FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACTS:
Michelle Ponte
Communications Director
VerusMed
(615) 345-9467
michelle.ponte@verusmed.com

VerusMed Unveils Evidence Grading System And Newly Redesigned VerusMed.com

New Four-Level Evidence Quality Grading System to Save Physicians Time

NASHVILLE, Tenn., (January 8, 2008) – VerusMed, a ConnectivHealth company, today
announced the launch of its groundbreaking evidence grading system for all VerusMed
clinical news briefs. VerusMed’s evidence grading scale is among the first to be
introduced to U.S. physicians through an easy-to-access medical information service.
The launch coincides with the release of the newly redesigned and expanded VerusMed
Website, verusmed.com.

VerusMed, which provides clinical news briefs to physicians and other health care
professionals in dozens of therapeutic categories, is continuously enhancing all aspects
of its physician information services. With its new evidence grading system, each clinical
study reported on will be reviewed for quality of evidence and then assigned an
appropriate grade, using a four-point scale.

“By providing evidence grades to our clinical news briefs, physician readers will be able
to quickly and efficiently review the quality of the literature being discussed,” said June
Manning, VerusMed editor-in-chief. “With the addition of the evidence grading system,
each of VerusMed’s clinical news stories will receive an evidence grade that will appear
next to the headline,” she added.

Manning noted that VerusMed’s innovative evidence grading system is similar to grading
systems used by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), the American
Medical Association, British Medical Journal, the Agency for Healthcare Research and
Quality (AHRQ), and the Cochrane Collaboration, among others.

Jeff Andrews, M.D., chair of VerusMed’s editorial advisory board and senior fellow of the
Vanderbilt Center for Evidence-Based Medicine, developed VerusMed’s evidence
grading system, using standards created by the internationally recognized Grading of
Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation Working Group, also
known as GRADE (http://www.gradeworkinggroup.org), of which he is a member.

“Medical evidence, or the recommendations that are based on the evidence, can be of
different quality levels,” said Andrews. “Since poor quality evidence can lead to
recommendations that are not in a patient’s best interest, it is essential for physicians to
know whether a study is strong or weak.”

Andrews explained that sources of evidence range from small laboratory studies, or
case reports, to well-designed, large clinical studies. “Based on the grade that is
assigned, physicians can decide whether they want to continue reading the article or
reference it for future reading,” he said.

A number of factors are considered when assigning an evidence grade:

• Study design – therapeutic, prognostic, diagnostic or economic/decision analysis
• Number of study patients and the percentage of follow-up
• Statistical power
• Bias and influence
• Effect size
• Balance of benefits and risks

“Physicians have continually expressed to us that their most precious limited resource is
time,” said Scott McQuigg, CEO of ConnectivHealth. “We developed our new evidence
grading system so that physicians can quickly determine the relevancy of information
and invest their time in the studies that will have the greatest impact in their practice and
for their patients.”

In addition to the new evidence grading system, VerusMed’s redesigned verusmed.com
has many new features designed to help physicians quickly access relevant medical
news and information by therapeutic area. The site’s expanded features include online
video, most read stories, most e-mailed stories and searchable archives.

About VerusMed
VerusMed, an evolution of Faxwatch, provides timely, unbiased medical information to
physicians, health care professionals and industry executives. VerusMed’s concise and
objective editorial approach ensures that readers receive the most relevant therapeutic
updates. With more than 150,000 readers across several dozen therapeutic and industry
segment-specific publications, VerusMed is able to leverage its market connectivity to
help companies in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, hospital and managed care
industries to establish brands and build rapport with key audiences. VerusMed is a
ConnectivHealth company. To learn more, visit www.verusmed.com or call 800-763-
3329.

About ConnectivHealth
ConnectivHealth is a network of powerful health information brands that enables
the delivery, distribution and organization of important health information for physicians,
health care professionals, hospitals and schools through customized channels. Each
brand serves a critical information need in the marketplace with the single goal of
improving health. Privately held, the ConnectivHealth network includes: PeerClip,
HealthTeacher, VerusMed and Discovery Hospital, a partnership with Discovery
Communications. The company's investors include Petra Capital Partners of Nashville,
Chrysalis Ventures of Louisville, KY, and members of the management team. For more
information, e-mail us at info@connectivhealth.com.

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