December 2, 2010—ID Information und Dokumentation im Gesundheitswesen GmbH & Co. KGaA, Berlin, Germany, extended its cooperation with Medexter Healthcare by contracting Medexter's Fuzzy Arden Syntax software (compiler, engine, and integrated development and test environment) to be applied in products that include clinical decision support. Since the start of this cooperation in May 2007, ID GmbH & Co. KGaA has used Medexter's Arden Syntax software.

November 12, 2010—In a further step to introduce clinical decision support software into patient care at the Vienna General Hospital, Medexter's Fuzzy Arden Syntax software was interconnected with the new hospital information system i.s.h.med by Siemens AG (Xtra: SIE, NYSE: SIE, LSE: SIE, SWX: SIN), installed on several servers, and a first application for predicting metastases in melanoma patients was developed by the Department of Dermatology of the Medical University of Vienna. This step is part of the AKIM project (Vienna General Hospital information management) and comprises also the application of the Fuzzy Arden Syntax software for research and teaching at the Medical University of Vienna. With this software, several authoring tools for writing medical logic modules (MLMs), the core elements of Arden Syntax clinical decision support systems, have already been delivered.

October 27, 2010—At the Third Annual Conference of the Austrian Society for Laboratory Medicine and Clinical Chemistry in Salzburg/Austria, our CEO and Scientific Head, Professor Klaus-Peter Adlassnig, gave an invited talk on "Foundations of Medical Decision Making". The focus in his presentation was laid on the complexity of clinical decision making and the thus resulting necessity to utilize a variety of formal techniques to build computerized clinical decision support systems with proven clinical applicability.

October 13, 2010—Today, the kickoff-meeting of the two-year research project iMedication sponsored by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG - Österreichische Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft) as part of FIT-IT "Semantic Systems" took place in Salzburg, Austria. The project aims at establishing "A rule-based expert network for intelligent medication" and includes the Salzburg Research Forschungsgesellschaft mbH, the Gemeinnützige Salzburger Landeskliniken Betriebsgesellschaft mbH, the Paracelsus Medizinische Privatuniversität - Institut für Allgemein-, Familien- und Präventivmedizin, the Landesapotheke am St. Johanns Spital, and Medexter Healthcare as partners. Medexter will provide its know-how in the development of medical expert and clinical decision support systems. In addition, Medexter's suite of Arden Syntax rule engine software will be used as a critical part of the project's pilot implementation.

October 5, 2010—The last year's decision to extend the present Arden Syntax by elements of fuzzy set theory, fuzzy arithmetic, and fuzzy logic to become Fuzzy Arden Syntax (e.g., a new Arden Syntax version), was reinforced at this year's meeting of the HL7 Arden Syntax Working Group during the 24th Annual Plenary and Working Group Meeting in Cambridge, MA, U.S.A. From the present point of view, the necessary normative ballot will take place in September 2011.

September 16, 2010—During the 13th World Congress on Medical and Health Informatics MEDINFO 2010 that took place in Cape Town, South Africa, from 12 to 15 September 2010, our CEO and Scientific Head, Klaus-Peter Adlassnig, was invited to take part in two panel discussions: The first one on "Accelerating the Translation of Knowledge into Clinical Decision Support: Four National Demonstration Projects" was moderated by Blackford Middleton from Partners Healthcare, Boston, U.S.A. Klaus-Peter Adlassnig's part was to present his perspective on "An Austrian 'Providing Solutions for Clinical Decision Support' Project". The second panel discussion was dedicated to the question about "The Future of Clinical Decision Support: Leveraging the Promise of Molecular Medicine". It was organized by Robert Jenders from the University of California, Los Angeles, U.S.A. At this panel, Klaus-Peter Adlassnig presented a perspective on "Clinical Decision Support and Genomics".

August 20, 2010—A new report on the Innovation Potential for Telemedicine through Rule Engine Technology (in German) will be given at the 1. Nationaler Fachkongress Telemedicine in Berlin, Germany from 3 to 5 November 2010.

July 19, 2010—A report on Almost immediate monitoring of ICU-acquired infections with knowledge-based methods (in German) about Moni/Surveillance-ICU and its present use at the Vienna General Hospital — Medical University Campus, Austria, will be presented at the 55. GMDS Jahrestagung in Mannheim/Germany from 5 to 9 September.

