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‘HealthGate Governance™’ Application Addresses Mounting Requirements for Governance, Transparency and Accountability in Healthcare Quality and Improvement Initiatives Burlington, MA, September 4, 2008 — HealthGate Data Corp. announced today the availability of HealthGate Governance™, a collection of web-based tools designed specifically to help hospitals and health systems manage the complex governance issues associated with quality and care improvement initiatives. HealthGate Governance is based on HealthGate's healthcare industry-specific collaboration, document lifecycle management and workflow applications and delivers governance modeling, committee performance tracking, document audit trails and reports and dashboards to help organizations identify, correct and track areas of weakness in their existing governance structure. “Since we recently began to work with HealthGate, our health system of 18 hospitals has greatly benefited from the governance tools that are inherently built into HealthGate’s collaboration software. These tools have helped us begin to create new governance structures that are more effective and efficient for our organization at large,” said John Kontor, MD, Director of Clinical Content at Bon Secours Health System, Inc. “We historically have had inefficient overlaps in committee structure and oversight as well as significant gaps in committee coverage,” Kontor added. “We are able to use the HealthGate tools to enable the development of a clinical informatics infrastructure and speed its mission-critical work on care standardization.” The motivation for the development of HealthGate’s governance specific service came from numerous hospitals and health systems that were looking for web-based tools that could directly address the specific needs of their organizations. "Hospitals and health systems across the country struggle with issues of governance, particularly when it comes to care standardization and quality improvement," said Timothy McNamara, MD, MPH, Chief Medical Officer at HealthGate. "Many, for example, are attempting to put into place governance structures and policies that set charters, priorities and responsibilities for various care standardization and improvement initiatives. But, establishing clear channels of communication and clear lines of accountability for the numerous committees, departments, facilities and business functions of a healthcare enterprise has proven to be an ongoing challenge." "Good governance is a complex mixture of process and culture that is difficult to establish and maintain in virtually every industry,” said Bill Reece, HealthGate’s Chief Executive Officer. “When you add in the additional complexities of quality improvement initiatives, state and federal regulation, pay-for-performance programs and other issues that hospitals deal with on a daily basis, good governance becomes even harder to achieve but all the more important. HealthGate Governance helps hospitals and health systems simplify this daunting task.” HealthGate Governance allows an organization, no matter how large or complex, to model its existing governance structure; identify areas for governance improvement or consolidation of oversight; and enforce organizational policies for project approval, progress reports and ongoing review. HealthGate Governance addresses these challenges by centralizing and productively 'fueling' the collaboration process with easy-to-use tools such as one-click access, reminders, and accountability options that enable a project manager to know where or why the process is slowing or breaking down. The HealthGate Governance Technology HealthGate Governance is a specialized, web-based, “Software as a Service” application utilizing HealthGate’s Collaboration Architect software platform. There are no additional servers, storage devices or software required to access this service. All that is needed is an internet connection, web browser and email client. Because it is web-based, participants can access documents related to quality improvement, such as care plans and order sets, for example, from virtually any location at any time. The software features governance modeling which allows organizations to group users into workgroups or committees, group workgroups or committees into departments or facilities, group departments or facilities into regions, and group regions within an overarching enterprise. The top-level entities (enterprise, regions, facilities, and departments) set the parameters for variation and privileges that trickle down to lower level entities (committees, workgroups, and users). In addition, users with appropriate privileges can see and analyze the performance of committees and individuals, the relationships between local committees, health system committees and others, and take steps to intervene as needed. Because of the highly structured and managed functionality of the application, as well as its inherent transparency, documents are easily tracked, participants and contributors are accountable for input, and oversight of all activities can be documented. For example, a multi-facility health system wanting to standardize its care for patients requiring venous thromboembolism prophylaxis can identify all of the overlapping committees (medical, surgical, pharmacy, nursing, safety, and quality) that are stakeholders in the issue (at both the facility and system level), then model the desired governance (taking into account existing committee and governance structures or adding new structures if needed), and then execute and measure performance using the tools available in HealthGate Governance. ABOUT BON SECOURS HEALTH SYSTEM Bon Secours Health System, Inc. based in Marriottsville, Maryland, is a $2.4 billion not-for-profit Catholic health system that owns, manages or joint ventures 18 acute care, 5 long term care, 5 assisted living and independent living and other facilities, primarily on the East Coast. Bon Secours Health System consists of more than 16,000 caregivers helping people in seven states. Its vision is to be recognized for its leadership in justice, transforming the communities in which it serves and works into places of health and hope, and being a prophetic voice for systemic U.S. health reform and a more humane world. ABOUT HEALTHGATE HealthGate Data Corp. has been a pioneer in the healthcare information technology market since 1994, bringing cutting edge technologies to hospitals, health systems, and health-related academic societies around the world. Today, HealthGate develops and delivers industry-specific Software as a Service (SaaS) enterprise content management (ECM), asynchronous collaboration, and document lifecycle management technologies for the global healthcare market. These services help healthcare organizations improve governance practices and streamline the process of creating, updating and reviewing documents such as policies and procedures, protocols, guidelines, and order sets reducing costs and improving financial performance. Forward Looking Statements This press release contains certain statements that are forward-looking within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. HealthGate's actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements reflect management's current expectations, are based on many assumptions, and, like HealthGate’s business and operations generally, are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including, among other things: the market for HealthGate’s Collaboration Architect and Governance offering and other Quality Improvement and Risk Management Solutions products and services; HealthGate's ability to generate sufficient revenues from its current and future products and services; HealthGate's ability to keep up with the rapid technological developments in the healthcare industry; competition; reliance on computer systems and software; HealthGate's ability to retain key personnel; and other risk factors. HealthGate does not intend to update or publicly release any revisions to the forward-looking statements. ###
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