Frost & Sullivan Recognizes ASCEND HiT for Providing Extensive Value Enhancement to Industry Partners and Providers through its Best-of-Breed Products

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Aug. 14, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Based on its recent analysis of the cardiology informatics market, Frost & Sullivan recognizes ASCEND HiT with the 2013 North America Frost & Sullivan Award for Customer Value Leadership. With the introduction of CardioAnalytics®, ASCEND has proved that it is at the vanguard of the cardiology market's efforts to enhance quality and analytics. This product complements and extends the best-of-breed ASCEND CV™ reporting products, and in the process, positions the company to deliver one of the most crucial elements of the cardiology value chain—cardiovascular procedural reporting.

ASCEND has proactively undertaken quality assurance (QA) and quality improvement (QI) initiatives in cardiology and, thereby, helped customers meet various clinical, business, regulatory and quality requirements.

Cardiology has already made significant advances on the standardization front for the catheterization modality; however, owing to higher intrinsic complexity, the Cath Lab has lagged behind others in terms of standardization of the various procedures and reports.

This concern may soon be put to rest with the rollout of a major and long-awaited regulatory initiative that will define best-practice workflows for data acquisition, processing, and reporting. The new guidelines will help develop a standardized, structured report format for diagnostic and therapeutic cardiac catheterization procedures.

"In this context, ASCEND CV™ reporting technology, already in its third generation, gives the company an edge in the catheterization laboratory," said Frost & Sullivan Principal Analyst Nadim Michel Daher "Indeed, the Cath Lab, which constitutes a high-investment, high-profit area for the cardiology enterprise, offers vendors a market opportunity for the replacement of legacy reporting solutions. In the wake of upcoming regulatory initiatives, such a market will likely favor mature products and proven technology."

There has been considerable movement among electronic medical records (EMR) and hospital information systems (HIS) vendors over the past three years; they are gradually moving downstream from the enterprise level to the various clinical specialties, including imaging. For example, in radiology, the latest modules associated with the new generation of EMR systems are now capturing much of the scheduling, billing and other workflow functions traditionally associated with radiology information systems (RIS).

However, EMRs have not kept pace with the rapid strides made by radiology, cardiology and other clinical areas, even though there is a tangible demand for a workflow-driven, EMR-based reporting process. In this scenario, ASCEND's integrated solution positions it uniquely to cater to providers' requirement for an end-to-end information environment. The company achieved this position by partnering and polishing its integrations with leading EMR and HIS vendors.

"Overall, beyond its best-in-class reporting and analytics products, it is ASCEND's expertise with device interfaces and enterprise integration in cardiology that makes its value proposition attractive to the modern-day cardiology enterprise," noted Daher.

Each year Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has best demonstrated excellence in customer value through its products and services that offer superior value to customers and aid them with increased profitability and reduced life cycle costs. The recipient company has continually focused on addressing the changing customer needs across the industry, thereby enabling it to expand its customer base across verticals and horizontals. In addition, it is committed to being at the forefront of technological innovations pertaining to changing customer needs by offering products for both general and niche applications.

Frost & Sullivan Best Practices awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis and extensive secondary research to identify best practices in the industry.

About ASCEND

ASCEND is a healthcare information technology company focused on cardiology.  ASCEND is based in Chicago, and is a division of Cyberpulse, L.L.C.  ASCEND leverages well over a decade of product development built on vast experience and clinical "know how" in cardiology and IT. ASCEND's clinical reporting, device interfaces, and analytics are currently in daily use in many of the top institutions and hospital systems in the nation.  For more information visit www.ascendhit.com

About Frost & Sullivan

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Contact:

Mireya Espinoza
P: 210. 247.3870
F: 210.348.1003
E: [email protected]

ASCEND HiT Contact:

Name: Lisa Braunreuther
P: 312-485-1426
F: 866-543-0287
E: [email protected]

SOURCE Frost & Sullivan