May 10, 2010—The Medexter Healthcare products iPhone App Hepaxpert/Interpretation, an iPhone/iPod Touch application of our medical expert system Hepaxpert for the automated interpretation of hepatitis A, B, and C serology test results, and the medexter-Fuzzy-Arden-Syntax compiler, one of the medical knowledge representation and inference software tools we developed, were presented at the annual Austrian eHealth conference that took place under the motto "Health Informatics meets eHealth" in Vienna/Austria from 6 to 7 May.

April 28, 2010—In the May 2010 issue of the international journal Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, a scientific article on Fuzzy Arden Syntax: A Fuzzy Programming Language for Medicine was published. The article is co-authored by members of Medexter Healthcare, who developed and programmed the respective Fuzzy Arden Syntax software.

April 23, 2010—For the first time, Medexter Healthcare attended the health IT trade fair conhIT in Berlin/Germany as an exhibitor. From 20-22 April 2010, three days of intense presentations and talks with potential clinical users and prospective partner companies showed the high interest in our clinical decision support software.

April 13, 2010—A further study of Moni/Surveillance-ICU with 52 patients including 422 patient days that compared human expert vs. Moni performance in identifying health-care associated infections showed similar overall sensitivity and specificity rates. When matching against a common gold standard, sensitivity rates of 72.7% were obtained by the human expert and Moni; specificity rates were 97.7% and 100%, resp. Details were presented at the 20th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, 10 to 13 April 2010, Vienna, Austria.

March 29, 2010—Medexter Healthcare is proud to announce its first customer from Japan, Professor Norohiro Nakahara from the Department of Medical Informatics, Yamaguchi University Hospital, who ordered a license of the medexter-Arden Syntax rule engine software for research and teaching purpose. Professor Nakahara will make extended use of Arden Syntax to implement and practically apply a formally developed medical logic.

March 25, 2010—As a sub-contractor of Siemens AG Österreich (Xetra: SIE, NYSE: SI, LSE: SIE, SWX: SIN) for the AKIM project (Vienna General Hospital information management) at the Vienna General Hospital/Medical University of Vienna, Medexter Healthcare announces the successful installation of Medexter's Arden Syntax server software for clinical decision support. It was connected to Siemens' i.s.h.med, the core medical information system to be implemented at this hospital. The platform-independent server software was installed under Sun Solaris and Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating systems. Through web-services, synchronous and asynchronous calls from i.s.h.med are processed by the rule engine server software and decision support results are returned to i.s.h.med. The intended usage is for both patient care, and research and teaching.

February 22, 2010—“I love Hepaxpert! For the last 20 years I have prepared physician written opinions for all job-related blood-borne pathogen exposures at my facility. These are prepared for the signature of the physician who reviews and evaluates treatment(s), need for post exposure prophylaxis, etc. Hepaxpert is a tremendous time saver and serves as a teaching tool for MDs who are new to this area of medicine. It provides science-based concise text/print outs explaining with great clarity the often complex maze of hepatitis lab results.” Testimonial from Cynthia Crossley, M Ms CIV USA MEDCOM BMACH, US Army. Cynthia has been using Hepaxpert’s generated hepatitis A, B, and C serology test interpretations for several years. We are much pleased to help.

October 15, 2009—A first, small accuracy and impact study on Moni/Surveillance-ICU, our software for the early identification and continuous monitoring of hospital-acquired infections in intensive care units (ICUs), was carried out. The HELICS-based definitions of the various episodes of infection were evaluated by both human infection control experts and automated Moni/Surveillance-ICU computations. This was done for 99 patients with a total of 1007 patient days. Specificity was 100% and sensitivity 90.3%. There are still some data import and rule definition problems through non-digitizable medical data, but overall time savings for the medical specialists was almost 85% (a total of 70 h). To be presented at the 13th World Congress on Medical and Health Informatics MEDINFO 2010, 12 to 15 September 2010, Cape Town, South Africa.

October 15, 2009—Medexter Healthcare announces the completion of Arden-Syntax-based clinical decision support software with service-oriented architecture (SOA). In its core, it contains an Arden Syntax compiler and an Arden Syntax engine. In order to communicate with host medical information systems (in the broadest sense), an Arden Syntax server programmed in Java encapsulates the engine and provides interfaces for a well-defined communication (e.g., SOAP, REST, XML, or HL7) to the outside, which includes incoming and outgoing requests.

