Sybase and RGI Announce Healthcare BI Solution

Demonstrating its commitment to the healthcare industry and emerging technologies, Sybase Inc, announced the availability of a healthcare analytic solution through its partnership with RGI Informatics. This solution combines the power of Sybase's Industry Warehouse Studio 2.0 with RGI's healthcare analytics to reduce medical errors and improve the quality of care being delivered.

"The rapid deployment of Sybase's Industry Warehouse Studio enables RGI to offer healthcare organizations a solution that can be implemented in a matter of months, rather than years, if they were to build it internally," said Jack Sweeney, vice president, North American Operations, Sybase, Business Intelligence. "The scalability of Industry Warehouse Studio allows healthcare organizations to incrementally implement functionality as they need it or as their budgets allow, and the platform independence of Sybase technology allows the analytic solution to work with healthcare organizations' heterogeneous systems and existing data warehouses."

By combining new data mining and visualization techniques with healthcare domain expertise, RGI's analytical solutions can identify differences or patterns in both the quality of care and the utilization of care services by specific populations or physicians. These solutions allow healthcare centers to analyze the data that track medical errors. This tool allows the healthcare industry to identify processes or policies that did not have the necessary checks and balances to prevent the error. Being able to analyze health plans of patients with specific diseases allows organizations to identify differences in the patterns or outcomes of care that lead to cost savings.

"The analytical solutions benefit a wide audience that includes health plans, employers, payers and patients," said Dr. Richard Goldstein, president of RGI Informatics. "And prominent in the press is the issue of medical errors, since The National Academy of Science recently reported that as many as 98,000 people die in the United States each year from medical errors. It's estimated that the total cost of preventable mistakes -- not only those that lead to death, but also those that incur medical disability expenses and lost productivity -- could be as high as $29 billion a year."

Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif., is using RGI's analytics to help it focus on clinical outcome improvements and cost reduction initiatives. Charles Pietrafesa, M.D., executive medical director at Saint John's stated, "Credible, meaningful and useful. That's how the medical and administrative staffs at Saint John's Health Center have long regarded RGI analytics -- an integral component of our most significant clinical outcome improvement and cost reduction initiatives. We applaud the alliance of RGI's analytics and the Sybase IWS healthcare infrastructure -- a combination that encourages production of a widely-applicable, broadly-accepted, reproducible outcomes improvement tool. I believe this combined approach will go a long way toward helping healthcare organizations improve patient outcomes in ways that foster physician acceptance and also reduce costs."

RGI offers its analytic solution via traditional software licensing agreements or through an application services provider (ASP) model. Under the ASP model, the health plan downloads the data to RGI, where the analytic processing takes place. Additional ASP functionality will be added in the coming months to allow customers access to result reports over the Web. Customers will then access the functionality of the solution with a PC and Internet browser via the Internet or a virtual private network. With the ASP model, customers pay a fee for the functionality of the solution, rather than purchase and implement the software and hardware.

Sybase Powers Major Healthcare Solutions

Sybase healthcare solutions are installed in the top five U.S. managed-care organizations and more than 35 of the Blue Cross Blue Shield organizations. Sybase technology is used by more than 450 healthcare organizations worldwide. In addition, Sybase has more than 100 application partners building targeted healthcare solutions based on its technology. Sybase healthcare-specific information can be found at www.sybase.com/healthcare.

About Sybase Inc

Headquartered in Emeryville, CA, Sybase Inc is one of the largest global independent software companies. Sybase helps businesses integrate, manage and deliver applications, content and data anywhere they are needed. The company's products, combined with its world-class professional services and partner technologies, provide a comprehensive platform for integrated, end-to- end solutions in mobile and embedded computing, data warehousing and Web environments. Sybase focuses especially on Enterprise Portal (EP) solutions, which give businesses the ability to extend their enterprise to customers, partners and suppliers by converting stored data into useful information, that can be organized, integrated and personalized for use anywhere at anytime. Sybase customers represent the industries leading the global economy, with strong concentrations in financial services, public sector, telecommunications and healthcare. The company's Web address is www.sybase.com.

About RGI Informatics

RGI Informatics employs advanced technological methods in the analysis of healthcare data. By combining new data mining and visualization techniques with domain (healthcare/benefits/data) knowledge, RGI identifies differences or patterns in both the quality of care, as well as in utilization for specific population or provider clusters. Working within specific disease groups (e.g., diabetes or asthma), RGI can easily segment, cluster or stratify populations to identify differences in outcomes or patterns of care. RGI healthcare analytic solutions are oriented to reducing healthcare costs by improving clinical outcomes. RGI analytic results can be provided as content to Websites that support consumer health care decision making.

Contact Rick Myllenbeck, Director of Public Relations of Sybase Inc, 510- 922-8506 rick.myllenbeck@sybase.com.