Recognizing Partners' leadership and depth of medical informatics and clinical domain knowledge, Siemens and Partners have entered into discussions on how to leverage their respective areas of expertise to jointly develop clinical services within the Soarian(R) SOA platform.

Siemens has been extensively engaged in developing SOA - a robust, flexible architectural design strategy that is being deployed across its Soarian suite of applications. With the quest for safe, efficient, and superior patient care at the heart of every healthcare organization, Soarian helps facilitate more informed decision-making and more efficient business practices through healthcare process management. SOA delivers the capability to individually extend, reuse and access services - software components that implement a business task or process. Orchestrating these services into complex business processes helps deliver the benefits of healthcare process management throughout an organization.

"We expect the alliance between our organizations to be unprecedented in our industry, melding Siemens' healthcare IT expertise with Partners' clinical and informatics knowledge," said Janet Dillione, president, Siemens Medical Solutions Healthcare IT Division. "With Soarian, Siemens plans to achieve what no other vendor has been able to accomplish: effective healthcare process management. Process modeling, workflow engine, business activity monitoring, and SOA are essential for effective healthcare process management, and only Soarian contains them all. We're especially pleased that Partners HealthCare, such a highly respected institution is exploring this SOA collaboration with us, taking healthcare IT innovation to a new level of ease-of-use and depth of functionality."

Soarian is built with fundamental change in mind. The growing pressure to embrace interoperability and integration of technology and knowledge, within the framework of initiatives like pay-for-performance, Regional Health Information Organizations (RHIOs), Personal Health Records (PHRs) and the electronic health record (EHR) demand no less than a completely new approach to the development of solutions, including the evolution of SOA.

"Siemens has a vision for the future of healthcare information technology and the resource depth and knowledge to advance SOA development and delivery," said John Glaser, vice president and chief information officer, Partners HealthCare System. "We're excited about this extraordinary opportunity to work together and equally pleased that Siemens is committed to changing the healthcare IT industry with its innovation and groundbreaking strategy."

About Partners HealthCare
Partners HealthCare is a Boston-based integrated health system founded by Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital that also includes community and specialty hospitals, community health centers, a physician network, and home health and long-term care services. Further information can be found by visiting www.partners.org.

About Siemens Medical Solutions
Siemens Medical Solutions of Siemens AG (NYSE:SI) is one of the world's largest suppliers to the healthcare industry. 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. Recent acquisitions in the area of in-vitro diagnostics such as Diagnostic Products Corporation and Bayer Diagnostics - mark a significant milestone for Siemens as it becomes the first full service diagnostics company. Employing more than 41,000 people worldwide and operating in over 130 countries, Siemens Medical Solutions reported sales of 8.23 billion EUR, orders of 9.33 billion EUR and group profit of 1.06 billion EUR for fiscal 2006 (Sept. 30). Further information can be found by visiting www.siemens.com/medical.