This week in Healthcare IT

M&A, Financial Reports and Funding

HealthGrades, a vendor of consumer health content, has merged with CPM Marketing Group, a vendor of customer relationship management software.

NantWorks -- a health care, educational, scientific and communications technology firm -- has acquired ZioSoft, a developer of 4-D and 5-D medical imaging analytics, for an undisclosed sum and will rename the company Qi Imaging...Blackstone, an investment and financial advisory firm, has completed its acquisition of Emdeon, a provider of revenue and payment cycle management and clinical information exchange tools, for about $3 billion...Siemens Healthcare, a health care services and IT provider, has entered into an agreement to acquire MobileMD, a provider of health information exchange services, for an undisclosed amount.

Merge Healthcare, a provider of imaging and interoperability tools, reported a Q3 2011 net loss of $1 million on $60.1 million in revenue, compared with a Q3 2010 net loss of $5 million on $45.2 million in revenue; Merge also announced that it has begun an offer to exchange $52 million of senior secured notes due 2015 that are registered under the Securities Act for $52 million of outstanding senior secured notes due 2015 that are not registered under the Securities Act to comply with obligations under a registration rights agreement.

Clarity Health Services -- a provider of online medical care coordination, patient insurance and medical data services -- has raised $4.6 million in capital.

Contracts

Centracare Health System in Minnesota, health care payer and provider HealthPartners and 11 radiology practices in California, New Jersey, Virginia and Washington state have selected Merge Healthcare's imaging and interoperability systems...Brown & Toland Physicians in California will implement Allscripts' community health record system.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has chosen HP Enterprise Services as its contractor for the VA Transformation Twenty-One Total Technology health care and benefits services program; VA also has awarded Harris a three-year, $4.5 million contract to develop an online mental health treatment and medication management system under the My HealtheVet personal health record system.

Central Ohio Primary Care Physicians will implement eClinicalWorks' EHR system across its 44 practices...The Ohio State University Medical Center has implemented iSirona's device connectivity and integration platform...the British Columbia Ministry of Health has awarded CGI Group, a provider of IT and business process services, a four-year, $15 million contract extension for its services.

The Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health has selected Netsmart Technologies' integrated behavioral health clinical, administrative and financial IT system...the New Jersey Health IT Extension Center and the Chicago Health IT Regional Extension Center have selected Welch Allyn as a certified EHR vendor.

Product Development and Marketing

LifeCard Plans, a provider of online storage and emergency access to medical and legal documents, and U.S. Legal Forms are jointly providing state-specific and editable legal documents...athenahealth -- a provider of cloud-based practice management, EHR and care coordination services -- will collaborate with Medley Health -- a provider of membership practice marketing and communications services -- to integrate, market and sell their products.

Personnel

Joe Boyd -- owner of the management consulting and executive training firm Boyd Consulting -- has been named chair of Encore Health Resources, a provider of health IT consulting services...T. Forcht Dagi -- a neurosurgeon and partner at HLM Venture Partners -- has been named CMO at health IT company Aventura HQ...Russ Thomas -- president and COO of health information network Availity -- has been named CEO of the company.

David Gascoigne -- former vice president of promotion management at consulting firm IMS Health -- has been named executive vice president of consulting analytics, innovation and alliances at ImpactRx, a market research and IT company serving the health care industry...Amitav Hajra -- former manager at Epic Systems -- has been named director of Hayes Management Consulting's inpatient division...Darren Schulte -- former leader of clinical and product strategy at Anvita Health, a health care analytics company -- has been named CMO of Apixio, a provider of clinical integration and health data tools.

Read more: http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2011/11/4/health-it-business-news-roundup-for-the-week-of-november-4-2011.aspx#ixzz1clp89Sri