What Does Initiate Offer IBM?
In what it claims to be its 30th acquisition in the area of information and analytics, IBM announced today its intention to buy Initiate Systems, an expert in providing a trusted view of information in the Health Care information exchange and for Government agencies. This privately owned company employs 347 staff and has over 200 customers, most of which are in North America (although it sells software to BMI medical in the UK). The price of the transaction has not been disclosed. The company will be integrated into IBM’s Information Management division once the deal closes, which IBM expects later in Q1 2010.
Initiate is a provider of solutions for integrating and displaying data for US Health Care Information Exchange (HIE) and Enterprise Master Patient Index (EMPI) requirements. It also has the building solutions which meet the international Health Level Seven (HL7) and US government Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA.). Its current offerings include Accenx Exchange, a SaaS offering which allows the building of information sharing communities in the area of medical records, so this might even be considered a ‘Cloud Computing’ move. It claims to be able to save its customers significant costs – $124 million over a the next three years at the University of Pittsburgh medical Center for instance.
Some Conclusions – Advantages In Acquisition, Health Care And Advanced Analytics
From a strategic angle there are a number of interesting connections. In particular:
- Acquisition Activity – Initiate will be added to Lombardi, Guardium, the assets of Wilshire Credit, SPSS, RedPill, Ounce Labs, the assets of Exeros, Outblaze’s email assets and ILOG – all of which it has acquired in the last year. IBM, was once less inclined to buy companies than – say – Oracle, has been using the downturn to pick up businesses
- The Heath Care sector is very important in the US, whether or not President Obama succeeds in introducing some national service or not. Like other major suppliers IBM is developing its business here. Of course Health is part of Government business in many countries already.
- Advanced Analytics is becoming a major ITC theme, as the amount of new (and sometimes unstructured) data needs to be processed. There are clear advantages to patients, hospitals and health authorities in moving from islands of automation to larger databases, especially in comparing and contrasting diseases and cures – even if the development of the UK National Health Service’s centralised database has been shelved for now. Who knows, maybe with IBM’s new expertise it may be able to bid on the project some time in the future.
Overall the acquisition should play well with IBM’s Smarter Planet campaign – a clever move to address (usually) Government-involved projects over the last few years. However it may find the sector more difficult as the year goes on, as the loss of tax revenue may restrict funding for such excercises, as it has in the UK. For a realy good detailed analysis of this acquitition from a Health Industy point of view see chilmark’s article.
Have you worked with Initiate? Let me know about your experiences by commenting on this article.