MALVERN, Pa., Feb 06, 2006 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- As a leading proponent of the national movement toward interoperable electronic health records (EHRs), Siemens Medical Solutions will showcase the capabilities of Soarian(R) at the 2006 Interoperability Showcase being held at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) 2006 Annual Conference and Exhibition, Feb. 12-16 in San Diego. The Interoperability Showcase will demonstrate the benefits of interoperable EHRs and enable attendees to experience interoperability in real-world patient care scenarios as they create and manage their own virtual health record and access it across multiple care settings within the showcase.

As Siemens next generation workflow-engineered health information solution, Soarian integrates clinical, financial, diagnostic and administrative processes to support patient-centered care. Bringing together images and data seamlessly from a variety of medical modalities in one location, Soarian helps facilitate more informed decision-making - leading to improved care delivery, increased staff satisfaction, and more efficient business practices.

The Interoperability Showcase will be designed as a HIMSS Regional Health Information Organization (RHIO) to demonstrate how health information can be exchanged within a community, such as an entire city, throughout a single state or across multiple states. The clinical scenarios will be enabled by the standards-based Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) framework, demonstrating how companies like Siemens incorporate interoperability into their products.

Siemens will demonstrate the following capabilities at the 2006 Showcase:

-- Support of the XDS (Cross-Enterprise Document Sharing) profile, designed to enable information sharing among players throughout the RHIO

-- Support for PIX (patient identification cross reference), designed to help healthcare partners locate patient records in a RHIO

-- Support for ATNA (audit trail and node authentication), designed to address security and patient privacy requirements in a RHIO

-- Support for the CT (consistent time) profile, designed to help ensure that data timestamps are consistent across systems in the RHIO

Separate theaters, or presentation areas, will be located within the Interoperability Showcase featuring educational sessions on IHE, issues and insights from industry leaders - including Siemens experts, RHIO activities, federal agency interoperability initiatives, and standards development programs. Attendees will also be able to visit select vendor exhibits to access their personal health records and see how vendors incorporate IHE - and thus interoperability - into their products.

"We have a historic opportunity to dramatically improve the delivery of healthcare in this country," said Charlene Underwood, director, government and industry affairs, Siemens Medical Solutions, and chair, EHR Vendors Association (EHRVA), HIMSS. "EHR technology has proven its ability to make healthcare safer, more efficient, and more convenient for patients and providers. As EHR vendors, we have a responsibility to our customers and to the nation to lead by doing and to collaborate with one another to shape the future of healthcare delivery by promoting the widespread adoption of interoperable EHRs."

Siemens continues to help shape the future of interoperability by serving as an industry leader and an active participant in the identification, development, utilization and implementation of key standards required for interoperability.

Numerous Siemens employees and executives hold leadership roles in many of the organizations dedicated to standards development and interoperability. Siemens is also active in lobbying and supporting the development of healthcare information technology (IT) legislation, meeting regularly with key committee staff and members' staff representing a variety of non-partisan and partisan coalitions that are active in healthcare IT policy.

A founding member of the HIMSS EHRVA, Siemens will demonstrate its full portfolio of healthcare IT solutions in booth #1237 at HIMSS.

Siemens Medical Solutions of Siemens AG [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 31,000 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 (preliminary figures). More information can be obtained by visiting www.usa.siemens.com/medical-pressroom.