October 15, 2009—A report on Processing gradual information with Fuzzy Arden Syntax with examples from clinical decision support was prepared and will be presented at the 13th World Congress on Medical and Health Informatics MEDINFO 2010, 12 to 15 September 2010, Cape Town, South Africa.

October 6, 2009—Medexter Healthcare put into operation its latest Moni/Surveillance-ICU software for identification and monitoring of hospital-acquired infections in adult patients at intensive care units (ICUs) of the Vienna General Hospital/Medical University of Vienna (AKH Wien/MUW). This software replaces the Moni-IV system that was running since July 2007. Like its counterpart for neonatal ICUs, it accesses patient care data collected by the installed Philips CareVue intensive-care medical information systems at the connected 12 ICUs (96 beds). The software monitors the incoming routine data for signs of hospital-acquired blood stream infections, ICU-acquired pneumonias, urinary tract infections, and central venous catheter-related infections, and provides the results to the infection control personnel of the Vienna General Hospital. Technically, Moni/Surveillance-ICU is based on web-services, made available in the AKH Wien-wide intranet, and on an extended knowledge base implemented in form of Arden Syntax medical logic modules (MLMs) extended by fuzzy set and fuzzy logic methods. The cockpit surveillance application allows detailed case-specific interactive analyses of the detected results. The results are updated routinely every day, but may by renewed on request if an epidemic situation calls for close monitoring.

October 2, 2009—Medexter Healthcare put into operation its recently developed Moni/Surveillance-NICU software for the automated, knowledge-based identification and monitoring of hospital-acquired infections at the neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) of the Vienna General Hospital/Medical University of Vienna, Austria (AKH Wien/MUW). This software is connected to the Philips CareVue intensive-care medical information systems at the three NICUs (36 beds) of the Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine of the AKH Wien/MUW, where it keeps various forms of blood stream infections and ICU-acquired pneumonias under surveillance. Technically, Moni/Surveillance-NICU is based on web-services, made available in the AKH Wien-wide intranet, and on an extended knowledge base implemented in form of Arden Syntax medical logic modules (MLMs) extended by fuzzy set and fuzzy logic methods. The results are provided to both the infection control personnel of the Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine and the infection control unit of the Vienna General Hospital; a cockpit-like, interactive access allows for detailed patient case analyses on a real-time, daily basis.

September 22, 2009—Medexter Healthcare partners with the Arden Syntax Special Interest Group (SIG) of Health Level Seven (HL7), thereby extending Arden Syntax to Fuzzy Arden Syntax, developed by Medexter. The commonly decided timeline aims at including Fuzzy Arden Syntax into one of the next Arden Syntax versions, tentatively in 2011.

September 22, 2009—The Arden Syntax Special Interest Group (SIG) of Health Level Seven (HL7) welcomed Medexter Healthcare’s commentaries on the Arden Syntax versions 2.5, 2.6, and 2.7 during its meeting at the 23rd Annual Plenary and Working Group Meeting of HL7 in Atlanta, GA, U.S.A. The results of this analysis will be incorporated into future Arden Syntax specifications.

September 9, 2009—Within a joint research project with Dräger Medical AG & Co. KG, the Department for Medical Informatics at the University of Erlangen, Germany, ordered a license and support package of the medexter-Arden Syntax rule engine software for research and teaching purpose. Part of the intended work is the interconnection of Dräger’s critical care information management system ICM (intensive care manager) with Medexter’s Arden Syntax software to achieve high-level decision support functionality.

September 4, 2009—Our CEO and Scientific Head, Professor Klaus-Peter Adlassnig, acted as the Scientific Program Chair of the XXII International Conference on Medical Informatics Europe MIE 2009 that was held in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, from 30 August to 2 September 2009. The conference included 171 scientific oral and 21 poster presentations, 5 tutorials, 16 workshops, and 9 keynote lectures, and attracted about 400 participants from 38 different countries. The scientific topics presented there ranged from national and trans-national eHealth roadmaps, health information and electronic health record systems, systems interoperability and communication standards, medical terminology and ontology approaches, and social networks to Web, Web 2.0, and Semantic Web solutions for patients, health personnel, and researchers. Furthermore, they included quality assurance and usability of medical informatics systems, specific disease management and telemedicine systems, drug safety, clinical decision support and medical expert systems, clinical practice guidelines and protocols, as well as issues on privacy and security. Moreover, bioinformatics, biomedical modeling and simulation, medical imaging and visualization and, last but not least, learning and education through medical informatics systems were part of the included topic areas.

