MEDRAD Honors Classic Industries

Latrobe, PA May 30, 2011 — Classic Industries received two honors during the MEDRAD, Inc. (a division of Bayer Medical) annual Supplier Day Event: the “Technology” award for 2010 and two “Significant Contributor” awards in recognition of outstanding performance on Project Cooper.
For the second year in a row, Classic received the “Technology” award for demonstrating leadership in product and process technologies that enable MEDRAD design innovation, assure product quality and reduce product costs. These core competency additions include true two-shot molding, pulse cooling implementation, Priamus system integration and additional use of servo drive motors.
Additionally, Classic Industries was honored with the “Significant Contributor” award for both the Wimmerton and Eastpointe facilities. Project Cooper was kicked off as a result of an immediate emergency interruption in MEDRAD’s existing supply chain. To address MEDRAD’s needs, Classic formed a specialized team to qualify and validate a large number of transfer tools in a short period of time. This team was successful in performing their tasks in a manner that resulted in no customer or product interruptions.

Geisinger Health System Achieves Positive Results with Precyse’s Innovative Workflow Solution

Wayne, PA and Alpharetta, GA May 25, 2011 — Geisinger Health System, widely recognized for its implementation of innovative care models, is among the first healthcare organizations in the nation to deploy advanced technology that combines a Computer-Assisted Coding application with Natural Language Comprehension™ (NLC) in order to improve clinical documentation and coding accuracy. Just six months after announcing its partnership with Precyse, a leader in health information management (HIM) services and technologies, Geisinger has announced that it is already achieving positive results with precyseCode™, the industry’s first computer-assisted and NLC-driven intelligent workflow solution. This powerful combination provides a single, comprehensive platform to optimize coding processes, accelerate revenue cycles, and support healthcare organizations as they navigate compliance challenges, Clinical Documentation Improvement (CDI) initiatives, migrate to ICD-10, and meet health reform and Meaningful Use initiatives head on.
The Power of Natural Language Comprehension Outpaces Coding-Only Solutions
Driven by state-of-the-art technologies that process and understand human voice, converting it to structured and tagged text and transforming it into actionable information, precyseCode features Computer-Assisted Coding that uses NLC to create a patient.s clinical story, allowing for the assignment of appropriate, compliant ICD-9 and ICD-10 diagnosis codes, procedure codes and SNOMED (Systemized Nomenclature of Medicine) clinical terminology. NLC is achieved through the unique combination of M*Modal’s contextual understanding technology with Precyse’s collaborative technology platform and extensive coding and clinical documentation expertise. The NLC capability reads both structured and unstructured data and reorganizes it into better, more understandable information that supports powerful capture and interpretation of clinical findings. This episode-specific patient narrative is then electronically tagged to be easily searched, mined and analyzed. Since precyseCode already includes SNOMED and ICD-10 codes, it allows coders to begin learning ICD-10 immediately, offsetting any anticipated declines in productivity and assuring a smooth transition in October 2013.
PrecyseCode at Geisinger: One System to Optimize Coding Processes, Improve Workflow & Accelerate ICD-10 Transition
At Geisinger, precyseCode is being implemented to bridge the electronic health record (EHR), dictation, transcription, coding and clinical documentation improvement (CDI) processes by capturing, editing, coding, and directing physician dictation into Geisinger’s EHR software platform. Geisinger physicians will be able to dictate directly into the EHR with minimal impact to their current workflow patterns. Clinical information is electronically tagged to be easily searched, mined and analyzed by healthcare team members responsible for driving hospital care and outcomes. Geisinger and Precyse aim to see this collaborative technology replicated across the country.
“We made the decision to partner with Precyse because we shared in their vision about how Natural Language Comprehension could be applied to CAC technology to significantly accelerate the revenue cycle,” said Barbara Tapscott, Vice President Revenue Cycle, Geisinger Health System. “Though we are still early on in our implementation of precyseCode, the results we are achieving thus far are already validating our combined vision. I have no doubt that the improvement will continue and that we will be well prepared for ICD-10 and other challenges on the horizon.”
“What we are achieving at Geisinger Health System with precyseCode is truly unique,” said Ken Lacy, President and General Manager of Precyse Advanced Technologies, the R&D division of Precyse. “There are a multitude of coding-only solutions in the market right now, but what makes precyseCode different is that it is the only platform available that goes beyond coding to unify and optimize the entire clinical documentation workflow process. By integrating NLC, precyseCode provides a distinct advantage in coding quality and productivity, taking into account workflow preferences to help people do their work faster and more accurately. We’ve already seen 20% increases in coder productivity with precyseCode, and we expect that figure to climb as high as 50% as the system learns from its earlier coding assignments.”

