Singapore, 18 June 2009 – Microsoft and SingHealth, Singapore’s largest healthcare group, today announced a ten-year partnership to harness technology innovation to establish an integrated radiology management system. This commitment will see the two organisations enhance the features of Microsoft’s existing Amalga Hospital Information System (HIS) 2009 Radiology Management Solution, and replace the current Radiology Information System (RIS) and Picture Archiving & Communication System (PACS) in SingHealth’s hospitals and specialty centres. Beyond the integrated radiology management system, this partnership also provides opportunities for SingHealth and Microsoft to extend this innovation broadly across other specialties in SingHealth’s hospitals, with the longer-term intent to develop an enterprise-wide clinical imaging solution.

Dr Wong Yue Sie, the Clinician Leader for this project, and also Chief Operating Officer of the SingHealth group and Singapore General Hospital (SGH), said: “Providing better, safer integrated care for our patients is always our top consideration whenever we embark on any healthcare technology project. By combining Microsoft’s core skills in technology innovation with SingHealth’s clinical expertise and resources in radiology workflow, we are confident that the new integrated radiology management system will bring us closer to achieving this goal. With ready sharing of image studies, our patients can move seamlessly across the care continuum. This brings SingHealth one step closer to supporting the Ministry of Health’s vision of a national Electronic Health Record system for every Singaporean.”

The new integrated radiology management system will first be implemented this year at SGH, SingHealth’s flagship hospital. With provision of real-time information and synchronisation of clinical results in RIS and digitised image studies in PACS, the operational efficiency of all staff involved in the radiology workflow – from front-counter patient service clerks to radiographers and radiologists – will be enhanced. This will translate to greater patient benefits, e.g. better safety with reduced risk of mismatch of patients’ results and images, as well as shorter waiting time due to faster turnaround time for results.

The collaboration is the first time Microsoft and SingHealth will participate in ongoing research to enhance the features of the Amalga HIS platform and ensure that the technology continues to reflect the requirements of the SingHealth group, its clinicians and its patients.

As Steve Shihadeh, Vice President of Sales & Services in Microsoft Corporation’s Health Solutions Group, offered: “The announcement today is about more than deploying a new technology. Over the next ten years, Microsoft and SingHealth will work together to incorporate and share new ideas that will advance imaging methods used in future radiology imaging, keeping the innovation going and making sure we are realising our vision of using technology to improve healthcare.”

By 2011, SGH will be joined by other SingHealth institutions namely National Cancer Centre Singapore, National Heart Centre Singapore, Changi General Hospital and KK Women's and Children's Hospital, to run the enhanced Amalga HIS Radiology Management Solution. This will enable efficient sharing of patients’ image studies across the SingHealth group, enabling “anytime, anywhere” access by clinicians during consultation with patients, studies to be routed to a radiologist in another institution for urgent reporting, and cross-institution expert opinion to be sought for difficult studies, for example.

Dr Chong Yoke Sin, Chief Executive Officer of Integrated Health Information Systems, said: “By implementing Microsoft’s enhanced Amalga HIS platform, SingHealth will be able to consolidate and standardise RIS and PACS applications in our institutions. Each year, our clinicians manage over one million radiology studies. So by adopting this new platform, we will not only increase our clinical workflow efficiency but patients can be assured of greater data integrity which will lead to more accurate and timely diagnoses.”

Microsoft is committed to e-health initiatives across Asia. Jessica Tan, Managing Director, Microsoft Singapore, explained: “We are delivering e-health solutions for hospitals in Thailand, Malaysia and China, and will continue to work with visionary healthcare providers like SingHealth to support health professionals and improve the quality of care for patients across Asia Pacific. SingHealth’s adoption of Microsoft’s Amalga HIS 2009 solution demonstrates its commitment to adopting internationally recognised standards and continuing its position as a trusted leader in healthcare in Singapore.”

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About Microsoft in Health
Microsoft is committed to improving health around the world through software innovation. Over the past 12 years, Microsoft has steadily increased its investments in health, with a focus on addressing the challenges of health providers, health and social services organizations, payers, consumers and life sciences companies worldwide. Microsoft closely collaborates with a broad ecosystem of partners and develops its own powerful health solutions, such as Amalga and HealthVault. Together, Microsoft and its industry partners are working to advance a vision of unifying health information and making it more readily available, ensuring the best quality of life and affordable care for everyone.

About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

About Singapore Health Services (SingHealth)
SingHealth is the largest healthcare group in Singapore, offering a complete range of multi-disciplinary and integrated medical care. The group consists of 3 Hospitals, 5 National Specialty Centres, and a network of 9 polyclinics. We have a faculty of internationally qualified medical specialists and are also well equipped with advanced diagnostic and treatment medical technology. We are dedicated to providing quality healthcare that is affordable and accessible to our patients. By pursuing excellence in our 3 pillars of Service, Education, and Research, we aim to be the trusted leader in healthcare for our patients, partners, staff, and the community.

Members of the SingHealth group:

Hospitals: Changi General Hospital, KK Women's and Children's Hospital, and Singapore General Hospital

National Specialty Centres: National Cancer Centre Singapore, National Dental Centre of Singapore, National Heart Centre Singapore, National Neuroscience Institute, and Singapore National Eye Centre