Fresenius Medical Care North America Selects Siemens Soarian; Global Provider Sees Use of Advanced Information Technology as Competitive Advantage

MALVERN, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 2, 2005--Siemens Medical Solutions today announced that Fresenius Medical Care North America, a dialysis and disease management company with 1,130 dialysis clinics and a number of billing offices throughout the U.S., has purchased Siemens new generation Soarian(R) clinical and financial health information technology (IT) solution, as well as Siemens Document Imaging solution. Fresenius Medical Care North America is headquartered in Lexington, Massachusetts and is a subsidiary of Fresenius Medical Care AG, which is the world's largest provider of dialysis products and services.

"During our vendor selection process, we recognized the power of Soarian's workflow engine and embedded analytics to help us optimize our processes," said Mats Wahlstrom, president, Fresenius Medical Services (FMS). Mr. Wahlstrom added that "Siemens also has a clear commitment to bringing innovative solutions to market that will aid in disease management, and its vision for the future of healthcare is very much in line with ours. The size of Siemens as a healthcare IT vendor, its substantial initial investment, and continuing annual investments in Soarian ensures that FMC will stay current with trends in healthcare IT."

Dr. Ben Lipps, CEO and chairman of the Management Board, Fresenius Medical Care AG, emphasized that this partnership with Siemens is part of a very substantial investment in IT by FMS and is specifically targeted to generationally leap frog IT solutions currently in the market. He further noted that this investment would significantly strengthen the use of technology at FMS as a key driver for differentiation, compliance and growth.

"This is a very significant customer partnership for us," added Tom Miller, president, IT Division, Siemens Medical Solutions. "Fresenius understands how an advanced IT solution like Soarian can help drive the transformation of healthcare, and we are pleased to add such a strong industry leader to our growing Soarian customer base. As we continue to commit significant R&D resources to expand Soarian's workflow efficiencies to the clinical departmental level, we're enabling more and more clinical specialists to benefit from cross-departmental workflow with advanced IT tools."

Soarian integrates clinical, financial, diagnostic and administrative processes to support patient-centered care. The solution is distinguished by three innovative characteristics: it is workflow-engineered to synchronize processes across the health enterprise; its smart user interface is designed to accommodate tasks based on the roles of individual users; and it has embedded analytics that empower users to proactively monitor and measure an enterprise's performance, and then act on those conclusions. Additionally, bringing together images and data seamlessly from a variety of medical modalities in one location, Soarian helps facilitate more informed decision-making-- leading to improved care delivery, increased staff satisfaction, and more efficient business practices.

Siemens Medical Solutions of Siemens AG (NYSE:SI) with headquarters in Malvern, Pennsylvania and Erlangen, Germany, is one of the largest suppliers to the healthcare industry in the world. The company is known for bringing together innovative medical technologies, healthcare information systems, management consulting, and support services, to help customers achieve tangible, sustainable, clinical and financial outcomes. Employing approximately 31,000 people worldwide and operating in more than 120 countries, Siemens Medical Solutions reported sales of 7.07 billion EUR, orders of 8.12 billion EUR and group profit of 1.05 billion EUR for fiscal 2004. More information can be obtained by visiting http://www.usa.siemens.com/medical-pressroom.