Alterna LLC Expands Kerasal Rights Internationally

Whippany, NJ May 18, 2011 – Alterna LLC announced today that is has signed a new trademark and knowhow license agreement with Spirig Pharma AG of Egerkingen, Switzerland. This agreement expands Alterna’s exclusive rights to distribute Kerasal® One-Step Exfoliating Moisturizing Foot Ointment to 80 countries outside of North America. Alterna already owns the Kerasal® brand in North America, having fully acquired all rights to trademarks and product technology in 2006.
Spirig Pharma AG, Egerkingen is known internationally for brands like Daylong actinica®, a medical device for topical application for the prevention of certain forms of non-melanoma skin cancer in at risk patients, Daylong® liposomal sunscreen lotions and Excipial®, a range of skincare and moisturizer products.
Kerasal® foot ointment is clinically proven to soften severely rough, dry, cracked heels and feet by exfoliating and moisturizing skin in one easy step. Kerasal is approved by the American Podiatric Medical Association (APMA) and is the OTC brand recommended most by U.S. podiatrists. In the U.S., Kerasal is available for purchase in the foot care aisle in all major drug store chains and Walmart. According to IRI, retail sales of Kerasal in food, drug, and mass stores (excluding Walmart), were up 24.5% for the 52-week period ending March 20, 2011.
“We are very pleased to increase the depth of our international product portfolio,” says Steve Cagle, President and CEO of Alterna. “Spirig and Alterna have had a positive working relationship for a number of years, and we have been looking for additional avenues of cooperation that will generate win-win results.”
Alterna is making an aggressive push to expand distribution of its products in overseas markets. The significantly enlarged territory for Kerasal® offers a new opportunity, which should fuel the company’s continued sales growth. Since October, Alterna has signed distribution agreements with leading partners in Greece, Mexico, Honduras, Turkey and Trinidad & Tobago. The company’s distributors in Australia, Indonesia, Singapore and the Middle East have had record sales years, with most business coming from Alterna’s JointFlex® line of topical osteoarthritis pain products.
“We are seeing a strong interest in both Kerasal® and JointFlex® from outside the United States,” says Don Carswell, Director of International Sales at Alterna, “and we plan to serve these markets through top-tier partner companies that are based in-market, to promote and distribute our products.” “We highly welcome the expansion of our successful collaboration with Alterna LLC to a significant number of additional markets worldwide”, says Dr. Silvio Inderbitzin, CEO of Spirig Pharma AG

Oso BioPharmaceuticals Honored for Corporate Efforts to Protect Integrity of Rio Grande

Albuquerque, NM May 11, 2011 – OSO BioPharmaceuticals Manufacturing, LLC, has received the Pollution Prevention Award for its efforts to protect water quality in the Rio Grande River.
The honor was awarded by the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility as part of its Pollution Prevention Program (P2 Program).
The P2 Program was created in 1992 to protect Albuquerque’s water treatment plant and the Rio Grande River from harmful waste runoff. The program recognizes businesses for reducing or eliminating the creation of pollutants at their source through equipment and process modifications, reformulation or redesign of products, substitution of raw materials, and improvements in housekeeping, maintenance, training or inventory control that results in reduced waste generation.
In OsoBio’s case, the company implemented changes to its raw materials processes, which reduced wastewater by 25 percent. The company also installed a state-of-the-art treatment system that improved the quality of water discharged from its facilities.
“OsoBio prides itself on being a conscientious corporate citizen in Albuquerque, which includes respecting the sensitive environment we share with our neighbors and doing our part to protect it from further degradation,” said Dr. Stuart Rose, president and CEO. “It is gratifying to know that by reducing OsoBio’s environmental footprint, we are making a positive contribution to our community.”

