Philadelphia, PA -- April 4, 2005 -- The National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health has awarded a $1.7 million grant to Hx Technologies, a Philadelphia-based health information service provider, to expand and enhance its flagship Philadelphia Health Information Exchange.

The award comes amid a very high level of interest in such networks across the nation stimulated by President Bush’s call for interoperable electronic medical records across the US within the next ten years. It follows a rigorous peer-review process that had assigned a high priority score based on the company’s record of continued innovation and the project’s benefits to society in the region and beyond. An anticipated national health information network (NHIN) is expected to emerge from regional exchanges such as this network developed by Hx Technologies.

Built on the company’s iHistory® platform, the Philadelphia Health Information Exchange was launched two years ago to enable the region’s hospitals and clinics to privately and securely exchange digital medical records across enterprise borders for shared patients. The network closes the typical gaps in a physician’s knowledge of patient history by enabling on-demand access to a complete view of clinical information regardless of where a patient has sought care.

President George W. Bush has made the improvement of healthcare information technology a focus of his second administration. "By computerizing health records, we can avoid dangerous medical mistakes, reduce costs, and improve care," said Bush in his 2004 State of the Union Address. "The steps we need to take across the Nation are already underway in some places," states the President’s Policy for Transforming Healthcare. "Health information technologies -- electronic medical records, computerized ordering of prescriptions and other medical tests, clinical decision support tools, and secure exchange of authorized information -- improve quality, reduce medical errors, and prevent deaths. In the past three years, some communities, hospitals, clinicians, patient groups, and information technology companies have acted to improve their health information systems. These pioneering communities are taking the initiative and showing that health care can and must be modernized."

The Philadelphia Health Information Exchange currently supports the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Presbyterian Medical Center and Pennsylvania Hospital. The new funds will support expansion of the network to additional hospitals and health systems in the region, research into its ability to improve cancer diagnosis and management, and the introduction of new features including interoperability standards that will ensure the network’s compatibility with others as they emerge around the country.

"We are grateful for the generous and continued support of the National Institutes of Health whose centers have backed our efforts for the last several years," said Dr. Elliot Menschik, chief executive of Hx Technologies. "The scale and scope of this new award are a validation of our vision, approach and success in enabling accurate, effective, and collaborative care through next-generation information technology. More importantly, this award provides for the expansion of the network to new participants, further enhancing benefits for the region and establishing a viable model for other regions of the country."

Philadelphia’s network is unique not only for its urban setting and coverage of one of the nation’s largest and most competitive healthcare markets, but also for its focus on digital images such as x-rays, MRIs, CT scans, and ultrasounds. Such data are seen by many as the most challenging form of information to share given their size and the need for sophisticated visualization tools. They are also the most expensive to reproduce when needed by care providers but out-of-reach beyond their own walls.

At present, the regional network provides private and secure access to over 140 million images covering eight years of patient history and is believed to be the largest such collection of diagnostic imaging data in the country. The exchange supports a range of collaborations between care providers for patients shared among participating sites. Work is ongoing at additional sites to expand the network in the region.

The Philadelphia Health Information Exchange is built on the principle that patient data should remain under the stewardship of the healthcare providers who acquired it and subject to the same stringent privacy and security standards that each hospital or clinic currently applies to paper and film records. The iHistory platform links to the existing archives at each site and permits healthcare providers on the outside to securely access the data online subject to restrictions that meet and often exceed the requirements of HIPAA privacy rule.

iHistory is commercially-available to support the efforts of regional health information organizations (RHIOs) planning similar exchanges around the US. In addition, Hx Technologies has developed an approach by which RHIOs can rapidly launch and sustain iHistory-based networks using financial resources already allocated in each community. The technology platform and financing approach are currently under evaluation by several such RHIOs contemplating future networks. Hx Technologies will be showcasing iHistory at several upcoming conferences including the 2nd Annual Connecting Communities for Better Health Learning Forum & Exhibition (Washington, DC - May 25 & 26, 2005) and the Annual Meeting of the Society for Computing Applications in Radiology (Orlando, FL -- June 2-4, 2005).

Hx Technologies continues to seek additional participants for the Philadelphia Health Information Exchange. Hospitals, clinics and imaging centers not currently involved in the initiative are encouraged to contact the company at 215 923 4984 or to learn more