Dennis W. Casey Joins Precyse Advisory Council

Nationally recognized healthcare insurance executive to lend valuable insights to leading healthcare information company
Wayne, PA and Alpharetta, GA Jan 23, 2014 — Precyse, a leader in health information management (HIM) Performance Management and Technology, has announced that Dennis W. Casey
has joined the Precyse Advisory Council (PAC). Casey, who is widely recognized as a leader in the healthcare insurance and related employee benefits business with over 37 years of experience,
recently retired from Wellpoint Inc. where he served as Senior Vice President for Individual and Group Business, overseeing operations of 13 of Wellpoint’s health insurance plans. Previously, he served as CEO of Acordia Financial Industry Benefits Inc., a publicly traded subsidiary of Indiana Blue Cross and Blue Shield.
With his industry knowledge and years of expertise, Casey was tapped to advise Precyse as it works to simplify its clients’ everyday challenges by providing holistic services and technologies that transform clinical data directly into actionable information. The Precyse Advisory Council functions as a source of high-level input and advice on the strategic positioning and expansion of Precyse’s service and technology offerings. The PAC also serves as a conduit for new business opportunities because of the extensive experience and networks developed by each of the nine council members.
“We are excited to welcome Dennis to our Advisory Council,” said Precyse Board Member Alan Weinstein, Chairman of the PAC. “As a key executive with Wellpoint, Dennis was instrumental in
promoting growth and success within that organization. We look forward to the valuable insights and perspectives he will bring to Precyse.”

Quantum Health Receives Investment from GE Ventures, Altaris Capital Partners

Columbus, OH Jan 22, 2014 – Quantum Health today announced that it has secured investment support from GE Ventures, the venture capital arm of GE, Altaris Capital Partners, and a co-investment group comprised of Steven Shulman and Lawrence Leisure, as well as strategic advisor Harlan Levine, M.D. — all of whom have a history of success growing original concepts in healthcare. These collaborative partners will further expand Quantum’s innovative approach to help consumers navigate the healthcare system that results in better health outcomes at lower costs.
Quantum Health, an organization founded with the goal of reducing confusion and unnecessary costs in a complex healthcare system, has established a unique patient care coordination model for self-insured employers that has enabled clients to enjoy industry-leading satisfaction rates and claims savings. This is achieved by guiding patients and families through the challenging healthcare system and working together with physicians to ensure proper care while eliminating costly redundancies or delays in care. GE Ventures, Altaris, and the co-investor partners will provide additional expertise and help identify new market opportunities for Quantum as it continues to grow its presence in the evolving healthcare marketplace.
“Having GE Ventures, Altaris, and our co-investors join us is further recognition of our approach to more effectively navigate the healthcare system from the consumer and patient point of view,” said Kara Trott, Chief Executive Officer, Quantum Health. “There is tremendous potential in these relationships and we are eager to begin taking our proven model to market more broadly.”
“At GE we understand how important it is for companies to provide high quality and affordable healthcare to their employees,” said Sue Siegel, CEO, GE Ventures & healthymagination. “We’ve been impressed by Quantum Health’s successful approach to helping consumers navigate the healthcare system, allowing them to access the right care with the right provider at the right time.”
“GE Ventures looks to invest in companies that provide practical and innovative solutions. Quantum Health has created a proven and trusted solution to the often confusing healthcare system with their care coordination model,” said Risa Stack, General Manager, GE Ventures, Incubations. “We’ve chosen to partner with Quantum because we believe our two companies can have an even greater impact together within the world of healthcare.”
Quantum Health, a privately held company, secured the partnerships based on its desire for greater growth. “Rather than for funding purposes, this strategic partnership is about bringing intellectual and reputational capital to Quantum Health,” Trott said.
Collectively, the new partners have a track record of success in accelerating healthcare innovation in the marketplace.
“We see an entire class of employers who will embrace Quantum’s care coordination model as a critical business asset and important employee benefit,” said Steven Shulman, co-investor, Quantum Health. “As strategic partners, our role is to facilitate and introduce Quantum to these companies and accelerate adoption.”