August 7, 2009—Shortly after the successful upgrade to Arden Syntax version 2.6, Medexter Healthcare announces the completion of implementation of HL7's Arden Syntax version 2.7. This version features an enhanced assignment operator to allow assignment to individual elements in a list and nested attributes in objects. In addition, the object initialization statement has been enhanced to support assigning to named attributes. Corrections/updates to features introduced in previous versions and a reorganization of the evoke slot chapter are also included. The Arden Syntax compiler by Medexter is now able to process Arden Syntax MLMs written in Arden Syntax versions 2.1, 2.5, 2.6, and 2.7.

July 20, 2009—Medexter Healthcare announces the completion of implementation of HL7's Arden Syntax version 2.6. This version features new data types and operators to represent time-of-day and day-of-week. In addition, new capabilities have been added to let a medical logic module (MLM) report messages in a variety of languages. The Arden Syntax compiler by Medexter is now able to process Arden Syntax MLMs written in Arden Syntax versions 2.1, 2.5, and 2.6.

March 4, 2009—After an extended trial period, the Peter L. Reichertz Institute for Medical Informatics ordered a license of the medexter-Arden Syntax rule engine software for research and teaching purpose. At present, this joint institute of the University of Braunschweig Institute of Technology and the Hannover Medical School, both located in Germany, uses the Arden Syntax software for sensor data aggregation and interpretation in an assisted-living project.

August 25, 2008—Medexter Healthcare announces the completion of version 2.0 of the Java-based, medical knowledge representation and inference Arden Syntax software. In addition to the previous components of Arden Syntax software (Arden Syntax IDE, Arden Syntax compiler, Arden Syntax engine, Arden Syntax-to-host-interface, and Arden Syntax server), which were extensively improved, a new Arden Syntax data center is included. It is used for storing (a) problem-specific harmonized input data, (b) intermediate and final reasoning data, and (c) selected analysis data. At present, database software such as Oracle, MSSQL, and MySQL run behind the Arden Syntax data center. Input data and output results are communicated via XML and/or HL7 protocol records. Application-specific web access to the Arden Syntax data center is also provided.

August 1, 2008—After a thorough selection procedure, Medexter Healthcare was engaged by Siemens AG Österreich (Xetra: SIE, NYSE: SI, LSE: SIE, SWX: SIN) to serve as a sub-contractor for the AKIM project (Vienna general hospital information management) at the Vienna General Hospital/Medical University of Vienna. AKIM aims at implementing a new hospital information system including research platforms for bioinformatics, clinical decision support, image processing, and computer-based tutoring. Within one year, Medexter will deliver the platform Fuzzy Arden Syntax software that consists of an integrated development environment, compiler and engine, host interface, server, and data center. Fuzzy Arden Syntax is programmed in Java and will be used as an intranet web application for knowledge-based medical expert systems and clinical decision support in clinical routine, research, and teaching.

November 19, 2007—Tele-interpretation by Hepaxpert was successfully established and integrated into Soarian, one of the hospital information systems designed by Siemens Company (Xetra: SIE, NYSE: SI, LSE: SIE, SWX: SIN). Hepaxpert, a clinical decision support system for automated interpretation of hepatitis A, B, and C serology test results resides on Teleiatros, Medexter's remote medical decision support server. When unknown or complex combinations of hepatitis serology test results arrive in Soarian or are encountered during the attending physician's work flow, Hepaxpert is accessed remotely. A clinically-oriented, extended interpretation of these test results is automatically generated, sent back to Soarian, and displayed for the benefit of the attending physician. More than 60,000 different combinations can be interpreted. Personal data are not needed. The access time is negligible.

October 15, 2007—Hepaxpert—a knowledge-based interpretive system for hepatitis A, B, and C serology test results—has now been rendered suitable for production by Medexter Healthcare. It is being routinely used at the Department of Laboratory Diagnosis, Franz Josef Hospital, Vienna, since 1998 onward. Technically, Hepaxpert is available as an Arden-Syntax-MLM medical knowledge package either with or without an Arden Syntax rule engine. It can be integrated into medical or laboratory information systems, used as a web-based medical decision support system with browser-based or direct server access, or be delivered as a stand-alone application or even as a simple rule package for customer-specific implementation.

