Orion Systems Wins TUANZ Award For Healthcare Innovation
Auckland, August 30, 2000 Orion Healthcare Systems recently picked up the Compaq-sponsored TUANZ award for making the
most important contribution to healthcare in New Zealand.
The Health Care Award was for the most innovative example of a telecommunications product or application, and went to
Orion's Concerto Web Integration Environment(tm) software product, that when placed over multiple, normally incompatible
hospital information systems and applications, presents a single, seamless view of all patient data, accessed through a
single log-on.
Commenting on the award Alistair Melhuish, Healthcare Solutions Manager for Compaq New Zealand, says Orion's
Concerto(tm) will solve a myriad of problems for today's medical staff.
"Currently medical staff find accessing patient information a time-wasting experience, frequently having to log-on and
log-off many different systems in different locations to find what they want. The Concerto(tm) system solves this by
presenting a single seamless view of patient data across a number of disparate systems, accessed through a single
log-on."
"For many years Compaq has worked in conjunction with healthcare providers and application partners throughout New
Zealand, as well as through the provision of our own hardware and services solutions. Our prime reason therefore in
sponsoring this award is to foster the development of healthcare solutions to what is an increasingly important and
complex market. It is highly encouraging to see Orion gaining the well-deserved recognition that they deserve for
Concerto(tm)," says Melhuish.
Ian McCrae, CEO of Orion says the key to Concerto's(tm) success lies in its ability to protect current investments. "The
software allows a hospital to retain its valuable current systems by integrating both existing and new applications.
Training costs are also kept to a minimum and the actual software cost is far less than a large single replacement and
its ongoing maintenance."
"Similarly Concerto(tm) is very easy to use; as simple as surfing the Internet. Access is gained through a familiar web
browser with very little training required by users, which is designed to run on both a secure telecommunications
intranet or extranet and is accessible from virtually any PC within a hospital or from remote sites," says McCrae.
Orion's Concerto(tm) has already been successfully deployed at South Auckland Health and Auckland Healthcare while sales
initiatives are in place to market the product in Australia, Asia, the USA and Europe. Partnering arrangements have also
been established in those territories. In the next three years sales are expected to reach $NZ100 million.
ABOUT ORION Orion is a leading software development house specialising in enterprise wide communications solutions for
computer based, mission-critical systems, such as the health sector.
A range of sophisticated in-house products are utilised in the development process, and the company has won a reputation
for delivering technical firsts engineered to the highest international standards, and for seamlessly implementing
client IT strategies.
The company continues to increasingly win significant business against formidable international competition. In the USA
for example, McKesson HBOC, the world's largest health software vendor has standardised on Orion's messaging toolkit
Symphonia to meet their integration needs. Thanks to its committed clients, unique product range, reliable services,
highly qualified developers and effective project management consultants, Orion expects be the Asia Pacific's leading
Health software company within three years.
Information about Orion's products and services are available at www.orion.co.nz
ABOUT COMPAQ Compaq Computer Corp., a Fortune Global 100 company, is the largest supplier of computing systems in the
world. Compaq designs, develops, manufactures and markets hardware, software, solutions and services, including
industry-leading enterprise computing solutions, fault-tolerant business-critical solutions, communications products,
commercial desktop and portable products, and consumer PCs and electronics.
Compaq products and services are sold in more than 200 countries directly to businesses, through a network of authorised
Compaq marketing partners. Compaq markets its products and services primarily to customers from the business, home,
government and education sectors. Customer support and information about Compaq and its products and services are
available at: www.compaq.co.nz
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