MALVERN, Pa.--May 4, 2006--As a leading provider of healthcare information technology (IT) and medical imaging equipment, Siemens Medical Solutions announces the appointment of several executives to key industry leadership roles:
-- Charlene Underwood, director, government and industry affairs, Healthcare IT Division, was elected to a second term as chairperson of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Electronic Health Record Vendors Association (EHRVA).
-- Don Rucker, M.D., vice president and chief medical officer, was appointed to the National Alliance for Health Information Technology Clinical Advisory Group.
-- Hans Buitendijk, senior product manager, Healthcare IT Division, was elected director-at-large to the Health Level Seven, Inc. (HL7) Board for a second time for the 2006 and 2007 calendar years.
-- Sam Brandt, M.D., vice president and chief medical informatics officer, Healthcare IT Division, was elected to the HL7 Advisory Committee for the 2006 and 2007 calendar years.

-- Don Bechtel, chief privacy officer, Healthcare Data Exchange (HDX), a Siemens Medical Solutions company, was elected to the Board of Directors of the Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP) to represent ANSI-Accredited Standards Committee X12. Bechtel co-chairs the X12N Health Care Task Group, which develops and maintains the financial and administrative healthcare transactions used by the insurance industry for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and other purposes.

"By continuing to secure leadership opportunities within the industry, Siemens is playing a vital role in shaping the future of healthcare," said Tom Miller, president, Healthcare IT Division, Siemens Medical Solutions. "Our involvement in these associations enables Siemens to contribute to a wide spectrum of industry initiatives and collaborate to foster new ideas in healthcare."

HIMSS EHRVA is a trade association of Electronic Health Record (EHR) vendors who have joined together to lead the HIT industry in the accelerated adoption of electronic health records in hospital and ambulatory care settings in the United States. Representing an estimated 98 percent of the installed EHR systems in the United States, the association provides a forum for the vendor community to speak with a unified voice relative to standards development, the EHR certification process, interoperability, performance and quality measures, and other EHR issues as they become subject to increasing government-, insurance- and provider-driven initiatives and requests. For more information, visit http://www.himssehrva.org.

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