This Week in Healthcare IT

Health IT Business News Roundup for the Week of June 18, 2010

M&A, Financial Reports and Funding

HealthcareFirst, a developer of Web-based clinical and financial software, has acquired software developer Lewis Computer Services for an undisclosed sum.

Castlight Health -- a Software-as-a-Service company that provides consumer information on health care treatment options and costs -- has raised $60 million in its Series C funding round.

Contracts

The New York eHealth Collaborative, a regional health IT extension center for New York state, has selected NextGen Healthcare Information Systems as a preferred EHR vendor for the health care providers it serves.....the NYC Regional Electronic Adoption Center for Health, a regional extension center for New York City, also has designated NextGen as a preferred EHR vendor.

The Minnesota Health Information Exchange has announced plans to offer DrFirst's Rcopia electronic prescribing software on its health care provider portal...Summersville Regional Medical Center in West Virginia has selected Healthcare Management Systems to provide clinical and financial information systems for its inpatient services and physician clinics...Richmond Bone & Joint Clinic in Texas has selected NCR Corporation's MediKiosk self-service patient check-in and payment system.

Product Development and Marketing

SCIOinspire, a provider of business process applications for health plans and hospitals, has announced a partnership to provide its PRO Series software and Just InTime Wellness application to HMC Companies, a provider of health care management services.

Merge Healthcare, a health IT applications provider, recently announced a distribution agreement with Microdata Tecnologia, a Brazilian manufacturer of medical imaging services, to provide Microdata with exclusive access to a Portuguese-language version of Merge's eFilm Workstation medical image viewing software.

Personnel

Carl Dvorak -- executive vice president of health care software provider Epic Systems -- has been elected chair of the HIMSS Electronic Health Record Association, a trade association of EHR firms...Charles Jarvis -- vice president of health care services and government relations at EHR vendor NextGen Healthcare Information Systems -- has been elected vice chair of the HIMSS EHR Association.

Mark Goines -- former senior vice president and general manager of the consumer division for Intuit, a provider of consumer financial services software -- has joined the Board of Directors at Practice Fusion, a provider of Web-based EHR services.