News Release For Immediate Release

 

Investor Contact:
Julie Pekarek
Chief Marketing Officer
414.977.4254
ir@merge.com

 

MERGE HEALTHCARE ANNOUNCES NEW HOSPITAL DEPLOYMENT

Michigan-based Hospital MRI Center Standardizes Radiology and Billing Workflow with Merge’s Fusion RIS™ solution

Milwaukee, WI, January 25, 2010 – Tri Hospital MRI Center of Port Huron, Michigan has selected Merge Healthcare (NASDAQ: MRGE) to provide a radiology information system (RIS) that includes integrated business workflow from scheduling through billing. As a joint venture of Port Huron Hospital, St. Joseph Mercy Hospital and St. John River District Hospital; the center serves St. Clair, Sanilac and Huron counties.

Steven Geib, Tri Hospital MRI supervisor, commented, “As a longstanding and happy customer of Merge’s eFilm Workstation®, we turned to Merge first for additional radiology solutions. We needed a RIS that had high functionality and easy integration with our other image management applications, and Fusion RIS was a great fit.” Geib continued, “The intuitive work lists and user-friendly tools truly impressed our staff, and its practice analysis and financial reporting capabilities will help us fulfill our Certificate of Need requirements. Best of all, the integrated billing is a tremendous time saver in areas like split bill reconciliation!”

Fusion RIS brings stronger integrated billing capabilities to radiology businesses by combining two distinctly separate radiology information and accounting applications into one system. Medical imaging practices can accelerate their payment cycle by significantly reducing many time-consuming and labor-intensive processes required to generate and receive payment of radiology-based procedures.

“Merge prides itself in offering diagnostic imaging solutions that are relevant to the needs of today’s healthcare professionals,” said Tim Kulbago, Merge General Manager. “We are pleased to be selected to help the staff at Tri Hospital MRI Center achieve their business goals. In the current environment, a strong RIS and billing solution is essential to any imaging practice’s business success.”

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Merge Healthcare Incorporated develops solutions that automate healthcare data and diagnostic workflow to enable a better electronic record of the patient experience, and to enhance product development for health IT, device and pharmaceutical companies. Merge products, ranging from standards-based development toolkits to sophisticated clinical applications, have been used by healthcare providers, vendors and researchers worldwide for over 20 years. Additional information can be found at www.merge.com.

Tri Hospital MRI Center is a joint imaging service of Port Huron Hospital, St. Joseph Mercy Port Huron and St. John River District Hospital. Tri Hospital introduced magnetic resonance imaging service to the Michigan Thumb region in 1989 and has consistently offered state-of-the-art diagnostic testing by compassionate and qualified staff. As the most experienced MRI service in the area, Tri Hospital maintains a fixed 3 Tesla MRI scanner on the campus of Port Huron Hospital, along with a 1.5 Tesla mobile unit that travels between St. John River District Hospital and St. Joseph Mercy Health Center. Both units are accredited by the American College of Radiology.

The matters discussed in this news release may include forward-looking statements, which could involve a number of risks and uncertainties. When used in this press release, the words “will”, “believes”, “intends”, “anticipates”, “expects” and similar expressions, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, such forward-looking statements. Except as expressly required by the federal securities laws, the Company undertakes no obligation to update such factors or to publicly announce the results of any of the forward-looking statements.