Press Releases

University of Colorado Hospital Increases Emergency Department Net Revenue by 30 Percent with New Picis Solution

Leading Rocky Mountain-area hospital increases billable revenue per patient with the industry’s most complete clinical information and revenue management solution for the emergency department

WAKEFIELD, Mass.— June 2, 2008 — Picis, the leading provider of high-acuity care information systems, today announced that the University of Colorado Hospital (UCH) has leveraged the recently released Picis ED PulseCheck^® and Picis LYNX revenue management solutions to deliver what UCH indicates is an estimated $3.2 million net revenue increase for the hospital in the first year. By marrying electronic clinical documentation and automation of services provided with integrated revenue management capability, UCH was able to significantly reduce revenue leakage and increase its net billable revenue by a reported $62 per patient, or 30 percent, in the emergency department (ED).

UCH is the Rocky Mountain region’s leading academic medical center and has been recognized as one of the United States' best hospitals, according to U.S. News & World Report. UCH treats more than 54,000 ED patients each year and has been using Picis ED PulseCheck, part of the CareSuite^® family of high-acuity solutions, as the hospital’s ED information system (EDIS) since 2004. By using ED PulseCheck version 4.0, tightly integrated with LYNX E/Point Facility charging solution, UCH improved the quality of clinical documentation and increased charging and coding efficiency to achieve more accurate reimbursement, improved consistency and streamlined workflow for electronic billing. Because the entry of orders, labs, consults and care documentation in ED PulseCheck by clinicians automatically triggers the appropriate charges in LYNX E/Point, UCH has been able to significantly reduce coding errors and shorten billing turnaround time.

“Before integrating ED PulseCheck and LYNX revenue management solutions, UCH’s ED was under-coding the care we were providing to patients,” said Lorna K. Prutzman, R.N., M.S.N., director of Emergency/Stroke Services, University of Colorado Hospital. “We now have a better picture of the resources we are using to deliver quality care in the ED, and we can follow the patient encounter from initial presentation in the ED all the way through to the submission of charges.”

To help administrators determine if the hospital was being properly compensated for all of the ED services and care it provides, Picis supplied an indicator called LYNXmark™ which can function as a significant indicator of the financial health of the ED. It evaluates an ED’s revenue performance relative to a set of industry standards, then assigns the hospital a score on a scale of 1 to 100 (100 implying no lost charges and revenue).

UCH improved its LYNXmark by 24 points within 30 days of deploying LYNX revenue management solutions integrated with ED PulseCheck, achieving a LYNXmark of 96. The average LYNXmark score for hospitals that have not yet implemented LYNX revenue management solutions is 62. Hospital administrators can visit www.picis.com/lynxmark to calculate their own score.

“As payers begin to more closely link quality improvement and patient care metrics with reimbursement, it’s critical that clinical documentation and revenue management technology are integrated and aligned,” said Mark D. Crockett, M.D., president, Picis Emergency Care Division. “The integration of Picis ED PulseCheck and LYNX revenue management solutions simultaneously helps deliver tremendous financial value to hospitals and promotes high-quality patient charting by hospitals. This represents another example of how Picis consistently anticipates and responds to the dynamic needs of hospitals.”

To learn more about how UCH improved the financial health and accountability of its ED, register to attend a live webinar titled, “Raising the bar: dramatically improving charging, coding and workflow in the ED,” to be held on June 10, 2008, 3:00 p.m. ET. This webinar will feature Lorna K. Prutzman, R.N., M.S.N., director of Emergency/Stroke Services, University of Colorado Hospital, and Kristen Lalowski, director of product management, Picis.

About Picis
Picis is a global provider of innovative information solutions that enable rapid and sustained delivery of clinical, financial and operational results in the acute care areas of the hospital. These high-acuity areas include the emergency department, operating and recovery rooms and intensive care units. Picis offers the most advanced suite of integrated products focused on these life-critical areas of the hospital where the patients are the most vulnerable, the care process is the most complex and an increasing majority of hospital costs and potential revenue are concentrated. Headquartered in Wakefield, Massachusetts, Picis has licensed systems for use in more than 1,700 hospitals in 19 countries. More information is available at www.picis.com.

Picis, CareSuite and PulseCheck are registered trademarks of Picis, Inc. © 2008 Picis, Inc. All rights reserved. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the properties of their respective owners. This press release contains express or implied forward-looking statements relating to, among other things, Picis’ expectations concerning the functionality, expected performance and market acceptance of its products. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees, but are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond Picis’ control, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in these forward-looking statements.

Contact:

Ann Joyal
Corporate Communications
Picis
Tel: +1 781 557 300
E-mail: PR-Contact@picis.com

Susan Lombardo
Media Relations
Lois Paul & Partners
Tel: 1 781 782 5767
E-mail: susan_lombardo@lpp.com