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AMERICAN MEDICAL GROUP ASSOCIATION SELECTS CONVERGENCE CT FOR ITS NATIONAL COLLABORATIVE DATA WAREHOUSE

Alexandria, VA and Honolulu, HI, January 17, 2006 – Anceta LLC, a subsidiary of the American Medical Group Association (AMGA), and Convergence CT announced today that they have executed a long-term agreement in which Convergence CT will develop and operate the AMGA/Anceta National Collaborative Data Warehouse.  The Collaborative Data Warehouse will provide participating AMGA member medical groups with access to HIPAA-compliant comparative healthcare data among participants of similar size and structure as well as key benchmarks for practice management, clinical performance, product performance, health outcomes, economics, efficiency, and quality of care.  Additionally, the Collaborative Data Warehouse and its proprietary health informatics tools will assist providers, policy makers, and purchasers (including employers and employees) in making better decisions regarding healthcare choices.

The Collaborative Data Warehouse was initiated by the AMGA on behalf of its multispecialty medical group members in order to aggregate and analyze the vast store of comprehensive patient data available among the nearly 300 AMGA members which serve more than 50 million patients per year in both inpatient and outpatient settings, representing some 75,000 physicians in 42 states.  Anceta had previously announced the commitment from 10 multispecialty medical groups, having nearly 5 million active patients, and the successful completion of a pilot data warehouse project in which it had aggregated and analyzed longitudinal data extracted from 3 large medical groups representing more than 1.5 million patients. 

“Anceta sought a focused data warehouse and analytics partner to undertake the transition to a production-level, commercial environment, and we are very pleased to have engaged a partner with the caliber of technical and business capabilities, experience, and commitment found in Convergence CT,” said Jeffrey Hill, Ph.D., CEO of Anceta.  “We look forward to working closely with Convergence CT and the AMGA, our trusted intermediary, in accelerating the realization of our mutual goals.”

Lambert Onuma, President and CEO of Convergence CT, added, “When we looked at the strategic objectives of the AMGA and Anceta of improving quality of care throughout its membership using advanced technology, we found that all three organizations were perfectly aligned, from a strategy, a technology, and a business model perspective. This was obvious to all of us, and we instinctively knew that this partnership would be both effective and successful.”

Convergence CT was chosen through a rigorous and extensive process guided by an Anceta Task Force comprised of several AMGA member medical group executives and Anceta management.  Numerous IT and information services companies having various technical approaches, business models, strategies, and experiences were evaluated by the Task Force. The candidates were ranked according to their technical competence and expertise, business and revenue models, aligned strategic vision, and tactics to ensure the execution of the vision. 

“The Task Force unanimously recommended that Convergence CT be selected as the partner for Anceta, based on its expertise with data warehouses, its business/financial model and its commitment to the project,” stated Kenneth Brin, M.D., Director of Cardiology at Geisinger Health System, immediate past-chair of AMGA and member of the Task Force.  “The Task Force felt that Convergence CT had a corporate philosophy and business plan very similar to that which led to the inception of Anceta and, as such, offered the greatest alignment with the needs of and potential synergies with our AMGA member groups, as well as the greatest likelihood of successful execution,” he added.

Convergence CT and Anceta will assist the AMGA medical groups in making the next leap in applying information technology, data standards, and advanced analytics to effective, secure data sharing among multiple organizations, to assessing and benchmarking their performance and to enhancing healthcare quality.  With the data from these prestigious multispecialty groups, representing a diverse population of patients across the country in both urban and rural settings, the Collaborative Data Warehouse will be able to begin developing industry-wide standards of care, quality benchmarks, new tools for clinical trials, disease management protocols, and a host of evidence-based guidelines for accountability in health care.

“We are pleased to have Convergence CT join in our efforts to assist AMGA’s medical groups in making this next leap forward in applying information technology to enhance healthcare quality and efficiency,” noted Donald Fisher, Ph.D., President and CEO of AMGA and Chairman, Anceta.  “Our member groups have always been on the forefront of adopting information technology in healthcare, and we appreciate the opportunity to work closely with our colleagues at Convergence CT on this important and timely initiative.”

The Collaborative Data Warehouse will also enhance and expand Convergence CT’s commercial offerings involving patient-level, HIPAA-compliant and fully de-identified healthcare data sets, biostatistical analyses, reports, and clinical trial recruiting services (employing patient records rather than solely relying on claims data) to various healthcare product and service providers throughout the industry. These offerings will address the ongoing needs of pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device companies, as well as contract research organizations and healthcare information providers who serve these industry segments.

