Creative Healthcare USA and Charleston Area Medical Center announce "e-learning" Development Agreement

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona (June 22, 2004) -- Charleston Area Medical Center (Charleston WV) and Creative Healthcare USA announced today an agreement to work collaboratively on the design and release of an "elearning" technology platform to support performance improvement initiatives in the healthcare industry. The agreement provides for Charleston Area Medical Center ("CAMC") to contribute specialized content to Creative Healthcare ("CHC") which is also supplying content as well as providing the technical platform for the initiative. E-learning allows access to educational content in an interactive learning environment that is internet-based.

The specialized content contributed by CAMC illustrates their use of Six Sigma and Lean methodologies within their medical environment. These highly technical process improvement methodologies have been credited with saving manufacturing and healthcare industries several million dollars through reductions in defects and improvements in efficiency. CAMC is largely regarded as a pioneer in bringing the Six Sigma and Lean methodologies to the healthcare industry.

The partnership and initiative is in response to growing demand for flexible approaches to the process of adapting healthcare personnel to the challenges of medical services delivery. Workforce shortages in healthcare make it difficult for healthcare personnel to leave the workplace for training, and yet advanced training is critical to the design and re-design of processes given current demands for improved efficiency and patient safety. The e-learning platform will allow hospitals to leverage their entire management and clinical staff to higher levels of performance. Healthcare organizations will have the option of licensing the technology for its managers to access, or to have a customized platform developed for a broader application of e-learning throughout the organization.

About Creative Healthcare USA:

Creative Healthcare was formed in 1998 to specifically assist healthcare organizations in their efforts at performance improvement. CHC was one of the first to recognize the importance of Six Sigma in healthcare, and has published widely on its potential. Today, CHC is the leading provider of Six Sigma project consulting and training deployment in healthcare. For free resources on Six Sigma, visit the Creative Healthcare website at www.creative-healthcare.com.

About Charleston Area Medical Center:

Charleston Area Medical Center is the flagship of the CAMC Health System. The largest hospital in West Virginia, CAMC is a non-profit, 913-bed, regional referral center with more than 5,000 employees. Nearly 700 physicians have admitting privileges at CAMC which is also West Virginia's premiere medical teaching facility. CAMC is home to one of the top 10 heart programs in the United States; a vascular center of excellence; one of two kidney transplant centers in the state; one of the nation's busiest Level I Trauma Centers; and the CAMC Cancer Program which just scored in the top quartile in the country in a 2003 survey.

CAMC utilizes the Six Sigma methodology to identify and align opportunities to increase quality, decrease waste, and improve efficiency around the system's strategic goals. Six Sigma project teams have focused on Mortality, Orthopedics, ED Wait Times, CMS Indicators, Medication Safety, Supply Chain Management, Workers' Compensation and many other areas. Since the program's deployment in 2000, Six Sigma has trained two Master Black Belts, 6 Black Belts, 50 Green Belts, a Project Coordinator, and over 54 Change Acceleration Process Facilitators. For more information, visit www.camc.org.