"Having access to core clinical data is one of the most critical aspects to ensuring quality patient care, but it is also the most difficult information to collect," said Laureen O'Brien, chief information officer at Providence Health & Services. "There is an acute need to significantly improve access to, and sharing of, patient data between inpatient and outpatient settings. We want to help enhance clinical decision making, reduce medical errors and create a true continuum of patient care without interrupting the clinician workflow."

With a planned launch in December 2009, the first release of the project is expected to enable sharing of patient conditions, allergies and up-to-date medication history between hospitals and ambulatory care settings. For example, if a patient presents at a Providence hospital with shortness of breath, pertinent information from the patient's primary care record will be available to the authorized emergency medicine provider at the point of care. A record of the care this patient receives at the hospital - including any new medications prescribed - can then be stored in the Health Information Exchange, making it available to the primary care physician for follow-up.

"We are excited to collaborate with Providence Health & Services, an industry leader in using healthcare technology to help improve patient care, to advance the level of connectivity and interoperability between providers. The standardization work that GE HIE has done enables any care delivery organization to achieve all of the perceived benefits of 'single database access,' without the incremental costs of replacing existing IT solutions," said James M. Corrigan, GE Healthcare IT Vice President and General Manager. "A major focus of the recent federal investment in healthcare technology is on achieving connectivity and leveraging standards. For more than 40 years, we've helped customers drive business performance in support of their clinical mission. GE Healthcare's work with Providence Health & Services and the standards community is a testament to our commitment to creating interoperable technologies to help improve the quality of care."

GE Healthcare's Centricity EMR allows ambulatory care physicians and clinical staff to document patient encounters, streamline clinical workflow, and securely exchange clinical data with other providers, patients and information systems. Centricity HIE Services enables the exchange of document-based electronic health information via a secure, standards-based infrastructure, increasing the feasibility of community-wide information exchange amongst multiple, disparate systems.

ABOUT GE HEALTHCARE:
GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, performance improvement, drug discovery, and biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies is helping clinicians around the world re-imagine new ways to predict, diagnose, inform, treat, and monitor disease, so patients can live their lives to the fullest.

GE Healthcare's broad range of products and services enable healthcare providers to better diagnose and treat cancer, heart disease, neurological diseases, and other conditions earlier. Our vision for the future is to enable a new "early health" model of care focused on earlier diagnosis, pre-symptomatic disease detection, and disease prevention. 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.

ABOUT PROVIDENCE HEALTH & SERVICES:
Providence Health & Services - Oregon, ranked as the seventh most integrated health care system in the nation, offers a comprehensive array of health and education services through its seven hospitals, medical clinics, health plans, long-term care facilities and home health services. With more than 16,000 employees, Providence is the state's largest private employer. Visit www.providence.org/oregon