Sparta Systems Launches Stratas™, a Cloud Application Providing Customers Greater Control and Visibility Into Third Party Supplier Quality Operations

New Solution Can Help Companies Improve Margins by Reducing Costs of Poor Quality
Hamilton, NJ Jan 21, 2014 – Sparta Systems Inc., an industry pioneer and global leader in enterprise quality management solutions (EQMS), today announced the release of Stratas, a new cloud solution that extends the Company’s flagship quality management software, TrackWise®, beyond a customer’s four walls to external suppliers and contract manufacturers, thereby reducing risk and improving efficiency throughout the value chain.
Stratas addresses a critical marketplace need by integrating and extending quality related processes across an organization’s entire supplier and partner network. By providing third party organizations secure access to participate directly in a customer’s EQMS, Stratas eliminates the inefficient, manual methods typical in managing quality in the supply chain– enabling seamless, electronic management of the entire business process and thousands of related manual transactions annually. The result is unparalleled transparency, management and control over external quality. Coupled with the use of TrackWise Analytics, organizations will broaden their ability to conduct pro-active analysis on the entire landscape of internal and external quality data.
Stratas creates a more effective supplier quality management system by:
• Helping to reduce the likelihood of adverse quality events by enabling the orderly, consistent benchmarking of suppliers and contract manufacturers;
• Reducing errors and loss of critical information, helping to prevent non-compliance and improving security; and
• Driving stronger process regiment and shorter response times, delivering substantial efficiency improvement
“Stratas will revolutionize how companies manage quality in their supply chain, especially when you consider that more than fifty percent of product recall root causes can be attributed to supplier and contract manufacturer issues, ” said Eileen Martinson, Chief Executive Officer of the Company. “With recall costs easily averaging between $10 million and $90 million or more, organizations need to do everything they can to improve visibility into both internal and external quality, helping to ensure consumer safety while mitigating risk and litigation exposure and continuing to improve efficiency.”

Intralign provides a voice to the debate about workflow optimization. OR workflow optimization carves out order from chaos.

Excerpt from Healthcare Purchasing News article
Phoenix, AZ Jan 19, 2014 – Spend any amount of time behind the scenes in the perioperative suite, and you’ll likely find yourself amidst a whirling dervish of activity and chaos. You might even begin to wonder how surgical cases are ever successfully completed with all of the starts, stops and delays that happen during the course of the day, whether awaiting surgeons, supplies, test results or even patients. Indeed, the complexity of the OR is matched only by the variety of cases and surgical techniques performed.
Explore this area further and you’ll discover why scheduling is just one tiny piece of optimizing perioperative workflow. Intuitive systems help improve patient safety and meet quality goals, provide comprehensive data analysis and benchmarking capabilities to help improve OR utilization, increase throughput and surgical case volumes, as well as bolster physician, staff and patient satisfaction. At the heart of all these systems are real-time communication tools such as scheduling dashboards, HIPAA compliant family messaging display boards, automatic status updates, safety checklists, reporting tools and more.
Four executives from companies offering perioperative workflow management solutions talked with Healthcare Purchasing News about what makes an OR tick.

…”There are a multitude of factors that can impact perioperative efficiency, such as ineffective approaches to patient scheduling, sub-optimal OR staffing, completing paperwork, or turning over the OR between cases. To address these factors at a macro level, we believe one of the biggest ways to improve efficiency in the OR is by improving knowledge about how and where resources are used, aligning clinical and operational goals, and ensuring OR staffing that is geared to maximizing throughput and quality. ”
– Lars Thording, Vice President of Marketing and Public Affairs, Intralign

International Medical Group Appoints Brent Judge Director of Business Development

Indianapolis, IN Jan 13, 2014 – International Medical Group®, Inc. (IMG®), an Indianapolis-based insurance group, announced that Brent Judge joined the company on January 6, 2014 as director of business development. He will be charged with strategic planning for key accounts, new business acquisition, revenue growth opportunities and oversight of the Marine, Mission, Latin America/Caribbean divisions. Judge was brought on to help IMG strengthen these divisions and achieve growth within that market segment.
Judge has over 13 years of industry experience and is a graduate of Butler University. He will join IMG after serving as executive vice president for Azimuth Risk Solutions, LLC for the past 5 years. According to IMG, this appointment positions the company for broader success and improves their sales force.
“Brent is an excellent addition to the IMG team and he brings years of insurance experience,” said vice president of international sales, Amanda Winkle. “IMG was built around an exceptionally talented group of professionals that has a passion for what they do. Brent should fit right in. With his knowledge of the market and proven track record of new business development, our Mission, Marine and Caribbean distribution divisions should be in an excellent position moving into 2014. ”

GAFFEY Healthcare Announces Next Generation Professional Billing Solution.

