Boston, MA, August 22, 2006 /PRNewswire/ -- AMICAS, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMCS), a leader in radiology and medical image and information management solutions, today announced that it has been awarded the 2006 Frost & Sullivan Customer Product Value of the Year Award. "In recognition of AMICAS’ unwavering attention to meeting customer needs and delivering customer satisfaction, Frost & Sullivan is proud to present AMICAS with the 2006 North American Medical Imaging Customer Product Value of the Year Award," said Nadim Daher, research analyst with Frost & Sullivan. "By providing the highest levels of professional service and innovation to complement its quality products, AMICAS is thriving in a highly competitive market."

"AMICAS is honored to be recognized by Frost & Sullivan with this award," said Stephen Kahane, M.D., CEO and chairman of AMICAS. "As a leading, independent provider of radiology information technologies solutions, this award directly reflects our commitment to customer success and innovation from an objective third party."

Award Background

The Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Group performs objective research to identify best practices within each industry and functional discipline. These achievements are recognized with Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Awards. AMICAS has been recognized with the 2006 Frost & Sullivan Customer Product Value of the Year Award in recognition of solutions and services that provide the highest ratio of value to cost for customers. AMICAS will formally receive the award at the Frost & Sullivan 2006 Excellence in Pharmaceuticals & Life Sciences Awards Banquet on October 25th in La Jolla, CA.

To choose the recipient of this specific award, Frost & Sullivan analysts tracked competitor features and prices within the industry. This is achieved through interviews with all market participants and extensive secondary research of proprietary data sources. Finally, the competitors are compared and ranked for relative position. Frost & Sullivan then presents the Customer Product Value of the Year Award to the company that received the number one industry rank. AMICAS ranked number one in North American Medical Informatics for 2006.

Innovation

At the heart of this award lies the delicate balance of identifying and developing unrivaled innovation while ensuring customers are successful with their deployments. "At AMICAS, we believe our focus, dedication, and transparency leads to superior innovation and customer success," said Peter McClennen, president and COO of AMICAS. "We feel fortunate to have the opportunity to focus exclusively on building the best radiology IT products and services without the distractions that are commonplace elsewhere. We think this makes our products better and our customers happier."

"AMICAS truly pays attention to its customers’ needs and has developed an unsurpassed culture of innovation," said Mr. Daher. "AMICAS demonstrates the most rapid turnaround time between the customer expressing a particular need or desire and incorporating the idea into the AMICAS solution set. This continuous well-oiled cycle allows the company to maintain its position at the cutting-edge of technology at all times and to take full advantage of the flexibility and nimbleness that characterizes focused, mid-size companies. Most importantly, it keeps AMICAS’ customers satisfied, places them in a more active role, and ultimately makes their strategic vision a reality."

Recent examples of the AMICAS culture of innovation include:

• Vision Reach™ is a powerful tool designed for referring physicians. This tool uses the latest Web-based technologies to integrate the radiology report with key images to create a single "multi-media" report. The tool includes a sophisticated instant messaging system that uses common e-mail and secure messaging to deliver images, reports and information to any e-mail enabled device.
• AMICAS Insight™ Dashboards is a 100% Web-based business intelligence platform that provides access to customized, easy to read, graphical data for specific key performance indicators. By incorporating data from Vision Series PACS, Vision Series Financials, and Vision Series RIS, AMICAS Insight Dashboards will have the capability to evaluate clinical factors such as technologist productivity as well as operational factors such as asset efficiency or accounts receivable aging.
• AMICAS Insight™ Services is a suite of services designed to accelerate the time it takes to convert receivables into cash while reducing the total cost of operations. These revenue cycle management capabilities will improve patient satisfaction while increasing the efficiency of the radiology business, enabling AMICAS customers to save time, money, and eliminate manual processes from their daily workflow.
• RadStream is a next generation software product designed to accelerate radiology workflow, significantly improve radiologist soft copy reading productivity through a sophisticated multi-factorial prioritization algorithm and both improve and fully document communication of positive results of radiology studies to referring physicians. At Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, RadStream has improved radiology report turnaround by 40% and radiologists staffing outpatient imaging centers have increased their productivity by 25%.

Commitment to Customer Success

"The present-day prospective customer is looking for a partner, rather than merely a vendor, who will tailor a solution that meets the specific needs – and more importantly, the ambitions – of their healthcare enterprise," added Mr. Daher. "The value proposition of AMICAS to these customers is remarkable. By selecting AMICAS, customers can expect to streamline the workflow at every level of the delivery chain, from the front-desk personnel to the technologist, and on to the radiologist."

As an example of the commitment to customer success, AMICAS has recently rolled out the Net Promoter Score concept across their entire customer support organization. "Net Promoter Score is a simple question capturing a very complex concept. We simply ask our customers if they would recommend AMICAS to a friend or colleague. It is the ultimate objective way to evaluate your success from the eyes of your customer," said Mr. McClennen. "We believe it is this level of commitment to customer success and customer value that ultimately makes AMICAS successful."

AMICAS, Vision Series, Vision Reach, Radstream, and AMICAS Insight are trademarks or registered trademarks of AMICAS, Inc.

About AMICAS, Inc.
AMICAS, Inc. (www.amicas.com) is a leader in radiology and medical image and information management solutions. The AMICAS Vision Series™ products provide a complete, end-to-end solution for imaging centers, ambulatory care facilities, and radiology practices. Acute care and hospital clients are provided a fully-integrated, HIS/RIS-independent PACS, featuring advanced enterprise workflow support and scalable design. Complementing the Vision Series product family is AMICAS Insight™ Solutions, formerly known as AMICAS Insight Services(SM), a set of client-centered professional and consulting services that assist our customers with a well- planned transition to a digital enterprise.

Safe Harbor Statement
Except for the historical information herein, the matters discussed in this release include forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this release include statements about present and future product and service availability, performance and implementation. When used in this press release, the words: believes, intends, plans, anticipates, expects, estimates, and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, assumptions and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially as set forth in AMICAS' most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All forward-looking statements in this release are qualified by these cautionary statements and are made only as of the date of this release.