St. Croix Systems’ Customer Recognized for Innovative Use of AIR and Service Center Manager for Medical Equipment Asset Management

Aurora Health Care Receives IDN Summit’s 2009 Search for Excellence in Healthcare Collaboration Peer Choice Award, Marking Third Industry Award in One Year

WALTHAM, MA and BALTIMORE, MD (AMMI 2009) - June 6, 2009 — St. Croix Systems, an innovative provider of Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) solutions, today announced that Aurora Health Care, a not-for-profit health care system located in eastern Wisconsin and headquartered in Milwaukee, has received its third healthcare industry award in one year for its innovative use of St. Croix Systems’ products.

The Search for Excellence in Healthcare Collaboration Awards by IDN Summit were presented at the Spring 2009 IDN Summit & Expo (March 31, 2009) with Aurora Health Care receiving a Peer Choice Award. Aurora Health Care was recognized for its internal collaboration and co-development of St. Croix Systems’ web-based AIR (Asset Investment Recovery) software to centralize, streamline, and automate the disposition of used medical equipment to maximize capital recovery at the end of the assets useful life.

“Collaborating on technology initiatives like those with organizations like Aurora Health Care is at the heart of our company’s mission to bring financial, operational, and supply chain efficiency through effective asset management solutions,” said Hank Goddard, CEO, St. Croix Systems. “Such industry awards further cement the strategic value found in the innovative use of technology within the healthcare industry.”

This award follows Aurora Health Care’s recognition in June 2008 by the Premier healthcare alliance during its annual Breakthroughs Conference and Exhibition at which Aurora Health Care received two Supply Chain Innovation Awards that praise successful innovations that create new levels of performance and competitive advantage. The first award, also for AIR, recognizes Aurora Health Care for its creation of an asset investment recovery program that has a ‘cradle-to-grave’ approach to maximizing the remaining value of unused or underutilized medical equipment. The second award praises Aurora Health Care’s inclusion of a centralized clinical engineering service model in the capital supply chain that uses St. Croix Systems’ Service Center Manager to create better manage support operations, facilities and workplace services.

By working with St. Croix Systems, Aurora Health Care has realized significant improvements in its ability to cut operating costs and recapture capital from used assets while improve patient and caregiver satisfaction. According to Alan Gresch, corporate clinical engineering manager, capital equipment services, Aurora Health Care, “With the AIR project, we are on track to exceed the phase 1 annual savings target of $1.3M in 2009 based on actual savings in Q4 2008 and Q1 2009. And we expect these savings to continue to grow as we fully implement the AIR system for clinical equipment, IT equipment and other hospital assets such as furniture.” The integration of St. Croix Systems’ AIR solution has provided Aurora Health Care the ability to control used assets — knowing where assets are coming from and going to — while ensuring proper management of rented assets to avoid inadvertent disposal. Coupled with strong integration into the organization’s financial systems, these solutions provide a closed loop on asset ownership and a detailed audit trail for effective financial reporting.

Aurora fully deployed the Service Center Manager application in 2007 to centralize, streamline, and coordinate all service requests for medical equipment services from across the entire enterprise. St. Croix’s easy-to-use service center portal has resulted in significant improvements in equipment uptime, resource utilization and patient and caregiver satisfaction, while reducing operating costs.

Gresch notes, “We are thrilled to receive these industry awards. They highlight the successes achieved in healthcare IT, encourage collaboration between health care providers and HIT vendors, and facilitate the sharing of best practices that improve quality and productivity, while reducing costs and preserving capital. This ultimately leads to improved overall patient care, safety, and health management.”

AIR and Service Center Manager Empower Equipment Managers
and Supply Chain Managers
AIR is used by health care systems to manage the end of an asset’s lifecycle for maximized capital returns on used assets. By automating the workflow, decision-making processes, and approvals associated with asset disposition — transfer to another department or facility, selling on the open market, donation, scrapping for parts, or disposal — health care facility managers can improve fiscal and supply management throughout the organization. Automated approval processes and internal and external store or auction capabilities, offer a clear audit trail that includes automated change of status and connection with ERP and financial systems.

St. Croix Systems’ Service Center Manager is a comprehensive, feature-rich internal support services call center application designed to centralize support service requests and better serve the hospital facility, staff, and patients. Designed to support the needs of patient support services, including clinical engineering, plant operations, food and nutrition services, linen distribution, environmental services, patient transport, and technology services, Service Center Manager manages the entire lifecycle of a service request — from receipt to dispatch to resolution. In the healthcare environment of care, where efficiency and safety are essential to patient care, standardizing and automating the receipt of requests, and incorporating resource intelligence into the dispatch process ensures that requests are responded to in a timely, efficient, and cost-effective manner. More importantly, that no request is overlooked.

About Aurora Health Care
Aurora Health Care is a not-for-profit Wisconsin health care provider and a national leader in efforts to improve the quality of health care. Aurora offers care at sites in more than 90 communities throughout eastern Wisconsin.

About St. Croix Systems
Founded in 1993, St. Croix Systems is a leader in Enterprise Asset Management solutions that allow healthcare providers to manage the lifecycle of capital assets across the enterprise. With active control of the planning, acquisition, tracking, maintenance, safety, and retirement of these assets, customers can improve operation and capital performance, and ensure a safe and quality environment care. Healthcare customers across the country and around the globe have deployed St. Croix Systems’ highly scalable technology. For more information, please visit: www.stcroixsystems.com.

Media Contact:
Lauren Curley
St. Croix Systems
+1 781.383.6406
lcurley@stcroixsystems.com