Stanford Hospital And Clinics Upgrades To IDX(R) Carecast(TM)

STANFORD, Calif. and BURLINGTON, Vt., May 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Stanford Hospital & Clinics (Stanford) and IDX Systems Corporation today announced an upgrade agreement for the next-generation IDX(R) Carecast(TM) enterprise clinical system. Using IDX(R) LastWord(R), Carecast's predecessor, Stanford has achieved close to 100 percent physician adoption rates for computerized physician order entry (CPOE) for inpatient care. With its upgrade to Carecast (signed in Q1 2005), Stanford plans to launch wireless medication barcode charting and continue its roll-out of CPOE and electronic, interdisciplinary clinical documentation across its hospital facility.

Stanford plans to roll out Carecast in Q4 2005 across the 613-bed Stanford Hospital, the internationally known primary teaching hospital for the Stanford University School of Medicine. Currently, 1,850 Stanford clinicians and 580 residents and intern physicians use LastWord to support CPOE. CPOE adoption rates are approximately 100 percent for residents and 90 percent for attending physicians, according to Larry Shuer, MD, Chief of the Medical Staff at Stanford. CPOE is used in approximately 80 percent of Stanford's patient care units and the organization anticipates reaching 95 percent CPOE within the next year.

"By enabling our physicians to electronically submit patient care orders, Stanford is fulfilling one of the most important initiatives outlined by the Institute of Medicine for the national improvement of patient safety," said Carolyn Byerly, Stanford's Chief Information Officer. "We look forward to continuing our momentum with CPOE and to supporting our clinicians' collaborative work through Carecast's real-time, online patient care documentation."

IDX and Stanford worked closely together to tailor LastWord CPOE to support the organization's clinical workflows and to incorporate direct feedback from physicians and other clinicians. In keeping with Stanford's collaborative approach to clinical systems implementation, an interdisciplinary committee of Stanford clinicians is pursuing an innovative strategy to promote electronic multidisciplinary documentation (EMD) supported by Carecast.

When the EMD project is complete, all clinicians -- from physicians to nurses to respiratory therapists -- will be able to document and view comprehensive patient information online, using on-screen tools tailored to the needs of each discipline. Through EMD, members of the care team will be able to make more informed clinical decisions because they are viewing timely, comprehensive patient documentation.

"Collaboration has always been essential to patient care -- but communication is often complicated by paper processes and the pace of healthcare delivery," said Dr. Shuer. "With EMD, the clinical team will log onto Carecast to immediately see the full picture of each patient's progress -- complete with an interdisciplinary care plan, new test results, clinical notes, orders, medications and other essential information. EMD will be a major milestone in our progress toward lifetime electronic patient records."

Stanford intends to pilot its EMD functionality in Q1 2006, following the go-live of Carecast, and roll it out throughout the organization in the subsequent months. The organization also will launch wireless barcode medication administration charting in conjunction with the EMD pilot.

Barcode charting provides safeguards against errors during medication administration, the last stage in the medication cycle and the second most likely place for errors to occur (JAMA, 1998). The technology reinforces the "five rights" of medication administration -- that the right dose of the right drug is being administered to the right patient via the right route at the right time -- and alerts clinicians if there are any discrepancies. Both medications and patient ID bracelets will be tagged with barcodes. Stanford nurses will scan the barcode tags to verify patient identity and the "five rights" before medications are administered. Because barcode medication charting is built into Carecast, scanning the tags will automatically enter the drug, dose, time of administration and other relevant data in the patient's chart.

As part of its ongoing medication safety initiatives, Stanford also has made LastWord pharmacy applications accessible from anywhere in its inpatient facility, enabling pharmacists to work in patient care units -- instead of remaining only in a central pharmacy unit. This allows pharmacists to interact more with physicians and other prescribers, nurses and patients. The organization plans to further enhance its clinical pharmacy program with Carecast by automating more of the central dispensing functions, increasing efficiencies and expanding opportunities for pharmacists to serve even greater roles in direct patient care.

"The Stanford team managed their complex CPOE roll-out with persistence, partnership and commitment," said Mike Raymer, Senior Vice President and General Manager, IDX Carecast Operating Unit. "We value our six-year relationship with Stanford, and look forward to working together on the adoption of electronic documentation that will serve as a touchstone for thousands of Stanford clinicians."