IMG Again Among Inner City 100 Winners

Indianapolis, IN May 16, 2011 – International Medical Group®, Inc. (IMG®), a driving force and leader in the international health insurance market, has been named to the 2011 Inner City 100, a list of the fastest-growing inner city companies in the U.S. as determined by the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) and Fortune Magazine. This year marks the fifth time that IMG made the list, and its induction into the 2011 Inner City Hall of Fame. The program recognizes successful inner city companies and their CEO’s as role models for entrepreneurship, innovative business practices and job creation in America’s urban communities. IMG placed 84th on the list.
Since the inaugural Inner City list in 1999, a select group of dynamic inner city businesses have been recognized as repeat Inner City 100 winners because of their astounding growth rates over a sustained period. These companies are showcased during their fifth year on the Inner City 100 list as Hall of Fame recipients. IMG was also named to the list in 2004, 2006, 2009, and 2010.
“2011 marks our fifth year of making the Inner City 100 list,” said Joseph Brougher, President of IMG. “We appreciate the recognition that ICIC has given us for what we have been able to achieve. This award illustrates IMG’s continued commitment to our clients and our community. We are proud to be among other great companies, and we very highly regard the award.”
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“We are delighted to celebrate businesses like International Medical Group that are playing a critical role in revitalizing America’s urban communities. Through their achievements, the Inner City 100 winning companies exemplify America’s remarkable potential and the road to future economic recovery,” stated Mary Kay Leonard, ICIC President and CEO. “These extraordinary companies demonstrate the market possibilities that exist within our inner cities and the growth that is at the heart of all urban entrepreneurial successes.”
The Inner City 100 list provides unmatched original data on the fastest growing inner city businesses in the U.S. In the last 13 years, 661 different companies have earned positions on the Inner City 100, collectively generating more than $2.2 billion in annual revenues and creating nearly 70,000 new jobs. Chevron Corporation, Staples Foundation and Goldman Sachs are long-time sponsors of the program.
For the 2011 list, a record number of two thousand nominations were received. Winners represented a wide span of the U.S., operating in 51 cities and 32 states. The 2011 Inner City 100 winners grew at a compound annual growth rate of 39 percent and an average standard growth rate of 379 percent between 2004 and 2009. Collectively, the top 100 inner city businesses employ 6,720 employees and have created more than 3,227 new jobs between 2005 and 2009. Individually, the average Inner City 100 Company’s revenues were $11.4 million and have, on average, 12 years of experience since founding. This year’s winners have a median employee turnover rate of less than 12 percent (compared to 36 percent for the national average) and 96 percent of them provide health insurance to their workers.

Precyse Secures Healthcare IT Executive Chris Powell as New President

Wayne, PA and Alpharetta, GA May 10, 2011 — Precyse, a leader in health information management (HIM) services and technologies, announces the appointment of industry veteran Chris Powell as its new President. The newly created position marks a next step in the company’s evolution, as it unveils a new corporate identity and launches a revolutionary Natural Language Comprehension™ (NLC) computer-assisted collaborative workflow platform, precyseCode™, the most advanced health information management platform available today.
View Mr. Powell’s video address on the healthcare environment today and the critical role Precyse plays in simplifying clients’ everyday challenges, maximizing their current IT investments and enhancing their information flow.
Mr. Powell will be responsible for the overall day-to-day operational performance and leadership of Precyse, including implementing strategic operational plans to advance the company’s mission and objectives. He will be responsible for operations, service delivery, sales, marketing, finance and information technology and will be a member of the organization’s Executive Council, along with the Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer and the President of the Precyse Advanced Technologies division. Reporting to Precyse Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and founder Jeffrey Levitt, Mr. Powell will join efforts with the Executive Council in evolving the company along the path to a sophisticated technology-enhanced services model, including focus on product development and enhancements, engagement in merger and acquisition and channel partnership opportunities.
“The timing of this important appointment could not be better,” said Levitt. “The healthcare industry is facing tremendous change, and along with that change are some significant challenges. Precyse is dedicated to continually evolving in order to help our clients meet those challenges head on. The evolution in our new corporate identity and our new technological solution, precyseCode, both reflect the innovation with which we are approaching the management of healthcare information. It is fitting that we appoint someone who has the skills and experience to guide us through this crucial time in our history, Chris Powell is the ideal choice. He brings extensive general management and healthcare IT experience to this role, and also the leadership and management skills required for a cross-functional team such as ours. Throughout his career, he has consistently excelled, meeting or exceeding both professional and company goals. I am very pleased that Chris will be joining us at such an exciting time.”
Prior to joining Precyse, Mr. Powell served as Vice President and General Manager of GE Healthcare Americas Commercial Healthcare IT business including the US, Canada, Central and South America, where he was responsible for the operation and execution of the firm’s commercial business plan, resulting in generating over $1 billion in revenue. He also managed a complex organizational matrix where he was focused on driving a connected employee culture using a multidimensional and innovative communication strategy. Prior to GE, Mr. Powell worked at IDX Systems Corporation, which was then acquired by GE Healthcare in 2006. During his 14-year tenure with IDX, he held a variety of roles, including Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Vice President of Sales and Director of Sales. Prior to IDX, he started his career as a Sales Representative at IBM Corporation, where he worked for five years and was responsible for generating new business for its healthcare division. He also was a member of IBM’s 100% Club and Commanders Club. Mr. Powell and his family will relocate from Vermont to Georgia, and he will work out of the Precyse office in Alpharetta.

