REDMOND, Washington, May 13 /PRNewswire/ --

- New elements include platform updates and product road map for developers.

Healthcare developers can take the next step towards increasing patient safety and clinician effectiveness with the new version 1.3 of Microsoft Health Common User Interface (CUI), available today from Microsoft Corp. A portfolio of user interface guidance, software toolkit controls and showcase demonstrators, the Microsoft Health CUI supports software developers in delivering safe and effective clinical applications. Based on a set of patient safety principles, the guidance and controls from CUI are available at no cost and are focused on medication management, patient record noting, hand-over of care, consistent navigation and patient identification -- all areas of potential patient safety risk. Version 1.3 also provides an 18-month road map of product releases and substantial guidance updates, and utilises Microsoft Silverlight technology to showcase the latest demonstrators.

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Developed in collaboration with and in use today at the National Health Service (NHS) in England, as well as a growing worldwide community of healthcare providers and developers, the CUI became available to all healthcare developers worldwide in July 2007. The CUI allows software vendors and application developers flexibility to develop solutions to meet their own specialised development challenges and spend more time focusing on facilitating patient care through new and innovative software applications. Most notably, version 1.3 moves the CUI to a new technology platform with fresh controls, samples and demonstrations now being developed especially for Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and Silverlight. The use of these platforms within the CUI enables software vendors and application developers to provide richer and more flexible user interfaces for specific healthcare implementations. Also, an 18-month interactive road map for the design guidance and controls is available today, intended for software and application developers who want to better understand updated timelines and ways they can participate in the Microsoft Health CUI community.

"A common look and feel to systems across any institution decreases the chances for errors, but nowhere is that more important than a healthcare institution where lives are at stake," said Tim Smokoff, general manager of worldwide public sector, Microsoft Healthcare and Life Sciences division. "Sharing the road map for the next 18 months allows developers to plan for new updates to the Microsoft Health Common User Interface, meaning they can implement them faster and with better success, reducing the margin for error and challenges."

Potential Benefits for Healthcare Institutions and Partners

Today's announcement furthers Microsoft's ongoing commitment to help leverage the power of software to transform the healthcare industry for patients, healthcare providers and professionals. The CUI design guidance sets standards for the display and interaction of key clinical data within electronic patient records, such as medications, clinical notes and demographic information. The toolkit turns the design guidance into software components that developers and health customers can deploy in their own existing or upcoming clinical applications, saving their customers both money and time to market.

"The Microsoft Health CUI is a key building block to increasing application time-to-market, clinician productivity and patient safety across the healthcare industry," said Roger Killen, managing director of The Learning Clinic, a UK-based healthcare industry consultant aimed at improving patient care and outcomes. "As an organisation developing healthcare applications, it's an essential planning tool to know when updates to an application as critical as the CUI are coming, so we're excited to have a road map available."

Since the CUI launched last July: * More than 1,100 individual pieces of user interface guidance have been published. * More than 120,000 visitors have been to http://www.mscui.net. * More than 12,000 visitors have downloaded individual guidance documents. * Almost 7,000 users have downloaded the toolkit controls.

Microsoft Connects Healthcare Platform

Application of the CUI is an important element of the Connected Health Platform, Microsoft's implementation of the Connected Health Framework (CHF) Architecture and Design Blueprint, a platform-agnostic set of design guidance and tools for delivering service-oriented architecture solutions for health.

More information, including downloads of the Microsoft Health CUI, can be found at http://www.mscui.net. Additional information about the Connected Health Framework can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/industry/healthcare/businessvalue/chframework.mspx.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realise their full potential.

About Microsoft EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa)

Microsoft has operated in EMEA since 1982. In the region Microsoft employs more than 16,000 people in over 64 subsidiaries, delivering products and services in more than 139 countries and territories.

This material is for informational purposes only. Microsoft Corp disclaims all warranties and conditions with regard to use of the material for other purposes. Microsoft Corp shall not, at any time, be liable for any special, direct, indirect or consequential damages, whether in an action of contract, negligence or other action arising out of or in connection with the use or performance of the material. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting any kind of warranty.

Web site: http://www.microsoft.com http://www.mscui.net

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