This Week’s Health IT Business News
This week’s business news saw a couple of very big acquisitions. News broke on Tuesday that US computer contractor giant Science Applications International Corp (SAIC) will purchase the information technology consulting firm maxIT Healthcare for $473 million. According to the press release the acquisition “strengthens SAIC’s capabilities to provide EHR implementation and integration services to its strong base of Federal healthcare customers”. The purchase is expected to close next month. You can read the press release here.
In other M&A news, WorldOne, a global healthcare data collection company, has acquired Sermo. The addition of Sermo, a social network for physicians, will add 130,000 physicians to WorldOne’s 1.7 million. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. WorldOne says the addition of Sermo will boost reach, client list match rates and research opportunities.
Speaking of mergers, The Wall Street Journal this week posted on their Private Equity Beat blog the state of mergers in 2012. Health-Care IT M&A Gets A Shot in the Arm reports that merger and acquisition activity in the healthcare IT sector has increased by 28% to 196 deals in the first half of 2012 compared with the second half of 2011.
Aprima Medical Software has unveiled Aprima Mobile, a mobile app that allows its users access to key functions and patient data including appointments, patient information, and more. Read the MarketWatch report here.
Not all news is good news. EHRIntelligence.com reported Beth Israel Deaconess has revealed a health data breach of 4,000 patients after a physician’s personal laptop was compromised.
And the survey says…On Tuesday the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics released their findings on EHR adoption by physicians in 2011. The report shows physician adoption of EHRs at 55%.
Health Management Associates announced its selection of athenahealth to implement its EHR to their network of 1,200 providers in 15 states. athenahealth will also offer its suite of services to 10,000 independent physicians affiliated with Health Management hospitals.
In other EHR selection news CalOptima Regional Extension Center has selected Mitochon Systems EHR as a Cooperative Preferred Vendor (CPV). According to Bre Jackson, CalHIPSO CIO, Mitochon was selected because of their cost effective offering for practices. Read the press release here.
To file under the “what are they doing now?” category former U.S. CTO Aneesh Chopra has made it official and announced that he is running for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2013. His goal if elected lieutenant governor “is to initiate new collaborative modes of public, private and non-profit partnerships in education, health, energy, technology and entrepreneurship.”
This week US News & World Report published its rankings of “Most Connected Hospitals.” The hospitals chosen have national ranking in the 2012-13 US News Best Hospitals and/or Best Children’s Hospitals, or they have earned designation of high performance in one or more medical specialties. Along with their rankings they are leaders in EHR adoption and meeting meaningful use. You can learn more about the rankings from yesterday’s post.
ONC announced The first accreditations of Health Information Technology Certification Bodies and Test Laboratories.Five test laboratories were accredited: Drummond Group, CCHIT, ICSA Labs, InfoGard and SLI Global Solutions. Read more here.
And finally, by the time you read this the British Open at Royal Lytham & St. Annes Golf Course may have already presented the Claret Jug. EHR vendor Greenway Medical sponsors one of the PGA’s leading tour players, Jason Dufner. Though Jason isn’t on the first page of the leaderboard headed into today’s final round (he’s 1 under) he did make headline news. On Saturday Dufner’s regular bag man, Kevin Baile, was out due to illness and Sergio Garcia’s caddie, Gary Matthews was in. Garcia missed the cut.