ELMWOOD PARK, N.J., March 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- WebMD Corporation (NASDAQ:HLTH) today announced the acquisition of HealthShare Technology, a leader in the healthcare decision support market and provider of web-based hospital quality comparison tools. The purchase price was $31 million in cash and up to an additional $5 million if certain financial milestones are achieved for the calendar year 2005.

HealthShare provides health plans and employers, and their members and employees, with online decision support tools that evaluate both cost and quality to enable users to make more informed decisions about hospital care. HealthShare also provides professional decision support tools used by health plan executives to develop provider networks, identify centers of excellence, and evaluate comparative hospital quality. For hospitals, HealthShare tools are used to provide online decision support to help enhance quality of care, manage costs and profitability, and better understand market position.

"HealthShare is the clear market leader helping health plan members and employees to make more informed hospital decisions. They work with seven of the top ten health plans and in total, HealthShare provides its services to more than 85 million members," said Roger Holstein, CEO WebMD Health. "The integration of HealthShare's cost and quality metrics into the WebMD platform furthers our mission of helping consumers make more informed benefit, provider and treatment decisions."

WebMD Health, the Company's portal segment, provides healthcare information, decision support and interactive communication products to more than 20 million consumers and healthcare professionals each month through its public web sites. WebMD also provides online health and benefit management services for employer and payer sponsors through private web sites. These services assist members to make informed benefit, provider and treatment choices that optimize healthcare cost and quality.

"We are delighted to become a part of WebMD Health, America's most trusted source of health information for consumers and professionals," said Rick Siegrist, CEO, HealthShare Technology. "As part of the WebMD family, we will be able to significantly extend the reach of our hospital quality comparison tools for health plans, employers, their members and employees."

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