Triad Hospitals Keeps Pulse on Financial Planning Process With Business Objects; Healthcare Performance Management Offers Simplified Budgeting, Planning, and Reporting for Triad's 51 Hospitals

Using the Business Objects Excel-based planning platform, Triadimproved its process for forecasting staffing and salaries, and thereimbursements from managed care contracts. In addition, TriadHospitals' lines of business managers are now able to track keyperformance indicators and their relationship to each other. Forexample, surgery minutes can be tied to surgery cases, which are thentied back to admissions. This allows Triad to model the impact ofadmissions going up or down and how that affects the wholeorganization. Triad estimates they are saving between 30 and 40percent of the time required for the inter-company planning process.

"Before implementing the Business Objects solution, financialplanning was time-consuming, with each hospital and line of businessutilizing various software applications and spreadsheets," said StanHunt, director of operations and finance at Triad. "Business Objectsallowed us to consolidate the planning process and reduce our planningtime by almost a month. In addition, by improving our budgeting andplanning processes, and delivering more accurate information, thesolution provides consistent standards and assumptions that result inusers having more confidence in the budget and plans."

Business Objects delivers a comprehensive suite of planningsolutions for Healthcare, supporting a breadth of corporateperformance needs ranging from long-range strategic planning to dailyflash reporting. The software provides an extensive menu of featuresto customize solutions to each healthcare organization's needs. Thesoftware's architecture combines an enhanced spreadsheet environment,industry standard databases, workflow management tools, planningmethodology libraries, and several Web-oriented collaboration optionsenabling any healthcare organization to efficiently create andevaluate strategic initiatives, develop accurate budgets andforecasts, measure performance, and analyze results.

"Because we understand what keeps hospital CFOs, controllers, andfinance directors awake at night, we are consistently working towardmeeting the demands of healthcare organizations," said Jay Spence,director of healthcare planning solutions for Business Objects. "Ourperformance management solutions are specifically designed around ourhealthcare customers' business needs. We have worked closely withTriad Hospitals to ensure they realize the full advantages of usingBusiness Objects software to manage their budgeting and planningprocesses."

For more information about Business Objects planning solutions,please visit http://www.businessobjects.com/planning/.

About Triad Hospitals, Inc.

Triad, through its affiliates, owns and manages hospitals andambulatory surgery centers in small cities and selected larger urbanmarkets. The Company currently operates 51 hospitals and 10 ambulatorysurgery centers in 16 states with approximately 9,300 licensed beds.In addition, through its QHR subsidiary, the Company providesconsulting, education, intensive resources and management services tohospitals and health systems throughout the United States.

About Business Objects

Business Objects is the world's leading business intelligence (BI)software company. With more than 35,000 customers worldwide, includingover 80 percent of the Fortune 500, Business Objects helpsorganizations gain better insight into their business, improvedecision making, and optimize enterprise performance. The company'sbusiness intelligence platform, BusinessObjects(TM) XI, offers the BIindustry's most advanced and complete platform for performancemanagement, planning, reporting, query and analysis, and enterpriseinformation management. BusinessObjects XI includes CrystalReports(R), the industry standard for enterprise reporting. BusinessObjects has built the industry's strongest and most diverse partnercommunity, and also offers consulting and education services to helpcustomers effectively deploy their business intelligence projects.

Business Objects has dual headquarters in San Jose, Calif., andParis, France. The company's stock is traded on both the Nasdaq (BOBJ)and Euronext Paris (ISIN: FR0004026250 - BOB) stock exchanges. Moreinformation about Business Objects can be found atwww.businessobjects.com.

The Business Objects logo, BusinessObjects, Crystal Reports,Intelligent Question, and Xcelsius are trademarks or registeredtrademarks of Business Objects in the United States and/or othercountries. All other names mentioned herein may be trademarks of theirrespective owners.