Microsoft Rebrands its Health Line

HDM Breaking News, February 13, 2008

Microsoft Corp. has rebranded its acquired health information technology products and is readying to enter the international hospital information systems market.

The Redmond, Wash.-based company in 2006 acquired Azyxxi integration software; last fall, it bought the clinical/financial/image management hospital information systems of Thailand-based Global Care Solutions.

Now, Microsoft has branded the products as the Amalga Family of Health Enterprise Systems. The suite includes:

* Microsoft Amalga, an updated version of Azyxxi, which originally was developed at Baltimore-based MedStar Health. The software pulls data from disparate information systems, patient monitoring devices and medical imaging systems and stores the information in a central data repository. The system has a component that does a probabilistic match based on the patient's demographic information. Azyxxi is live at seven-hospital MedStar and is being tested at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Johns Hopkins Health System, Novant Health, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, St. Joseph Health System and the Wisconsin Health Information Exchange. Amalga is part of a new software category called Unified Intelligence Systems, but the former Azyxxi is the only product currently in the category. The updated software will be commercially available during the first half of 2008.

* Microsoft Amalga Hospital Information System, previously known as Hospital 2000 and developed by Global Care Solutions and Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok. The system includes integrated electronic health records; financial accounting; patient and bed management; laboratory; pharmacy; pathology; materials management; human resources; radiology; and picture archiving and communication systems.

* Microsoft Amalga RIS/PACS, which offers the medical imaging systems in a standalone package.

Microsoft will sell the hospital information system and RIS/PACS only in markets outside the United States. More information is available at microsoft.com/amalga.

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