APP Design

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Media Contact: David Bertola (716) 635-3852

WNYHealtheNet web application wins Healthcare Achievement Award

BUFFALO, NY –April 26, 2006 – WNYHealtheNet is the recipient of the 2006 Buffalo Niagara 2006 BETA Award in the Healthcare Achievement category. The announcement was made March 23 by InfoTech Niagara.

Each year, the Buffalo/Niagara Emerging Technology Awards (BETA) are presented to companies, organizations, and people who seek to discover, honor, and promote the efforts of those who have served as innovators, creators and advocates of new technologies, new methods of integrating technology and of economic development through technology in Western New York. The awards are sponsored by InfoTech Niagara, a coalition of companies and people involved with information and computing technologies in Western New York.

WNYHealtheNet (pronounced as “Western New York Healthy Net”) earned honors in the Healthcare Achievement category, which recognizes a local healthcare organization that best embodies the vision, most inventive ideas, and the broadest leadership in technological innovation.
“The BETA award signifies that the local technology and medical communities have recognized WNYHealtheNet as an ever-evolving, mainstream organization whose website adds value and administratively simplifies office practices through the imposition of industry standards,” said Tom Unger, Grapevine Consulting, contracted program manager for WNYHealtheNet. “The success has been a result of working with experienced technology partners, including Chicago-based APP Design Inc., and PCI of Buffalo.”

WNYHealtheNet is a database-driven software tool available via the Internet. It is a collaboration by the region’s major hospitals and all health insurance plans, and allows for on-line, real-time administrative transaction processing.

“WNYHealtheNet is an amazing success story,” said Rob Quinn, president of APP Design, the company that created the WNYHealtheNet software application, and built the country’s first community health network, Wisconsin Health Information Network (WHIN). “It’s been a privilege to have contributed to WNYHealtheNet, which drives down health care costs, as it saves physicians and providers nearly $20 every time a referral is made, and $1 for every transaction. When considering that the application supports nearly two million transactions every month, the cost savings add up quickly.”

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Victor Products, a leading provider of automotive after market accessories, uses APP Design’s partner RevCast LLC, for retail management and inventory control.

“RevCast took extra time to thoroughly consider all aspects of Victor’s issues and the result is a system that is targeted precisely to our needs.”, said Ed Carpenter, VP of Operations. “Your software will not only help us to significantly reduce inventory levels and improve our service but it will also eliminate many hours of manual analysis. The tedious process of forecasting inventory for retail customers, previously considered a “black art” is now a matter of a few key strokes.”

Mr. Carpenter continued, “All of our major concerns were acknowledged and addressed during the course of the project. The results from this effort exceeded my expectations in many ways.”

About RevCast LLC
RevCast, a joint venture between RevCast Inc. and APP Design, was founded by a team of retail and information system veterans. Our goal is to build robust, easy to use information tools for analysis of large amounts of retail data. We also provide consulting services to help our clients leverage our tools and augment their staff. Our flagship product is the Integrated Merchandising System, which allows retail analysts unparalleled power in an easy to use tool.

APP Design announced today that it has been chosen as technology partner to HealthXnet, the Albuquerque based health information exchange. HealthXnet currently delivers information from:

• Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Mexico
• Lovelace Health Plan
• Molina Healthcare
• New Mexico Medicaid
• Presbyterian Health Plan

“We chose APP Design for their depth of knowledge of healthcare information exchanges.” said Joseph Speroni, Senior Manager of HealthXnet. “They’re not the biggest, but they understand the
intricacies of the multiple information flows from disparate sources, HIPAA X12 transactions, and our need for 24 by 7 service.”

About HealthXnet - The HealthXnet(r) health information exchange seeks to encourage cooperation, improve administrative efficiencies, and enhance the ability to deliver quality care to its member organizations by streamlining the flow of information among hospitals, health plans, physicians and other healthcare organizations. More information about HealthXnet is available at http://www.healthxnet.com

About APP Design - APP Design builds enterprise class systems delivering information from disparate sources using Internet technologies.

APP Design and RevCast have formed RevCast, LLC to jointly develop and support RevCast’s Integrated Merchandising System (IMS) retail data analysis product.

RevCast IMS provides a comprehensive suite of tools to manage forecasting, replenishment, promotions, analysis, and reporting. This includes:

• Sales Analysis
• Inventory Analysis
• Geographic Analysis
• Demographic Analysis
• Merchandising Plans
• Marketing Plans
• Promotional Plans
• Store Level Forecasting
• Ad-hoc Reporting

All of these functions are tightly integrated and monitored by a real time exception alert system that flags potential problems before they occur, providing time to anticipate and mitigate adverse events.

About RevCast Inc.
RevCast was founded by a team of retail information system veterans. Our goal is to build robust, easy to use information tools for analysis of large amounts of retail data. We also provide consulting services to help our clients leverage our tools and augment their staff. Our flagship product is the Integrated Merchandising System, which allows retail analysts unparalleled power in an easy to use tool.

About APP Design Inc.
APP Design Inc. builds reliable, scalable, and cost-effective enterprise-class software. We provide the “heavy-lifting”, secure, robust solutions that consistently deliver millions of transactions. Using our proven, scalable, APP Anvil™ Application Server, our depth of knowledge, and our practical experience, we create high quality solutions for today’s rapidly changing business environment.

APP Design solutions save provider organizations $2.4 million over the past year, as featured in Health Management Technology article " Transaction Portal Cuts Costs".

From the article:

One of the members, Buffalo, N.Y.-based Kaleida Health System, is recovering $120,000 a month—$1.44 million annualized—in copays that were previously not collected due to the lack of information about member eligibility and copays, reports Fran Meyer, chief information officer at Kaleida Health System. Also, Catholic Health System in western New York is recovering $82,000 a month—$984,000 annualized—in copays that were previously lost, says Jeffrey Baughan, chief information officer at Catholic Health System.

and

Payer organizations also benefit from WNYHealtheNet. HealthNow, a WNYHealtheNet payer participant, realized a significant increase in transactions while reducing the amount of calls and costs associated with its call center volume for inquiries by enabling additional access to online information, according to Gary Kerl, chief information officer of HealthNow and BlueCross BlueShield of Western New York.

The improved efficiency of this new system, and the reduced volume that needed to be handled by the call centers, enabled HealthNow to avoid call center costs of nearly $20,000 a month and eliminated the need for $8,600 a month in dial-up lines. Combined, these efforts reduced annual costs to date by more than $340,000.

About Eliginet/APP Design — APP Design Group builds enterprise class systems delivering information from disparate sources using Internet technologies. APP Design’s Eliginet product is the provider information delivery platform for WNY HealtheNet.

APP Design’s Eliginet product is a secure platform for delivering information from multiple disparate sources to the desktop using Internet technologies. This proven, cost-effective system helps healthcare organizations reduce costs, address security and HIPAA compliance issues, and speed the delivery of information between partners. Eliginet’s focus is on the secure electronic exchange of information necessary to reduce administrative and clinical costs while improving the quality of health care.