IOD, a Green Bay, WI-based healthcare information software company, will merge with Georgia-based competitor HealthPort, according to a press release.
The terms of the proposed deal weren’t disclosed, but it creates a combined company with annual revenue of more than $450 million and 6,000 employees serving more than 18,000 hospitals and clinics nationwide. The move follows Alpharetta, GA-based HealthPort’s sale last year to New York private equity firm New Mountain Capital, which provided an influx of capital to facilitate the merger announced this week.
The tie-up illustrates the increasing importance of digital solutions for handling medical records, a push that has been backed by the federal government. That trend has been a boon for companies providing software that house and manage patients’ records, such as Epic Systems and Cerner Corp. (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CERN]]). It also provides new business opportunities for companies like IOD and HealthPort.
Despite implementing electronic health records systems, many hospitals and clinics still have a “huge backlog” of archived paper records that need to be converted to electronic formats, as well as new records that must be scanned into their electronic systems on a daily basis, IOD says on its website. IOD provides document-scanning software and services.
In addition, both IOD and HealthPort offer software and services to track audits and more efficiently handle requests for releasing patient information.
“Bringing together IOD and HealthPort will create the scale and resources to improve what we do today and help us accelerate innovation and serve customers in new ways,” IOD CEO George Abatjoglou said in a press release.
The deal also adds to the momentum of Wisconsin’s healthcare technology industry, which is anchored by the rapidly growing Epic, based near Madison, and has seen the rise of a small but thriving group of healthtech startups in recent years.
