VISICU Expands eICU® Solution to Midwest with Advocate Health Care Roll-Out Across all Eight Hospitals Planned December 16th, 2002 VISICU, Inc., creator of the eICU® solution, announced today a contract with Advocate Health Care. Advocate is the largest health care provider in Illinois and is routinely recognized by Modern Healthcare magazine as one of the top 10 health systems in the country. Advocate will be the first in the Midwest to implement the eICU® solution, which is a centralized patient management center that connects intensivists to multiple ICUs using high-fidelity telemedicine and proprietary software. The eICU® center is staffed by intensivists and critical care nurses who provide patient oversight when the attending physician is away from the bedside. The contract calls for an eICU® center in Chicago to be linked to all eight Advocate hospitals, with the initial implementation at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital and Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital. "This new technology will tremendously enhance the quality of care our hospitals provide, while also helping to significantly reduce mortality, complications, length of a patient's ICU stay and overall costs of care," said James H. Skogsbergh, president and CEO of Advocate Health Care. The advanced system supplements regular visits by a patient's physician and demonstrates Advocate's commitment to providing outstanding care to all of its patients. "We believe that this investment promises to have a bigger immediate impact on improving clinical outcomes for our sickest patients than anything else that is being done today," added Skogsbergh. Lee B. Sacks, M.D., executive vice president and chief medical officer of Advocate Health Care lauded the investment in technology to improve patient care. "Numerous medical studies have demonstrated that providing ICU patients with intensivist care reduces mortality." Sacks continued, "With the severe shortage of intensivists around the country, forward thinking organizations have to find new ways to leverage this type of care to more patients. The eICU® allows us to do just that while providing an innovative way to achieve the Leapfrog Group's ICU safety goal of having intensivists available 24/7/365 for all ICU patients." "Advocate Healthcare is a beacon for quality care in the Midwest," stated Frank T. Sample, president and CEO of VISICU. Sample added, "We view Advocate's embrace of the eICU® as a strategic partnership that will help set the pace for higher quality ICU care throughout the Midwest and we applaud their leadership and initiative." About VISICU, Inc. VISICU, Inc., a privately held company founded in 1998 by two intensivist physicians, is headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland. The eICU® solution enables hospitals to standardize ICU care across multiple hospitals and leverage scarce intensivist talent. From a centralized eICU®, intensivists and nurse's monitor and care for ICU patients through a high-fidelity telemedicine network, that has been likened to air traffic control. The proprietary software is used to proactively manage patients and electronically connect the "patient to the doctor". A Cap-Gemini E&Y study of the eICU® proved the clinical and financial benefits and the eICU® is currently the only technology solution that enables hospitals to meet the Leapfrog Group's ICU patient care safety standards. VISICU won the 2001 Healthcare Informatics and Technology Award and in 2002 the eICU® was recognized as one of the Top 100 technical innovations by InfoWorld magazine. For more information please visit www.visicu.com. eICU® is a registered trademark of VISICU, Inc. About Advocate Oak Brook-based Advocate Health Care, the largest health care provider in Illinois, has ranked among the nation's top 10 health care systems for five straight years. A faith-based, non-profit system, Advocate is related to both the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the United Church of Christ. Advocate's 200+ sites of care in metropolitan Chicago include eight acute care hospitals and two children's hospitals, a home health care company, Chicago's largest contracting and care management organization, and three of Chicago's largest medical groups. With more than 24,500 employees, Advocate is the second largest private employer in Chicago and the only health care provider listed among the 25 best places to work in Chicago. Through a long-term academic and teaching affiliation with the University of Illinois at Chicago Health Sciences Center, Advocate trains more resident physicians than any non-university teaching hospital in Illinois.