By the tenth year into this agreement, Convergence CT expects the value of this relationship to exceed $350M.

“We are very excited at having been unanimously chosen to work on this very important initiative by the American Medical Group Association and

Anceta,” said Governor George Ariyoshi (Ret.), Chairman of Convergence CT. “The membership of AMGA includes some of the most prestigious healthcare organizations and leaders in the industry as represented by the members of its Board of Directors: Mayo Clinic, Aurora Medical Group, The Everett Clinic, The Vanderbilt Medical Group, Dean Health System, The Permanente Federation, Geisinger Health System, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, and Henry Ford Medical Group, among others.”

The core applications of the Collaborative Data Warehouse will be supported by Convergence CT’s flagship product suite, DB*FOCUSTM.  Given the immediate commercial availability of solutions, and Convergence CT’s experience in deploying them in these settings, the parties expect to extract and aggregate data from 10 to 12 medical groups over the next year, and to expand this rate thereafter.  Each participating medical group will have access to and control over their own patient data, as well as the use of aggregated data among participants for comparative analyses.

DB*FOCUSTM creates a comprehensive patient Electronic Health Record (EHR) by extracting data from existing hospital and clinic information systems whether they are integrated or not. As new patient information is added, their data elements are converged to the existing patient record seamlessly. Data are easily analyzed via built in query tools and the ability to export the data to other applications. In short, DB*FOCUSTM enables clinicians, researchers and management to quickly develop actionable knowledge based on up-to-date patient-level data.

“This Association level partnership, which is driven by the members themselves, is an industry first and will result in improved quality of care and medical group operations for participating members,” stated Rob Albertson, Vice President of Global Marketing. “Additionally, each medical group will now have access to all of its patient data in one location. This is the real ‘WOW’ value of DB*FOCUSTM as one of our client CFOs so aptly stated it.”

Although the Collaborative Data Warehouse will engage healthcare organizations located in the U.S., Convergence CT is establishing parallel networks in Japan and in Europe. The highly secure, multi-national network of patient data will provide global patient data research analytics for the Pharmaceutical, Biotechnology, medical device companies, as well as the healthcare industry.

Anceta LLC is headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia in the offices of the AMGA.  Anceta’s business operations are guided by Anceta’s founding partners, AMGA, Aventis Pharmaceuticals, and Accenture, which have provided valuable financial support, services, and strategic guidance throughout Anceta’s inception and development.  Executives from these three organizations and from two AMGA medical group members serve on Anceta’s Board of Directors.  An executive from Convergence CT will be joining the Anceta Board.  More information is available at http://www.anceta.com

The American Medical Group Association (AMGA) is an association that represents medical groups, including some of the nation’s largest, most prestigious integrated healthcare delivery systems.  AMGA advocates for the multispecialty group practice model of healthcare delivery and for the patients served by medical groups through innovation and information sharing, benchmarking, and continuous striving to improve patient care. The members of AMGA deliver health care to more than 50 million patients in 42 states, including 15 million capitated lives.  Headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, AMGA is the strategic partner for medical groups providing a comprehensive package of benefits, including political advocacy, educational and networking programs and publications, benchmarking data services, and financial and operations assistance.  More information is available at http://www.amga.org.

Convergence CT, headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii, has offices in Pleasanton, California, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Tokyo, Japan. Founded in Hawaii in late 2001, Convergence CT’s mission is to establish a large, multi-national network of participating hospitals, clinics and medical groups through partnerships with multi-member healthcare organizations, providing a Global Collaborative Data Warehouse for life science organizations conducting research for the improvement and extension of life, and quality of care advancements.

The highly secure, HIPAA-compliant network of patient data will provide global patient data research analytics for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device manufacturing, and healthcare industries. Emphasizing the “convergence” of rich clinical data with advanced information technology and analysis, Convergence CT is able to offer a fresh and innovative approach to accelerating medical research, clinical development, and departmental analysis, significantly enhancing and improving the ability of healthcare and life science organizations to use patient-level data for research, clinical trial planning and recruitment, and improve the quality and efficiency of healthcare services. Convergence CT’s solutions offer improved efficiencies for hospital and ambulatory data management and research for global markets.

Convergence CT also offers data management and data analysis services to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and other healthcare organizations.  Convergence CT’s experience in working with large databases of detailed patient-level data, including lab results and medication orders (both brand and generic named medications), exhibits a significant level of expertise in dealing with the organization and analysis of this level of data, expertise that is invaluable to pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies, medical device manufacturers, and healthcare organizations. For more information, contact Convergence CT at 808-536-3040 or toll free at 888-222-0024.