Haemonetics Announces Agreement with Consorta, Inc. for New Blood Management Business Intelligence Portal

BRAINTREE, Mass., Aug. 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Haemonetics Corporation (NYSE: HAE) announced  an agreement with Consorta, Inc., one of the nation's leading healthcare resource management and group purchasing organizations (GPO), to provide IMPACT™ Online, Haemonetics' new blood management business intelligence portal, to Consorta's member hospitals.   IMPACT Online will provide Consorta member hospitals with the ability to access information related to their blood supply operations in order to better measure hospital blood use and clinical outcomes on a regular basis.   The agreement is effective August 1, 2010.

IMPACT Online is a comprehensive blood management business intelligence portal that converts individual, disparate data points into actionable information.  Through a secure, web-based interface, hospitals can track their blood use and subsequent clinical outcomes, encouraging the development of best practices helping organizations achieve optimal blood management.  By serving as an integrated repository for blood management data, IMPACT Online provides users with a localized, efficient form of performance management.  This provides the capability for users to benchmark against other institutions and view data at the institution, department, service line and physician levels.

"We are extremely pleased to enter into this agreement with Consorta," stated Brian Concannon, President & CEO of Haemonetics.  "IMPACT Online is the key component of an advanced approach to blood management, automating and expediting the review of a hospital's blood management practices via a business intelligence portal to directly and positively improve the standard of patient care while reducing expenses related to the use of blood."

"Our new relationship with Haemonetics has the potential to greatly benefit the practice of blood management for all our hospital members," stated Darrel Weatherford, President & CEO at Consorta. "We believe the efficiencies and insights provided by the IMPACT Online blood management intelligence portal will positively affect the optimization of blood management, both by physicians responsible for improved patient care as well as by administrators who can access the data for ongoing process improvements and utilization planning."

About Haemonetics

Haemonetics (NYSE: HAE) is a global healthcare company dedicated to providing innovative blood management solutions for our customers.  Together, our devices and consumables, information technology platforms, and consulting services deliver a suite of business solutions to help our customers improve clinical outcomes and reduce the cost of healthcare for blood collectors, hospitals, and patients around the world.  Our technologies address important medical markets: blood and plasma component collection, the surgical suite, and hospital transfusion services.  To learn more about Haemonetics, visit our web site at http://www.haemonetics.com.

About Consorta

Consorta, based in suburban Chicago, is a leading healthcare resource management and group purchasing organization (GPO) whose shareholders are faith-based or non-profit health systems. Consorta's 11 shareholder healthcare systems represent 50 percent of all Catholic hospitals in the United States, and are among the leading integrators of non-profit healthcare in America. Consorta's membership now encompasses more than 3,200 care sites representing 78,000 patient care beds. This includes more than 530 acute and over 250 extended care facilities throughout the country. As an equity owner in HealthTrust Purchasing Group, the nation's third largest GPO with over 1,300 not-for-profit and for-profit acute care hospitals well as over 3,000 ambulatory surgery centers, alternate care sites and physician practices, Consorta provides increasing levels of supply chain value to our shareholders and members.

This release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including technological advances in the medical field and standards for transfusion medicine and our ability to successfully implement products that incorporate such advances and standards, product demand, market acceptance, regulatory uncertainties, the effect of economic and political conditions, the impact of competitive products and pricing, blood product reimbursement policies and practices, foreign currency exchange rates, changes in customers' ordering patterns, the effect of industry consolidation as seen in the plasma market, the effect of communicable diseases and the effect of uncertainties in markets outside the U.S. (including Europe and Asia) in which we operate and other risks detailed in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.  The foregoing list should not be construed as exhaustive.  The forward-looking statements are based on estimates and assumptions made by management of the Company and are believed to be reasonable, though are inherently uncertain and difficult to predict. Actual results and experience could differ materially from the forward-looking statements. 

SOURCE Haemonetics Corporation