Friday April 7, 1:20 pm Eastern Time
Company Press Release
SOURCE: New Era of Networks, Inc.
NEON Expands Healthcare Offerings to Meet Growing Demand for ASP-based Payor and Provider e-Business Integration Solutions
DENVER, April 7 /PRNewswire/ -- New Era of Networks, Inc. (Nasdaq: NEON - news), the leader in e-Business integration solutions to the healthcare industry, announced that it has taken a number of expansionary steps to address the growing need for end-to-end, e-Business solutions in the healthcare marketplace. The initial phase of this expansion includes the introduction of NEON's HealthSphere 2000(TM) suite of end-to-end, e-Business solutions; the availability of the HealthSphere Suite of products on an Application Service Provider (ASP) based model and the launching of a new set of B2B services focused specifically on the healthcare payor market.
The opportunity to improve the efficiency and quality of healthcare through improved information flow and information utilization is well understood. The distributed nature of healthcare delivery and the breadth of participants in the delivery process means, however, that integrating information from disparate players and distributing it broadly are key challenges. For this reason, Web-enabled business processes are increasingly recognized as a significant source of improved efficiency and quality by healthcare payors and providers alike. Forrester Research projects that healthcare B2B will grow to be a $350 billion market by 2004. Separately, Forrester also predicts that the claim processing market will grow to $224 billion market by 2004.
NEON's HealthSphere 2000 product suite which will be unveiled at the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) show in Dallas TX on April 10th will include three new product offerings: MedPortal; MedMerge and MedSecure. Each of these e-enabling healthcare products as well as NEON's core integration technologies will be offered on an ASP or conventional licensing basis.
``An increasing number of our customers are demanding end-to-end, e-Business solutions on an ASP basis,' stated John Moriarty, NEON Healthcare's Group president. ``Our new HealthSphere 2000 suite of products and the introduction of subscription and transaction-based pricing under an ASP model is specifically focused to meet these needs.'
With more than 1,800 healthcare installations and more than 150 vendor partnerships including Abbott Labs, Andersen Consulting, IBM, Microsoft, EDS, SMS, First Consulting Group, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Envoy, and Healtheon/WebMD, NEON is a recognized leader in both e-Business generally and healthcare particularly. To expand its healthcare offerings into the claims processing arena, NEON has recently acquired the assets of privately held PaperFree Systems, Inc. This expansion creates one of the most comprehensive sets of healthcare B2B products and services available today.
``Over the past six months we have experienced very fast growth in both our general internet infrastructure and healthcare businesses,' stated Rick Adam, NEON's chairman and CEO. ``This growth is being fueled by the increasingly rapid adoption of web-based, clinical and claims processing integration solutions. Our healthcare customers want to avail themselves of these solutions quickly. The importance of time to market for these customers means that providing complete packages, not just component technology, is a major growth opportunity for us and a major source of value for our customers.'
PaperFree Systems Inc., one of the leading vendors in payor-side integration solutions has annual revenues of approximately $10 million. The Vienna, VA - based company has 50 staff members located in Vienna and in offices in Denver, CO., Chicago, IL, Ann Arbor, MI, and Lexington, KY. PaperFree customers include numerous Blue Cross/Blue Shield Plans, Envoy, Cigna, EDS Connecticut General Life, Avnet, Great West Life, among others. In addition, PaperFree lists as its vendor partners, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, HP, DataMedic, DISA, Express Scripts, and Andersen Consulting.
PaperFree, which also has a strong and growing presence in the utility, telco and mortgage lending industries, will operate as a standalone subsidiary reporting to NEON Group president, John Moriarty. PaperFree's president & CEO, Ira Apatoff will continue in that position |
