Earlier this week, GE announced the release of Centricity Advance, their solution for the ambulatory market. Centricity Advance is basically a build-out/rebranding of MedPlexus an SaaS EHR solution vendor that GE acquired in March 2010. GE now joins others (see below) in the EHR market who are striving to provide a complete acute to ambulatory EHR portfolio.
Editor’s note: See also THCB founder Matthew Holt’s podcast interview this week with GE VP Mike Barber for more context on this story.
Recent weeks have seen a number of intriguing developments in this space, including:
AllScripts’ acquisition last week of Eclipsys.
NextGen, a traditional ambulatory EHR vendor whose parent, Quality Systems Inc. acquired Sphere Health Systems and Opus Healthcare Solutions to target rural acute care facilities.
While some may argue that the HITECH Act and meaningful use requirements are core drivers for these acquisitions (e.g. tap future incentives payments in new markets), the real reason is the need for large healthcare organizations to more closely align smaller affiliated practices to their operations in anticipation of healthcare/payment reform (bundled payments, patient-centered medical home, etc.). These large institutions are increasingly seeking out such fully integrated acute to ambulatory solutions and is one of the core reasons that EPIC (they started in ambulatory and grew organically into acute) has seen success in the market. It remains to be seen if those pursuing an acquisition strategy will be as successful as EPIC for it often takes years for two systems to be combined in a truly integrated fashion.
Looking to the future, one has to wonder what will be the fate of those who remain in either just the acute or ambulatory sector. Our quick assessment of a few of the ambulatory vendors…
athenahealth: athenaclinicals is new to the market and the company has an opportunity to tap its existing customer base. Short-term, they’ll stay independent but likely to be acquired in 3-5 years.
eClinicalWorks: Fiercely independent and will likely attempt to pursue a strategy similar to EPIC’s and grow organically and stay independent. Will make some niche app acquisitions where needed to accelerate time to market.
Greenway: Will be acquired in next 1-2 years.
Sage: Like Greenway, acquired in near future.
Practicefusion: Will stay independent, may be rolled-up into a larger offering from a bigger entity that comes from outside healthcare sector, e.g., minority investor Salesforce.com
Now this is only our educated guess (and we certainly welcome yours in the comment section below), but in our conversations with numerous stakeholders in the market, this guess is one we’d be willing to bet on.
John Moore is an IT Analyst at Chilmark Research, where this post was first published.
Categories: Uncategorized
Safe, effective, ethical, available to all, prevention and treatment of cancer, for a pittance.
THE REMARKABLE ANTICANCER PROPERTIES OF ANTIDEPRESSANTS
.The idea that antidepressants might be effective for cancer was first explored fifty years ago, and ample evidence has emerged. To verify, access Medline or Pubmed, and enter “antidepressants” and “cancer.” You will encounter more than 3000 citations, of which more than eighty show that antidepressants destroy cancer cells, inhibit their proliferation, convert multidrug resistant cells to chemotherapy sensitive, protect nonmalignant cells from damage by ionizing radiation and chemotherapy toxicity, and target the mitochondria of cancer cells, while sparing those of healthy ones. Antidepressants can arrest cancer even in advanced stages, occasionally reverse it, significantly extend life, and have shown effectiveness in malignancies often resistant to chemotherapy and radiation. In 1998, Brenda Penninx showed that at age 70, people who are chronically depressed have an increased risk of cancer of 88%, and an increased risk of dying of it of 50%. I have contributed five reviews and a book to the advance:
Lieb, J. “Antidepressants, eicosanoids and the prevention and treatment of cancer.” Plefa (2001) 65(5&6), 233-239
Lieb, J. “Antidepressants, prostaglandins and the prevention and treatment of
cancer.” Medical Hypotheses (2007) 684-689
Lieb, J.”The multifaceted value of antidepressants in cancer therapeutics.” Editorial comment. European Journal of Cancer 44 (2) 2008 172-174
Lieb, J.”Defeating cancer with antidepressants.” Ecancermedicalscience. DOI 10.3332/eCMS.2008.88
Lieb, J.”The remarkable anticancer properties of antidepressants.” Ecancermedicalscience DOI.10.3332/eCMS.LTR.149
Lieb, J.”Killing Cancer.” (2010) Amazon (in press).
A clinical study
.Two groups of advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) were analyzed and compared: Group A-26 patients (12 treated with chemotherapy –CT, 14 with best supportive care BSC), all receiving 10mg/day of Mianserin and Group B-26 patients with comparable corresponding characteristics, who were treated with chemotherapy.
An objective clinical response to chemotherapy was observed in five patients receiving Mianserin, and only two patients who did not receive it. Median survival time for Mianserin patients was also significantly better. A surprising fact emerged in 2 patients with adenocarcinoma: one with local tumor recurrence and diffuse bone metastases, evidently stable with no further progression for 37 months, the other with metastases in the upper mediastinal lymph nodes, with no further progression for 26 months. Symptom control (pain, dyspnea, and emotional functioning) were significantly better in Mianserin Group A. Antidepressants are highly specific and humans variable, thus some of the non responders may well have responded to alternatives to Mianserin.
Jovanovic D, et al Mianserin therapy in advanced lung cancer patients. 8th Central European Lung Cancer Conference. Vienna 2002. Internal Process Division, Monduzzi Editore 2002; 339-343
Have you seen the white paper about 5 Strategies for Improving Employee Satisfaction in Healthcare ? I think you might really like it…I know I found it to be pretty enlightening. Just a thought! :o)
I hope GE (esp. in this tough economy) can make a positive “go” at the rebranding effort. Centricity Advance has great potential and a large market. – David
Very interesting analysis of current events. Why would so much investment go into seamless integration within hospital-to-ambulatory associations, when the supposed goal of meaningful use is widespread interoperability? Seems to me that broadly interoperable platforms aren’t what the big players are after, given the apparent investment in silos. Here is where the public sector should take note and step in to ensure the current HIT funding and effort doesn’t just build bigger silos. Community-based HIEs with multilateral oversight seems the logical solution. The open market has had 20+ years to solve the problem; I hold no illusions it will produce HIT interoperability at this juncture without some regulation – especially when the potential profits for big silos now include billions in federal stimulus funding. That money belongs to the taxpayers, so regulation would be absolutely legitimate.
I agree with your assessment John, but do you have any educated guesses as to who the buyers will be?