PrecyseCode™ Improves Coding Quality and Productivity, Enabling Providers to Accelerate Meaningful Use of the Electronic Health Record and Prepare for ICD-10

Wayne, PA and Alpharetta, GA May 03, 2011 — Precyse, a leader in health information management (HIM) services and technologies, announces the general availability of precyseCode™, the most advanced and comprehensive health information management platform available today. PrecyseCode is driven by state-of-the-art technologies that understand and process human voice, converting it to text and transforming it to information. Now commercially available, the precyseCode software features Computer-Assisted Coding that uses unique Natural Language Comprehension™ (NLC) to create a patient’s clinical story, allowing for the assignment of appropriate, compliant ICD-9 and ICD-10 diagnosis codes, procedure codes and SNOMED clinical terminology.
NLC is achieved through the unique combination of M*Modal’s contextual understanding technology with Precyse’s collaborative technology platform and extensive coding and clinical documentation expertise. PrecyseCode is the industry’s first computer-assisted and NLC-driven intelligent workflow solution. This powerful combination provides a single, comprehensive platform to optimize coding processes, accelerate revenue cycles, and support healthcare organizations as they navigate through compliance challenges, Clinical Documentation Improvement (CDI) initiatives, migrate to ICD-10, and meet health reform and Meaningful Use initiatives head on.
“While accurate and efficient coding may be at the heart of the overwhelming challenges facing healthcare providers today, automated systems that merely provide ‘coding-only’ solutions will not suffice,” said Ken Lacy, President and General Manager of Precyse Advanced Technologies, the R&D division of Precyse. “precyseCode represents an automated coding solution that goes beyond coding to unify and optimize the entire workflow process, from physicians to coders to clinical staff and to management. We’ve already seen 20% increases in coder productivity with precyseCode, and we expect that figure to climb as high as 50% as the system ‘learns’ from its earlier coding assignments.”
Lacy added, “Rather than reengineering existing automated systems to adapt to the changing healthcare environment, our goal was to develop a ‘from the ground up’ solution that would meet all of the current and future needs of healthcare providers. We carefully analyzed all of the various user needs and built solutions for them into precyseCode. We are extremely pleased with the result, and believe that it is the type of single solution that providers will need to be successful in the future.”
A key feature of precyseCode is its NLC capability, which reads both structured and unstructured data and reorganizes it into better, more understandable information that supports powerful capture and interpretation of clinical findings. This episode-specific patient narrative is then electronically tagged to be easily searched, mined and analyzed. Combined with NLC, real-time dashboards provide a unified view for everyone involved in the documentation workflow process. And since precyseCode already includes SNOMED (Systemized Nomenclature of Medicine) and ICD-10 codes, it allows coders to begin learning ICD-10 immediately, offsetting any anticipated declines in productivity and assuring a smooth transition in October 2013.
Lacy also noted that precyseCode offers healthcare providers a means of reducing costs and finding new sources of revenue. “The product has been proven to minimize coding backlogs, facility DNFB levels, RAC exposure and denied claims and to accelerate revenue cycles,” he said. “By allowing and processing physician queries directly in the system, it allows clinical documentation that more accurately describes the level of care provided. And by making coders more productive, it reduces the need for outside contract staffing resources to accommodate overflow.”
PrecyseCode is already achieving noteworthy results in various healthcare organizations around the nation. For example, Precyse and M*Modal have partnered with Geisinger Health System to put precyseCode’s ICD-10-ready automated clinical documentation and NLC coding software to work. At Geisinger, the software will bridge medical dictation, transcription, coding and clinical documentation improvement (CDI) processes by capturing physician dictation, editing it, coding it and directing it into electronic health record (EHR) software platform. Based in Danville, Pa., Geisinger Health System is widely recognized for its implementation of innovative care models and deployment of state of the art technologies. Using precyseCode, Geisinger physicians can dictate directly into the EHR with minimal impact to their workflow patterns. Clinical information is electronically tagged to be easily searched, mined and analyzed by healthcare team members responsible for driving hospital care and outcomes. Geisinger and Precyse aim to see this collaborative technology replicated across the country.
“Our main goals are to optimize the coding process, improve workflow and accelerate ICD-10 transition,” said Joan Topper, Vice President, IT Optimization, Geisinger Health System. “The management and coding teams at Geisinger are already seeing early improvements in both productivity and workflow, and I’m confident that this trend will continue as we go forward. We are all very excited to use one system that meets all of our facility and professional coding needs.”
The Baptist Health System (BHS) in Birmingham, Ala., also uses precyseCode to resolve a variety of challenges in its centralized coding department that supports four acute care hospital operations. According to Chloe Phillips, Corporate Director of HIM, BHS, “precyseCode technologies have simplified processes and streamlined our workflow. It has been instrumental in increasing productivity, accuracy and quality, while accelerating our revenue cycle and significantly reducing costs.”

