Acquisition fever has set in and they’re dropping like flies, independent HIE vendors that is. Earlier today, Siemens announced its intent to acquire enterprise HIE vendor MobileMD. So in little over a year we have seen IBM snag Initiate, Axolotl fall into the hands of Ingenix/United Health Group (Ingenix is now known as OptumInsight), Medicity tie the knot with Aetna, Harris pick-up Dept of Defense clinician portal darling Carefx and Wellogic, a damsel in distress, being rescued by Alere. Elsevier also announce an intent to acquire dbMotion for a whooping $310M, but nothing came of that other than a substantiation of the rumor that dbMotion was being shopped.
That does not leave many small, independent HIE vendors that have some traction left in the market. Following is our list of such vendors and what might become of them:
4medica: A relative new comer to the HIE market, 4medica will be profiled for the first time in the upcoming HIE Market Trends Report which is scheduled for release in early 2012. 4medica is quite strong on lab information exchange. Future: 4medica still remains under the radar screen as it completes its platform to truly serve all HIE needs. Once that process is complete, the company is likely to gain increasing attention and will be acquired in 18-14 months.
Care Evolution: Privately owned and self-funded, founder has every intent to stay independent. As he has told us on more than one occasion, I’ve already made plenty of money and this is not about cashing out to the highest bidder. Future: Everyone has a price but this company may be one of the last to fall into the arms of another.