September 7, 2007—A cooperative agreement between the Medical University of Vienna (MUW), Austria, and Medexter Healthcare was signed by the rector of the MUW, Univ.-Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schütz, and Medexter. This agreement is written confirmation of extensive mutual exchange of ideas and knowledge, as well as results, in the vast field of clinical decision support. Both parties are convinced that this cooperation will not only enhance the practical utility of research results but also intensify and focus research on clinical decision support itself.

July 1, 2007—After an extended development and test phase, the Moni-IV system (knowledge-based identification and automated monitoring of hospital-acquired infections in adult infection care unit (ICU) patients) could be transferred into routine use at the infection control department of the Vienna General Hospital. To apply it, data from the microbiology department and twelve ICUs that run CareVue patient data management systems of Philips Company (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) had to be accessed. The infection control unit receives infection notifications, evaluates them, and contacts the clinicians of the concerned wards. The Moni-IV system is the outcome of extended collaboration between the Medical University of Vienna, the Vienna General Hospital, the Philips Company, Software Unlimited, and Medexter Healthcare. In addition to using Moni-IV for avoiding hospital-acquired infections, it is applied for research and reporting.

May 5, 2007—A long-term contract between ID Gesellschaft für Information und Dokumentation im Gesundheitswesen mbH, Berlin, Germany, and Medexter Healthcare has been concluded. The contract permits ID to use Medexter's medical knowledge representation and inference Arden Syntax software in their products. Thus, the products will be enhanced by extended reminder and alert functionality.

April 1, 2007—Medexter Healthcare announces the completion of the medical knowledge representation and inference Arden Syntax software. The software is programmed in Java. Its main components are an Arden Syntax IDE, the integrated development environment to write and test Arden Syntax medical logic modules (MLMs), an Arden Syntax compiler, an Arden Syntax engine, an Arden Syntax-to-host-interface, and an Arden Syntax server to process compiled MLMs either remote or on-site. The Arden Syntax software can be integrated into host systems or accessed through interfaces.

November 17, 2006—The Medizinische Zentrum für Informations- und Kommunikationstechnik of the Universitätsklinikum Erlangen, Germany, acquired the medical knowledge bases of Moni and Hepaxpert from Medexter. These knowledge bases were rendered available in the form of Arden Syntax medical logic modules (MLMs) and will be integrated into the Soarian hospital information system installed at Erlangen. Soarian is a product of Siemens AG (Xetra: SIE, NYSE: SI, LSE: SIE, SWX: SIN). Moni permits early identification and continuous monitoring of nosocomial infections while Hepaxpert interprets rare and frequent test results of hepatitis A, B, and C serology.

October 19, 2006—In cooperation with the Meiji University, Kawasaki, Japan and the Medical University of Vienna, Austria, Medexter Healthcare presented two reports on telemedical issues, (1) Medical Intelligence Service Provider Based on Interconnected, Cooperating Medical Decision Support Systems, and (2) Knowledge-Based Teleinterpretation of Hepatitis Serology Test Results, at the 11th World Congress on Internet in Medicine that took place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada from 14 to 19 October.

August 1, 2006—To clearly communicate the fact that Medexter Computersysteme's activities are fully focused on health care, the company's name was changed to Medexter Healthcare. Medexter aims at the development and global marketing of clinical decision support systems, their technical basis and medical content. Moreover, Medexter offers remote clinical decision support systems and services.

September 1, 2004—The medical expert system Rheumexpert was connected to INNOMED's medical practice software. INNOMED Gesellschaft für Medizinische Softwareanwendungen GmbH, Wiener Neudorf, Austria, will provide software solutions for physicians' offices. Rheumexpert, a program to support differential diagnosis in rheumatology, was developed in a cooperative effort by ARC Seibersdorf Research GmbH and Medexter Computersysteme.

April 29, 2004—ARC Seibersdorf Research GmbH and Medexter Computersysteme have signed a cooperative agreement concerning the development and marketing of Rheumexpert. Rheumexpert is a medical expert system to support differential diagnosis in rheumatology, to be used by general practitioners. Based on Medexter's knowledge base and inference mechanisms for Rheumexpert, ARC Seibersdorf will develop the software program and connect it to medical practice software systems.