Healthcare IT News - April 2008 - (Page 32)

32 Healthcare IT News ■ April 2008 vENdoRS stockholders of both companies to participate in a combined organization with significant potential, including a major cross-selling opportunity that will drive us forward in the years ahead,” Tullman said in a press release announcing the merger. “This is a highly complementary business in which there is very little overlap. There are many things we are doing twice that a coordinated company could do better.” Both companies have seen their share of ups and downs. Misys, a British banking and treasury giant which entered the healthcare market about a decade ago with the acquisition of Medic Computer Systems, weathered a failed management buyout in 2006, after which Lawrie was hired. The former IBM executive, seeing a healthcare segment that was performing below expectations, launched an ambitious three- to five-year plan that included selling off smaller business units amid speculation that the entire healthcare unit might be sold. Allscripts, which had its start nearly a decade ago with an electronic prescription writing approach funded by in-office drug sales, has grown through expanding interest in electronic prescribing and diversification into other physician applications, as well as agreements with larger provider organizations, such as hospitals and integrated delivery systems, that have working relationships of doctors have voted it down. They simply don’t use it, despite hype, presidential pressure and mandates for its use.” “Software doesn’t solve problems in and of itself – it catalyzes change,” added Cornacchia. “What we’re doing is presenting doctors with a new business model … that will substantially enhance revenues and improve quality of care (by) allowing them to do what they do best.” Cornacchia said he’s had more than 70 physicians and 45 patients discuss the Doctations plan in separate advisory groups, and feels the time is right to push it onto the with doctor offices. The company had seen its stock price slide recently, fueling speculation about a possible sale. The reaction from the markets to the merger hasn’t been favorable. Stock prices soared at first, but Citigroup, UBS, Credit Suisse and Arbuthnot Securities later downgraded their stance on Misys (with Credit Suisse analysts saying the “deal arithmetic doesn’t add up.”) Citigroup officials said they expect some buyers to put contracts with the two companies on hold until it’s determined how the merger between the two competitors shakes out. The opportunity for Allscripts to market its EHR software to users of the Misys PM system gives some analysts hope for the new company’s future. “The biggest benefit for the new entity will be Allscripts’ ability to cross-sell their EHR to Misys clients,” said Corey Tobin, equity research analyst at William Blair & Company. “Allscripts will be able to pick up the revenue cycle management aspects of Misys’ Payerpath. That too should help.” Sean Wieland, an industry analyst at Piper Jaffray, said he would not characterize the merger as a matter of “desperation” on either company’s part, but he did acknowledge that Misys probably had a bit more impetus to move on the deal. “Misys didn’t have a very strong EMR product to offer to its practice management market. More than two-dozen physicians are enrolled at DocPatient.com, he said, and the company is moving to add more functions to the online model as soon as possible. As part of the process, Doctations announced on March 18 a partnership with Phoenix MedCom, a provider of quality medical transcription services. “DocPatient.com is truly on the leading edge of a new wave of healthcare in this country,” said Robert J. Manning, Phoenix MedCom’s CEO. ■ More at HealthcareITNews.com e Connect: DocUMeNtS 0408 www.HealthcareITNews.com customers,” Wieland said. “Now the new company can upsell its PM users. However, I think that in the immediate future, Misys clients thinking about buying an EMR will probably take a wait-and-see approach, given the uncertainty.” Both Tullman and Lawrie say that “wait and see” attitude is fine with them. “The real work begins now, after the announcement,” said Lawrie. “There’s no buyer remorse – no merger remorse. We’ve achieved critical mass, and now progress has to be made.” Tullman will continue to serve as CEO of the company and Bill Davis, Chief Financial Officer of Allscripts, will continue to serve as CFO. Lawrie will serve as executive chairman of a 10-member board of directors, which will consist of Lawrie, Tullman, five members appointed by Misys and three members appointed by Allscripts. The combined company, with an estimated 3,700 employees, will be headquartered in Chicago. Associate Editor Rich Pizzi and Contributing Editor Fred Bazzoli contributed to this story. ■ More at HealthcareITNews.com e Connect: MerGe 0408 mErGE Continued from page 1 about $650 million over the