HIMSS10: IBM marches into HIE after closing Initiate deal

It may have been a coincidence that IBM closed on its acquisition of Initiate Systems just as HIMSS10 got underway in Atlanta last week. We're certain that it was no coincidence that IBM introduced a product called Initiate Exchange on the very same day it announced the closing of the Initiate deal. "The acquisition was driven by IBM's desire to enhance its ability to help healthcare clients draw on data from hospitals, doctors' offices and payers to create a single, trusted shareable view of millions individual patient records," an IBM  press release read.

Initiate Exchange, which itself is the result of Initiate's acquisition of HIE services vendor Accenx just last October, fosters health information exchange between health systems and physician practices. The product focuses on the master patient index to assure that health professionals have access to the right information on the right patient at the point of care. (See our story in today's FierceHealthIT on the interoperability problems between the VA and DoD to understand why this is so important.)

At HIMSS, Initiate marketing VP Gina Sandon told FierceHealthIT that Initiate Exchange would be IBM's first software-as-a-service offering in healthcare and that the target market would be integrated delivery networks, payers and regional health information organizations.

For more:
- click on this IBM press release

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