Disease Management Helps Improve Care of Congestive Heart Failure Patients; Siemens Announces General Availability of Latest Healthcare IT Innovation

Posted on: Tuesday, 15 November 2005, 09:00 CST

Soarian(R) Disease Management, which facilitates collaborative care between clinicians and patients with chronic illnesses, is proving to reduce readmission rates and enable early intervention for congestive heart failure (CHF) patients. Siemens Medical Solutions will demonstrate Soarian Disease Management, the latest in its Soarian family of healthcare information technology (IT) solutions, at the American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Sessions in Dallas from Nov. 13 through 16, 2005 (booth # 507).

"Soarian Disease Management allows us to provide early intervention to patients who would otherwise not act upon their worsening symptoms in a timely manner and would end up requiring an emergency department visit and/or admission to the hospital," said Sandra Garrison, director, Chronic Heart Failure Initiative, The Chester County Hospital. "We've had several instances in which we know our early intervention prevented decompensation, which would otherwise have required an emergency visit."

Industry research shows that a disease management solution for heart failure patients can save hospitals an average of $3,884 per patient and produce an average return on investment of $2.78 for every dollar spent. These potential cost savings are among the projected benefits that are helping to drive greater adoption of disease management solutions.

Soarian Disease Management's proactive patient self-monitoring features and communication capabilities have also proven valuable at South Carolina Heart Center, where handling CHF patients is often a challenge due to high patient volumes and patient readmissions.

"We are definitely seeing the benefits with the chronic heart failure patients who have been enrolled in the disease management program at our facility," said Sherry Shults, chief information officer, South Carolina Heart Center. "None of these patients have been readmitted to the hospital or seen in the emergency department for heart failure since they began participating in this program. By utilizing this tool we are able to achieve the best possible outcomes in chronically ill patients suffering from CHF, including fewer physical and social limitations and improved quality of life - in a cost efficient way."

"We've designed Soarian Disease Management to help providers turn the burdens of managing patients with chronic illnesses into opportunities for improved quality of care, cost control, and greater efficiency in care coordination," said Tom Miller, president, healthcare IT Division, Siemens Medical Solutions. "The solution helps motivate patients to become active participants in their treatment process."

As a comprehensive, interactive Web-based solution, Soarian Disease Management provides patients with the guidance and support to manage and conveniently report on their daily health status. The system's workflow management capabilities help providers monitor chronically ill patients' adherence to care plans and provide a holistic picture of a patient's condition, pushing relevant information to clinicians. Tasks can be scheduled and tracked to support a patient's specific condition, including reminders for physicians to order tests or additional studies. The solution also pushes alerts to clinicians, enabling them to choose the correct intervention for a patient who does not report in as scheduled, or who reports vital statistics out of hospital-defined ranges, for example.

The ability to manage CHF patients is fully realized with the current software release. This version also provides the ability to document identified co-morbidities like diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma. Future releases will provide more capabilities for managing these additional diseases.

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, healthcare information systems, management consulting, and support services, to help customers achieve tangible, sustainable, clinical and financial outcomes. Employing approximately 31,000 people worldwide and operating in more than 120 countries, Siemens Medical Solutions reported sales of 7.6 billion EUR, orders of 8.6 billion EUR and group profit of 976 million EUR for fiscal 2005. More information can be obtained by visiting http://www.usa.siemens.com/medical-pressroom.

PHOTOGRAPHY AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST

Source: Business Wire

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