As a veteran user of LastWord, Stanford understands the importance of reliability of enterprise clinical systems in the mission-critical hospital environment. Carecast and LastWord run on the HP NonStop(TM) platform, which offers unsurpassed reliability, scalability and a guarantee of 99.9 percent uptime.

"As we further expand our use of clinical IT, the NonStop platform brings a great deal of reliability and a great deal of comfort," commented Byerly.

About Stanford Hospital & Clinics

Stanford Hospital & Clinics is a university-owned, non-profit corporation known for advanced patient care. The 613-bed hospital in Northern California consistently ranks among the top in the nation in surveys by consumers and health professionals. Stanford Hospital & Clinics, in cooperation with the Stanford University Medical School, has pioneered medical advances that save lives and protect against disease. For more information, please visit our Web site at http://www.stanfordhospital.com/.

About IDX(R) Carecast(TM)

Carecast is a fully integrated clinical, financial and administrative system, combining core clinical processes for orders, results, pharmacy and clinical documentation with administrative and financial processes for scheduling, registration, admitting, charging and billing. Representing the next generation of electronic clinical information solutions, Carecast delivers unsurpassed response time and reliability to support fast-paced clinical environments. The system automates workflow throughout the healthcare enterprise and enables rapid access to patient records across the care continuum, from admission to discharge, including inpatient and ambulatory care. The result is a comprehensive lifetime patient record that enhances the quality of care and promotes operational efficiencies.

Developed by and for providers -- in collaboration with leading hospitals, clinicians and healthcare executives -- Carecast builds on 25 years of innovation with the IDX(R) LastWord(R) enterprise system. Customers include leading healthcare organizations in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

About IDX

Founded in 1969, IDX Systems Corporation provides information technology solutions to maximize value in the delivery of healthcare, improve the quality of patient service, enhance medical outcomes, and reduce the costs of care. Our systems are deployed to serve approximately 150,000 physicians and are installed at over 3,400 customer sites, including more than 850 group practices and approximately 370 integrated delivery networks servicing more than 500 hospitals.

IDX also provides its enterprise clinical software as a subcontractor to BT and Fujitsu Services, Local Service Providers for the United Kingdom National Health Service's National Programme for Information Technology, an initiative to establish electronic patient records for 50 million patients.

The IDX web strategy includes browser technology, e-commerce and web-based tools -- built using Internet architecture -- that facilitates access for patients, physicians and care providers to vital health information and data managed by the IDX clinical, administrative, financial, and managed care products. IDX has approximately 2,400 full-time employees.

IDX, Carecast and LastWord are registered trademarks or trademarks of IDX Investment Corporation.

This press release contains forward-looking statements about IDX Systems Corporation that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Among the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements are uncertainties or difficulties in developing new services, including Carecast, possible failure of IDX to realize the benefits of developing clinical guidelines, difficulties in implementing systems, possible deferral, delay or cancellation by customers of computer system or service purchase decisions, possible delay of system installations and service implementations, development by competitors of new or superior technologies, changing economic, political and regulatory influences on the healthcare and e-Commerce industries, possible disruptions in the national economy caused by terrorist activities and foreign conflicts, changes in product pricing policies, governmental regulation of IDX's software and operations, the possibility of product-related liabilities, and factors detailed from time to time in IDX's periodic reports and registration statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which important factors are incorporated herein by reference. IDX undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect changed assumptions, the occurrence of unanticipated events, or changes in future operating results, financial condition or business over time.

For more information contact: Catherine Sweeney Media Relations - IDX Carecast 206.607.5462 catherine_sweeney@idx.com Helen Allrich Media Relations Coordinator Stanford Hospital & Clinics 650.723.1232 hallrich@stanfordmed.org

IDX Systems Corporation

CONTACT: Catherine Sweeney, Media Relations -- IDX Carecast of IDXSystems Corporation, +1-206-607-5462, catherine_sweeney@idx.com; or HelenAllrich, Media Relations Coordinator of Stanford Hospital & Clinics,+1-650-723-1232, hallrich@stanfordmed.org

Web site: http://www.idx.com/