Leading Edge R&D:

ECLIPSYS FORMS SunClinical DATA INSTITUTE

Eclipsys Corporation, The Outcomes Company, announced the establishment of a new business division, SunClinical Data Institute, to aid healthcare organizations (HCOs) in unlocking the scientific and clinical management power that resides in clinical information systems. The Institute was created to transform otherwise unusable transaction data into a secure, clinically rich, data warehouse of varying levels to provide an array of analytical activities to member HCOs.

SunClinical -- at no charge to participating HCOs -- will combine copies of transaction data from E7000, Sunrise Clinical Manager, Sunrise Critical Care Manager, CAREvision clinical systems, plus at the member's option, information from Sunrise Decision Support Manager and Access Manager/Patient Financial Manager systems, into a single data warehouse. In this process, data will be edited, reconciled, transformed and enhanced, maximizing its analytic utility. All data will be encrypted and made anonymous in accordance with strict adherence to Health Information Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) patient privacy rules, and will be physically secured within SunClinical facilities. Each participating HCO (Institute member) will receive a quarterly copy of its own SunClinical Data Warehouse (SDW) file.

Considerable power for participants will be gained from combining data from all members into pooled national warehouses. After removing all individually identifiable information, SunClinical will first combine individual HCO warehouses into a National Clinical Benchmarking warehouse for use only by Institute members. Individual HCOs will be able to assess their performance against the pool of other Institute members, but will not be able to identify any other single organization. The ability to perform sophisticated, clinically focused process and outcome assessments, with adjustments for true underlying medical differences between patients, will provide a much higher level of utility than other current benchmarking services. SunClinical will offer standardized reports as well as conduct customized studies at member request.

A National Clinical Data Analysis warehouse will combine all information in the SunClinical Data Warehouse system after all patient and provider identifier information has been made anonymous. The Institute will provide analytic services to both Institute members and outside researchers and organizations, but the data will at all times be under the control of the SunClinical Data Institute. This warehouse will support design of clinical trials, case-control studies, epidemiologic surveillance, data mining to discover new drug uses, and other outcome and utilization assessments.

A special interest and priority for SunClinical is using information to enhance public health and safety. With the cooperation of its member HCOs, it is creating a service called SunClinical Alert Network (SCAN). SCAN will monitor and analyze admission, emergency department and physician office data imported daily from member HCOs and other community sources to provide early alerts and detailed profiles of diagnoses and ancillary results, such as lab and pharmacy. Patterns identified will be used to support surveillance for the Centers for Disease Control and state health authorities. To address the critical problem of tracking medical responses during alerts, such as the late 2001 anthrax outbreaks, updates on intervention efforts will be provided and therapeutic results coordinated across a wide spectrum of HCOs. In addition, this capability can be used to support a rapid tracking program for patients with community-acquired and nosocomial infections as well as identify emergence of drug-resistance patterns.

"The invaluable scientific and clinical uses for this important information will be held to our strict policy of full protection of individual and institutional privacy," said SunClinical president David Carney. "Our powerful analytic data warehouse system will help HCOs realize even further improvements in patient safety and financial outcomes, and will aid in the ever important goals of achieving increased patient and public safety."

Harvey Wilson, Chairman and CEO of Eclipsys, noted that, "The SunClinical Data Institute is the second special Eclipsys business division, along with the eWebIt Solutions division, designed to provide services first to HCO customers, and then build on those capabilities to serve the broader community. These outside activities will in turn strengthen the division's capabilities to serve HCOs."

For more information about SunClinical, visit www.sunclinical.com.

About Eclipsys

Eclipsys is The Outcomes Company, founded with a mission of better healthcare through knowledge. More than 1,500 healthcare organizations use Eclipsys solutions to reduce errors, enhance workflow, and balance and improve clinical, financial and satisfaction outcomes. SunriseXA includes integrated software, architecture and services that support all members of the healthcare team with the knowledge they need to support and improve the organization's four core processes -- care delivery, patient flow, revenue and administrative management, and consumer relations. SunriseXA is built on a single, open, component-based Web architecture based on the Microsoft .NET Framework and other industry standards. For more information, see www.eclipsys.com.

Contact SunClinical Data Institute, David Carney, 617-779-7183, david.carney@sunclinical.com.