New AMA Platform to Offer Isabel Healthcare's PRO Clinical Decision Support System

CHICAGO, IL--(Marketwire - December 7, 2009) - Isabel Healthcare, Inc. announced today it is working with the American Medical Association (AMA) to offer to physicians nationwide the Isabel PRO diagnosis decision support system through the AMA's new online health information solutions platform. The platform is aimed at helping practicing physicians meet their clinical and practice-related needs. It will provide physicians access to information, products, services, and resources to help facilitate medical practice and ease adoption of health information technology. The platform is currently being beta tested in Michigan in collaboration with the Michigan State Medical Society.

"Being part of this new, innovative platform validates our mission and goals," said Isabel Healthcare CEO Joseph Britto M.D. "There has been a great deal of focus nationally on Electronic Medical Records and they are a necessary first step, but a diagnosis decision support system can enhance patient care and help improve outcomes. As knowledge workers, we can improve the quality of the most fundamental upstream clinical event -- the diagnosis decision with diagnosis decision support. Isabel PRO has been shown to leverage the exponential increase in knowledge and data to mitigate incorrect or delayed diagnosis and thereby improve patient safety and quality of care."

The Isabel system was conceived 10 years ago as a direct response to the near-fatal misdiagnosis of a patient named Isabel Maude who developed necrotizing fasciitis, a well-described complication of chicken pox. Isabel was seen by both the primary care physician and the local hospital's ED, and both failed to recognize the typical clinical features of necrotizing fasciitis and sent her home. Isabel not only assists in making the right diagnosis but also helps answer clinical questions with up-to-date knowledge. Isabel uses natural language processing software as opposed to standard key word searches. In more than 23 published studies and clinical trials, Isabel has proven that it is fast, easy to use, and improves patient safety and quality of care by augmenting providers' knowledge and cognitive skills in hospital and primary care settings.

"Isabel PRO is an award-winning diagnosis decision support system that can help physicians make faster, data-driven decisions at the point of care," said AMA Immediate-past Board Chair Joseph M. Heyman, M.D. "Adopting new health information technologies like Isabel PRO can help physicians enhance care quality and improve patient safety."

Isabel is an extensively tested and validated point-of-care diagnosis decision support system designed to enhance the quality of diagnosis decision making. Isabel PRO's unique feature is a diagnosis reminder checklist system. It can be used as a stand-alone system or connected to an electronic medical record and instantly provides a checklist of likely diagnoses, including bio-terrorism conditions and causative drugs for a given set of clinical conditions. Isabel PRO has been shown to help improve the quality of diagnosis decision making at the point-of-care resulting in improved patient safety and enhanced practice efficiency.

The new AMA Web-based platform will provide tools and resources to improve patient care and reduce administrative burdens. AMA will partner with physicians and their practice staff from the initial selection of products and services through implementation to ensure meaningful results.

The AMA aims to launch its new platform in early 2010.

About Isabel Healthcare, Inc.

Reston, Virginia-based Isabel Healthcare Inc. was founded in 2000 by Jason Maude and Dr. Joseph Britto, and is named after Maude's daughter who almost died after a potentially fatal illness was not recognized by family and emergency room physicians. The Isabel system, validated in clinical trials, is designed to improve patient safety and quality of care by minimizing diagnosis error. For more information, please visit http://www.isabelhealthcare.com.

About the American Medical Association

The American Medical Association helps doctors help patients by uniting physicians nationwide to work on the most important professional and public health issues. Working together, the AMA's quarter of a million physician and medical student members are playing an active role in shaping the future of medicine. For more information on the AMA, please visit www.ama-assn.org

Contact Information: Media Enquiries: Veronica Welch & Kelly Cinelli CWR & Partners, LLP www.cwrpartners.com T: +1-508-222-4802 E: E: Leah Dudowicz American Medical Association 312-464-4813