NEWS

VHA Signs Enterprise-Wide Licensing Agreement with Quantros

Chooses Quantros to Co-Develop Comparative Clinical Measurement Dashboard

VHA Inc., a nationwide network of 2,200 leading community-owned health care organizations and their affiliated physicians, has contracted with Quantros, a leading provider of real-time Web-based accreditation, compliance and performance improvement solutions for the healthcare industry, to power five of its national clinical affairs products, including an alliance-wide comparative clinical measurement dashboard.

"The speed to production, internal efficiencies and outstanding member satisfaction that we realized working with Quantros to power past quality improvement projects convinced us to standardize our clinical services projects on the Quantros platform," said Stuart Baker, MD, VHA Executive Vice President.

In the agreement, VHA will license the Quantros real-time, web-based performance improvement platform to automate data collection, statistical analysis and benchmarking for VHA member organizations participating in its planned collaborative outcomes projects. VHA plans to initially focus on the following mission critical clinical improvement areas:

• Transformation of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU)
• StrokeSense
• Women's HeartAdvantage

In addition, VHA chose Quantros to co-develop an alliance-wide comparative clinical measurement (CCM) dashboard. The dashboard will be a web-based tool that will allow VHA hospitals to assess and benchmark their performance against their peers along the National Quality Foundation's indicators of clinical quality.

"We're excited to be on the leading edge of bringing standard national reporting to the hospital setting. CCM will be a single tool by which all health care organizations in the VHA network will be able to collaborate, compare themselves on a true 'apples-to-apples' basis, and share best practices to improve the quality of patient care," said Rajnish Mishra, MBA, PhD, President and CEO of Quantros.

The VHA enterprise license expands the current relationship between VHA and Quantros. "Our members will greatly benefit from the real-time comparisons and benchmarking capabilities of the Quantros platform. Quantros has proven to be an outstanding partner for VHA. We look forward to further expanding our relationship with them," said Bob Davis, PharmD, VHA Vice-President Clinical Affairs.

About Quantros

Founded in 1996, Quantros provides real-time knowledge creation solutions for benchmarking, patient safety, accreditation and compliance, and outcomes monitoring for leading healthcare providers, payers, and pharmaceutical manufacturers. Quantros' web delivered applications provide a standard platform for automating resource intensive manual processes. Through a variety of direct sales and vendor partners, nearly 700 hospitals are licensed to use Quantros' web-based technology solutions.

About VHA

Built on the premise there is strength in numbers, VHA Inc. is a nationwide network of 2,200 leading community-owned health care organizations and their affiliated physicians. Based in Irving, Texas, with 18 local offices across the U.S., VHA comprises nearly 25 percent of the nation's community hospitals, including many of the nation's largest and most respected institutions. VHA offers member organizations access to products and services that will help them improve financial and clinical performance and achieve market success. As a cooperative, VHA distributes income annually to members based on their participation. In January 2003, for the fourth year in a row, VHA was named one of the "100 Best Companies to Work For" by Fortune.