Siemens Convenes Leading Customer CPOE Users for Third Annual Symposium Promoting Patient Safety

Forum Enables Peer-To-Peer Exchange of CPOE Implementation and Design Ideas

Malvern, Pa., May 8, 2006, With recent studies highlighting the complexity and challenges of implementing computerized physician order entry (CPOE) systems, Siemens Medical Solutions today convenes its Third Annual INVISION® User Symposium for CPOE. The event is intended to help advance the CPOE dialogue and enable best practices sharing among leading healthcare facilities and CPOE users, including physician leaders, nursing informaticists and CIOs. Approximately 18,000 U.S. physicians use Siemens CPOE to place 75 to 100 percent of patient care orders including medication orders electronically.

The two-day educational symposium, hosted by Lifespan, a health system in Providence, R.I., features interactive discussions facilitated by expert physician and nurse CPOE users from institutions such as Lifespan, SUNY Upstate Medical Center and Denver Health. The program also includes a site visit to Lifespan’s flagship hospital, Rhode Island Hospital. Across Lifespan’s four hospitals, physicians enter 90 percent of orders electronically through CPOE integrated with its Siemens Pharmacy system.

“Implementing CPOE is a goal, but it is an ongoing process, not an event,” said Reid Coleman, M.D., medical informatics officer, Lifespan. “There is always more that can be done to help providers and vendors better understand how to implement and build systems that truly support physician workflow and the outcomes users want to achieve. This event allows for the open exchange of ideas and debate about how to match technology to workflow to produce improvements in safety, quality and caregiver satisfaction, as well as developing best practices for driving physician adoption. We’re proud to partner with Siemens in hosting the symposium this year.”

CPOE is key to achieving healthcare providers’ electronic health record strategies, while driving process efficiency and helping to advance quality and patient safety initiatives. For example, with CPOE in use at Lifespan, the organization has been able to reduce the time it takes to get medication orders onto the floor from well over an hour to just 11 minutes.

“Implementing CPOE is all about supporting and improving clinical workflow, while engaging users to work in new, more effective ways,” said Donald Rucker, M.D., vice president and chief medical officer, Siemens Medical Solutions. “With less than six percent of healthcare institutions around the country live on CPOE, the Siemens symposium provides a forum for customers at all stages of adoption to share both successes and solutions to the challenges of CPOE implementation.”

About Siemens Medical Solutions

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 33,000 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 www.usa.siemens.com/medical-pressroom.

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