This Week’s Health IT Business News
Last week we reported on the upcoming Allscripts 2012 annual earnings call. Greenway Medical, athenahealth and Cerner will also be holding upcoming earnings calls for Q4 and 2012. You can read our post giving the call in and webcast details for all four companies.
Mergers, Acquisitions and Investment
iMedicor has announced its acquisition of San Antonio-based iPenMD, a Web-based EHR app using digital pen technology in clinical settings. The technology behind the iPenMD digital pen system is it reads patient encounter notes as they are recorded and converts the notes as editable text into the proper field in the EHR. Company officials say the digital pen can be integrated into any existing EHR.
eHealth Technologies, a provider of continuity of care solutions, announced this week that Merck Global Health Innovation Fund (Merck GHIF) has invested over $6 million in capital funding its offerings and company infrastructure.
Product Development and Announcements
Ever see that Will Smith movie I, Robot? The FDA this week cleared the first autonomous telemedicine robot for Hospitals. iRobot Corp’s RP-VITA Remote Presence Robot has received 510(k) clearance by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in hospitals. RP-VITA is the first autonomous navigation remote presence robot to receive FDA clearance. “FDA clearance of a robot that can move safely and independently through a fast-paced, chaotic and demanding hospital environment is a significant technological milestone for the robotics and healthcare industries,” said Colin Angle, chairman and CEO of iRobot.
For the second consecutive year, the iKnowMed EHR has been named the top ranked EHR for oncologists and hematologists by Black Book Rankings. In addition, KLAS also gave iKnowMed the thumbs up, giving it the highest medical oncology-specific performance rating for an EHR built for the ambulatory setting.
Partnerships and Contracts
CareCloud seems to be on a roll. Once again the company has announced another strategic partnership, this time with HealthTronics, Inc., a subsidiary of Endo Health Solutions. The two will market a new, integrated EHR and practice management solution specifically for urologists.
Vitera Healthcare Solutions announced it will integrate its ambulatory EHR and practice management software with DiagnosisOne’s clinical decision support technology and analytics. Practices using Vitera Stat can now access DiagnosisOne’s library of CDS content and patient education materials. The arrangement offers Vitera users an expanded toolset that supports real-time, evidence-based decisions at the point of care.
Personnel
EMRapproved announced this week that Kevin Donnelly has assumed CEO responsibilities. Donnelly, a healthcare expert with over 35 years in the industry, will take over responsibilities from David Gorter, who will stay on as the company’s president and chairman of the board.
Former Practice Fusion CMO Robert Rowley has joined LifeNexus as medical advisor. LifeNexus is an eight-year-old company that focuses on “portable health records.” If you’ve followed any of Dr. Rowley’s writings you know he is passionate about PHRs. The company also announced the hiring of John Sines as CFO.
Wen Dombrowski,MD, aka HealthcareWen on Twitter, has been named to the board of advisers for eCaring, a provider of cloud-based health care management systems.
Earlier this month KLAS announced that three healthcare leaders would join the KLAS advisory board. The advisory board will be enhanced considerably by the additon of John Halamka, Chief Information Officer for Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Wright Lassiter, Chief Executive Officer for Alameda Medical Center, and Denni McColm, Chief Information Officer for Citizens Memorial Hospital.