Precyse Unveils New Corporate Identity

Wayne, PA and Alpharetta, GA May 02, 2011 — Precyse, a leader in health information management (HIM) services and technologies, has introduced a new corporate brand identity featuring a new logo, a new company name and a new URL (precyse.com). The new corporate identity is designed to more accurately reflect the breakthrough technologies and comprehensive and holistic blend of services that are sparking true innovations in the flow of health information throughout the hospital environment, significantly improving the flow of revenue, work and patient data.
“Our goal is to provide hospitals and healthcare systems with the most comprehensive, integrated and cost-effective solutions to their information management processes in the most simplified manner possible,” said Jeffrey Levitt, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Precyse. “Our mission is particularly critical in the current healthcare environment, which is faced with constant challenges and changes, including the ICD-10 transition, pay-for.performance programs, Meaningful Use and other healthcare reform initiatives. We wanted our corporate identity to clearly capture both the power and simplicity of our solutions, and I believe that it does just that.”
Levitt said that the company’s new brand identity system was designed to communicate four principles on which Precyse is built: expertise, innovation, simplicity and precision. The first step in the rebranding initiative was to remove the word “Solutions” from the company name. “‘Precyse’ is simpler, and it’s how our customers refer to us, so we’ve embraced that,” said Levitt. The company’s website address has changed as well from precysesolutions.com to precyse.com to reflect the simplified name. The new company logo also reflects a fresh and simpler look, with the company logotype carefully crafted in lowercase letters and highlighting the unique spelling of “Precyse” with a “y” and the precision that the company embraces. The corporate colors, which have been changed from shades of blue to orange and deep red, convey the dynamics of expertise, innovation and precision.
The introduction of the new corporate identity comes as Precyse launches precyseCode™, the most advanced and comprehensive health information management platform available today. PrecyseCode is driven by state-of-the-art technologies that understand and process human voice, converting it to text and transforming it into information. PrecyseCode features Computer-Assisted Coding that uses unique Natural Language Comprehension™ (NLC) to create a patient’s clinical story, allowing for the assignment of appropriate, compliant ICD-9 and ICD-10 diagnosis codes, procedure codes and SNOMED clinical terminology.
“Rather than reengineering existing automated systems to adapt to the changing healthcare environment, our goal was to begin from the ground up to develop a solution that would meet all of the current and future needs of healthcare providers,” said Ken Lacy, President and General Manager of the Precyse Advanced Technologies division. “We carefully analyzed all of these needs and built solutions for them into precyseCode. The simplicity of our new corporate identity now goes hand in hand with the simplicity of our flagship product.”