past fiscal year and do business with an estimated 150,000 U.S. physicians and another 700 hospitals. Tullman and Lawrie say their companies don’t overlap in many areas and will complement each other in what they see as a fragmented healthcare IT market. Tullman said Allscripts, which is getting good traction in selling electronic medical record and practice management systems to hospitals and other large healthcare providers, wants to gain ground in the smaller physician practice market, where he says Misys is one of the acknowledged leaders in PM sales. Of particular interest to Allscripts, he said, are Misys’ ASP offerings like PayerPath. Lawrie, meanwhile, said Allscripts combines a “best of breed set of solutions” with “an accomplished and experienced management team.” He said Misys’ board of directors did not want to sell the healthcare unit, instead opting to align with an established EMR/PM vendor. “Newer technologies are becoming available,” he said, singling out Misys MyWay, which “makes it easier and financially more attractive for physicians” to adopt EMR/PM platforms. “Bringing Allscripts and Misys together represents a compelling opportunity for ● TEpr Continued from page 31 doCumENTs Continued from page 31 free for patients, and there’s a $9.95-per-year charge for add-ons, including fax-in capability and document sharing. For physicians, the basic fee is $35 per month, with add-ons that can boost that amount to $50. “The EMR experiment has failed,” said Nicholas Tarricone, a member of Doctations’ Physician Advisory Board, in a press release submitted during last year’s rollout of DocPatient.com. “Forty years after the first EMR software was developed, 85 percent ● Think of it as diagnostic imaging for your patient flow problems. See inside your hospital with TeleTracking’s electronic bedboard and automated patient flow solutions. Just as a real-time look inside the human body does wonders for diagnosing an illness, a real-time look inside your hospital can do wonders for diagnosing patient flow problems. That’s what you get with TeleTracking’s proven suite of automated patient flow solutions. For a look at how that works, go to www.teletracking.com ® 2007 Category Leader Bed Management www.teletracking.com Workflow Automation for Healthcare™ e ● Connect: teLetracKiNG 0408 have increased the number of speakers and panel presentations and done away with the keynote address. In its place will be an opening session titled “How Will the New Administration Affect Health IT and Your Work?” Waegemann expects to bring in several association officials, health leaders, politi- C. Peter Waegemann cians and national experts to populate a discussion on the topic, and to draft a set of healthcare guidelines to be presented to the next president. Waegemann says this year’s conference will focus on five topics: Changes in the hospital environment; the revolution in physician practices and competition from convenient care clinics; the advent of real-time adjudication and other financial systems in healthcare; the health consumer movement; and the rising popularity of cell phone-based interoperability. “It’s not something which is happening in the future – it’s something which is happening right now,” he said, pointing to the popularity of Blackberries and other PDAs and the impending launch of a healthcare platform for the iPhone. TEPR 2008 is scheduled to take place from May 17-21 at the Greater Fort Lauderdale Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale. Saturday and Sunday, May 17 and 18, are devoted to pre-conference educational sessions and awards competitions, while the conference and exhibit hall will be open Monday through Wednesday. Special events include the opening session from 23:30 p.m. Monday, a “Tropical Extravaganza” from 6:30-9 p.m. Tuesday; and a Town Hall meeting on EHR/EMR certification from 10 a.m.-noon on Wednesday. Also back this year is EMRCompare, a program that places various EMR vendors side by side, with each asked to integrate a mock patient’s current ambulatory visit into that patient’s EMR in the system. The program is slated to run all three days of the conference. ■ More at HealthcareITNews.com e Connect: tePr 0408 800.331.3603 ● http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=8972 http://DocPatient.com http://DocPatient.com http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9025 http://www.teletracking.com http://www.teletracking.com http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.teletracking.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9028 http://www.healthcareitnews.com/eConnect.cms?id=9029

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Healthcare IT News - April 2008 Contents New Media Push Stepping Down BI Headaches Decision Grants Safety Alerts Summit 08 Growing an EHR Year 24

Healthcare IT News - April 2008

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