Press Releases

University of Michigan Health System Offers Online Consultations to Patients of Family Practice Physicians

Prestigious Midwest Academic System Offers webVisits®

Emeryville, CA, March 16, 2006 — RelayHealth Corporation, the premier provider of secure online communication for healthcare, today announced that the University of Michigan Health System will be the first academic medical center in the Midwest to make secure online consultations—webVisits—available to healthcare consumers.

UMHS Briarwood Family Medicine has partnered with California-based RelayHealth Corporation to offer patients of participating physicians the ability to consult with their physicians online using the clinically-structured webVisit. A webVisit is an interactive online patient interview that collects relevant details about non-urgent symptoms and delivers them to the physician as A concise, clinically-structured note. Patients will access their physicians online via www.relayhealth.com.

UMHS will begin the twelve-month webVisit pilot with physicians from the department of Family Medicine at Briarwood. Based on the successful completion of the program, UMHS may roll the service out to all Family Medicine clinics.

webVisits are provided to patients of participating physicians at a cost of $30 out of pocket fee per webVisit. Health plans in Michigan have expressed future interest in offering the webVisit as a covered benefit.

In an independent study, both physicians and patients preferred the RelayHealth service to phone calls for non-urgent problems, while three-quarters of patients reported that RelayHealth improved access to their healthcare providers.1

"For non-urgent yet important health matters, webVisits are a convenient and cost-effective solution for both physician and patient, sparing office hours for those patients who really need to come in," says Giovanni Colella, MD, president and chief executive officer at RelayHealth. "We are delighted that UMHS has selected RelayHealth for its online doctor-patient communication program."

1Liederman E, Morefield C. Web Messaging: A New Tool for Patient-Physician Communication. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2003; 10:260-270.

About RelayHealth Corporation
RelayHealth is the premier provider of secure, online healthcare communication services. The RelayHealth platform connects patients, clinicians, payers and pharmacies to improve clinical productivity, create administrative efficiencies, reduce costs and enhance patient satisfaction. Medical practices can quickly deploy RelayHealth to realize immediate results such as increased physician productivity and reduced phone volume. With the RelayHealth Interoperability Toolkit, practices can also integrate RelayHealth with most major commercial or custom electronic medical record and practice management systems. RelayHealth's robust suite of solutions for the medical office includes secure messaging featuring the webVisit, and end to end e-prescribing through eScript™. The RelayHealth communications platform also enables care management and continuity of care through tools such as a Patient Health Record that interoperates with physician and payer clinical systems. For more information, visit www.relayhealth.com.