News release

Compaq Powers First Internet-based Organ Donor Registry

Technology Gives Organ Procurement Organizations and Tissue, Eye Banks Online Access to The Living Bank's Donor Database

The nation's oldest and largest non-profit donor education organization, The Living Bank, has named Compaq Computer Corporation (NYSE: CPQ) its vendor of choice to enhance its national donor registry operations to better serve organ donors and procurement professionals.

The Living Bank, which uses Compaq Presario 5000 desktops, recently purchased and deployed industry-standard Compaq ProLiant ML370 and DL380 servers running Microsoft Windows® 2000. The servers are delivered with the ProLiant Essentials Foundation Pack, the Compaq Remote Insight Lights-Out Edition and information backup and redundancy, forming the technology foundation for the first Internet-based organ donor registry.

According to Jim Milton, Compaq senior vice president and North America general manager, The Living Bank's new Internet-based registry demonstrates the growing awareness in the marketplace of Compaq's ability to meet the rapidly evolving technology needs of small businesses in the healthcare field.

"Compaq has the depth and breath of product line and services that can help smaller organizations make incremental changes that have a huge impact in meeting their goals," said Milton. "Our ability to deliver scalable and easy to manage technology solutions—including Compaq PCs, industry standard ProLiant servers, and ProLiant Essentials software, and Compaq services, along with knowledgeable partners who understand end-user needs—is what distinguishes Compaq from other IT vendors in the market."

The Compaq ProLiant servers at The Living Bank are optimized for performance and reliability and come with Compaq Insight Management Suite tools, including Compaq SmartStart and Compaq Insight Manager. Compaq SmartStart is particularly useful for smaller organizations, enabling users to easily configure their ProLiant servers and install the latest operating systems and drivers easily and quickly.

Also, The Living Bank uses Compaq Insight Manager to proactively monitor overall system health, reducing system management costs, improving operational efficiency, and minimizing downtime. The systems are protected by Compaq services, including a three-year, next business day, on-site limited global warranty and extended pre-failure warranty, which covers processors, memory, and hard drives. The Compaq Remote Insight Lights-Out Edition option ensures that IT staff can access their Compaq ProLiant servers to perform administrative tasks independent of location.

Internet-Based Registry

According to Jon Eiche, president and CEO of The Living Bank, the new Internet-based registry is accessible from any computer with Internet capability and proper security authorization. "Organ procurement organizations and tissue and eye banks that conduct recovery of organs and tissues are being assigned a secure password for access to the database," said Eiche. "Ease of navigation is a mainstay of the database, and with only a few keystrokes, a procurement coordinator can determine if his or her patient is registered."

The Living Bank has contracted with Compliance Development Corporation, a Houston-based IT consulting practice. To date, the new registry has about 1.2 million donors loaded in the database and is expecting another 400,000 donor names from Nevada, which passed donor registration legislation last June to encourage more organ donations to help reduce the shortage nationwide. The law creates a state donor registry through the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles and a task force to promote donation.

The Living Bank's new registry will provide organ procurement organizations across the country an efficient way to download scanned registration forms signed by the donor that can be shown to the next of kin. "So far, we have assigned about 60 log-on IDs and passwords to organ procurement organizations and we anticipate the number to grow rapidly as awareness of the new Internet-based registry increases," said Aqeel Rizvi, vice president of Compliance Development Corporation. "We are scanning filed registration forms and storing images and concurrently the Living Bank has personnel entering new donor information around the clock."

Once the organ procurement organization has its login ID and password, its administrator can authorize other users within its organization. This streamlines the administrative process by providing around-the-clock access to donor records by authorized personnel without having to call The Living Bank to check donor records or record staff changes that occur at the procurement organizations. "Last year alone there was an estimated 20,000 potential donors, but less than 6,000 actual organ donations," said Eiche. "We hope the technology enhancements will increase the number of donors who can actually carry out their wishes."

The Living Bank International

The Living Bank International is a non-profit organization dedicated to the enhancement of organ and tissue donation and transplantation. The mission of The Living Bank is to motivate and facilitate the commitment of enough organ and tissue donors so that no one must die or suffer for lack of a donation. Information about The Living Bank is available at http://www.livingbank.org/.

Compaq Computer Corporation

Founded in 1982, Compaq Computer Corporation is a leading global provider of information technology products, services and solutions for enterprise customers. Compaq designs, develops, manufactures and markets information technology equipment, software, services and solutions, including industry-leading enterprise storage and computing solutions, fault-tolerant business-critical solutions, communication products, personal desktop and notebook computers, and personal entertainment and Internet access devices that are sold in more than 200 countries directly and through a network of authorized Compaq marketing partners. Information on Compaq and its products and services is available at http://www.compaq.com.