A-Life Hospital signs agreement to provide facility outpatient-based CAC services to OhioHealth

A-Life Medical, Inc., the pioneer and leading provider of computer-assisted coding (CAC) products and services to the healthcare industry, announced today that A-Life Hospital, its wholly owned subsidiary, has entered into an agreement with OhioHealth, a Columbus, Ohio-based hospital system, effective March 15, 2010.

Under the multi-year agreement, A-Life Hospital will provide facility outpatient-based CAC services to OhioHealth, with the intention to evaluate possible expansion into inpatient and professional coding services as well. OhioHealth will now deploy A-Life's pioneering CAC technology across five of their facilities, which include three Columbus-based hospitals: Riverside Methodist Hospital; Grant Memorial Hospital and Doctor's Hospital, as well as Dublin Methodist Hospital in Dublin and Grady Hospital in Delaware.

"After extensive market evaluation, OhioHealth selected A-Life based on its innovative proprietary and patented natural language processing (NLP) technology, LifeCode®. A-Life has established a proven track record in key areas necessary to our success, which include enterprise coding, inpatient and outpatient facility coding, professional coding and the potential for NLP abstraction to improve clinical decision-making and support. We look forward to a long and productive relationship with A-Life and to enhancing efficiencies across our hospital network," said Diane Setty, corporate director - health information management - at OhioHealth, of the alignment with A-Life.

A-Life Hospital currently works with a range of hospitals, all of whom process 100 percent of their inpatient encounters through A-Life, using its Actus® solution. Actus® is focused on coding inpatient and facility outpatient -based patient encounters, and is powered by LifeCode®. Actus'® computerized coding and workflow management capabilities can increase coder productivity by up to 350 percent through improved coding automation, code consistency and compliance. The power of LifeCode® brings numerous benefits to A-Life's customers as it can electronically read and comprehend electronic medical records similar to that of a human coder. LifeCode® significantly improves reimbursement by automating the medical coding process and is the key enabler of A-Life's revenue cycle applications.

"We are pleased to add OhioHealth to the list of prominent hospitals with which A-Life has forged relationships. OhioHealth is a progressive healthcare system, unrelenting in its quest to augment its use and application of cutting-edge technologies to improve patient care. A-Life has fast-built a reputation for accurately, quickly and efficiently deciphering patient encounters using our NLP technology, which allows customers to benefit from faster reimbursement, reduced labor costs and significantly more efficient operations. Now, OhioHealth will have an opportunity to experience similar advantages from our NLP platform," noted Jaye Connolly, president at A-Life.

A-Life's hospital-focused CAC solution addresses inpatient and facility outpatient environments by assisting human coders in code assignments of ICD9-CM diagnostic, procedure and CPT codes. A-Life's latest version for the hospital setting includes various features including case assignment (workflow), coder work queues, post coding review, scanned document review with annotated tracing. In addition, health information management and coding managers are also provided with A-Life's executive dashboard, which consists of coder productivity statistics, outstanding case dollar values and case count data by coding status.