BellSouth's focus in Healthcare is to assist medical professionals in treating patients quickly, accurately and cost-effectively, while providing security for their medical information. By securely moving data to the point of service, the physician will be able to treat the patient while having all necessary medical information on that patient, such as (test results, X-Rays, medical history, drug allergies, etc.) at their fingertips. This information availability will help reduce medical errors, reduce costs, imporove charge capture, and improve patient outcomes and satisfaction.

In addition, hospitals also use communications to improve customer service, to improve the relationships with their doctors by making it easier to practice medicine, and to speed up the reimbursement cycle (medical orders and charts are completed and signed sooner, permitting earlier billing to be sent to the payor).

BellSouth's primary focus is on delivering reliable, cost-effective communications services to medical providers. We can only do that if we help these professionals reach their goals. We focus on those areas of importance to providers that can be improved and enhanced by the proper application of our network products and services:

• Reducing Errors
• Cost control
• Improving patient outcomes
• HIPAA compliance and data security
• New technologies such as CPOE (Computerized Physician Order Entry) and telemedicine.