Plano, TX and Pleasanton, CA Jan 10, 2014 – GAFFEY Healthcare is excited to announce the latest release of its professional billing platform, GAFFEY Professional v 3.9.
Hospitals with affiliated physician practices, physician groups and other professional providers continue to lose revenue at an alarming rate. This is due to the low focus hospitals put toward 1500 billing as well as a lack of sophistication and insufficient capabilities of most physician billing systems. The problem of revenue attrition is only exacerbated by the industry’s drive towards hospitals accelerated acquisition of physician practices, making the need for better systems even more pressing.
With the release of Professional v 3.9, GAFFEY Healthcare now allows hospitals that provide professional healthcare services to have a centrally and comprehensively managed physician billing function for collecting all associated revenue with equal attention and enhanced workflow, editing & reporting capabilities. Also featured in the release is automation technology for claims statusing and automated Coordination of Benefits secondary billing of professional claims.
“The product release and integration come from our commitment to revenue cycle automation and consistently meet the evolving needs of our customers. As the healthcare industry continues on its trend of consolidation, these latest developments build upon an already powerful claims management platform to accommodate our client hospitals billing both professionally and institutionally,” said GAFFEY Healthcare CEO, Derek Morkel.
The integration within GAFFEY Claims Management and within the hospitals’ billing process enables the same level of GAFFEY EDI expertise to achieve high levels of efficiency and the country’s highest claims acceptance rates for both institutional and professional claims.

Sparta Systems Launches TrackWise® Mobile Product Suite

Comprehensive Offering Provides Flexible Access to Key Quality Processes
Hamilton, NJ Jan 9, 2014 – Sparta Systems Inc., an industry pioneer and global leader in enterprise quality management software (EQMS) solutions, today announced the availability of a comprehensive mobile solution product suite designed to improve the operational efficiency and effectiveness of its customers’ increasingly mobile workforce. Organizations are now able to significantly expand the reach of their quality processes, reporting and analytics beyond the four walls of their businesses.
Sparta Systems’ mobile product suite includes:
• Decreased cycle times for approvals and routing by enabling mobile and time-constrained resources to perform critical approvals and reviews;
• More rapid entry of quality events and customer complaints from virtually any location at time of occurrence– accelerating the investigation and remediation process, and improving compliance;
• Easy to use, intuitive applications; and,
• Fast adoption and roll-out in organizations with geographically dispersed and on-the-road staff
TrackWise Mobile – Mobilizes the full spectrum of business processes managed within a customers’ TrackWise environment. This capability is delivered as a turn-key, subscription service, greatly reducing the complexity traditionally required to deploy a mobile solution.
TrackWise Mobile Analytics – Allows for the consumption of reports and analytical output, including interactive capabilities such as sorting, filtering, calculations and adaptive charting. Managers and executives are now able to more rapidly gain insight from data, allowing them to be proactive in decision making regardless of their physical location.
TrackWise Audit Execution Package – Enables auditors to perform all field audit related tasks directly from their iPad, without having internet connectivity, providing further flexibility and efficiency beyond the common use of laptops today.
These Sparta Systems’ mobile offerings provide the following business and usability benefits:
“The launch of Sparta System’s mobile product suite underscores our continued commitment and investment in our customers,” said Eileen Martinson, Chief Executive Officer. “The entirely reinvented mobile user experience, combined with delivery as a turnkey service will rapidly accelerate customers’ time to adoption and realization of value.”
TrackWise Mobile product suite has been optimized to work on most Apple iOS devices, with support for Android devices expected later this quarter. To learn more view the TrackWise Mobile video or visit www.spartasystems.com.