Health IT Business News – Thursday, January 15, 2015

Health Catalyst, a healthcare data warehousing and analytics company, has received the top score for overall “vendor contributed value” among the early “preliminary data,” “broad BI” healthcare analytics companies profiled in a report titled “Healthcare Analytics Performance: The Data Deluge,” published this month by the respected research firm, KLAS. According to KLAS, Health Catalyst has “an innovative approach to analytics” that “bring(s) clinical discipline and problem solving to healthcare BI.” The company achieved an early performance score of 89.3 out of 100 in the report, which compared the products of fully-rated companies such as IBM, McKesson, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP. Read more.

Medsphere Systems Corporation has joined the growing chorus of voices supporting the Behavioral Health Information Technology Act of 2013 (S.1517). This legislation, introduced by Senators Rob Portman (R-OH) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) a little more than a year ago, would amend the Public Health Service and Social Security acts to define behavioral and mental health professionals as healthcare providers, making behavioral health hospitals eligible for Meaningful Use financial incentives for adopting EHRs. Read More.

Allscripts (Nasdaq:MDRX) announced that it will report its financial results for the three months and year ended December 31, 2014, after the close of regular stock market hours on Thursday, February 26, 2015. Allscripts management plans to host a conference call and webcast to discuss the company’s earnings and other information at 4:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time that same day. The Allscripts earnings announcement will be distributed immediately after the close of regular stock market hours on February 26, 2015. The announcement will also be available at Allscripts investor relations website: investor.allscripts.com. Read More.

Even as the Defense Department mulls over which team of companies to choose for its $11 billion dollar Defense Healthcare Management Systems Modernization (DHMSM) contract, one group is already laying the groundwork for the project in case they are picked. IBM and Epic, an electronic health records provider, announced Jan. 7 the formation of an advisory group of industry experts and health care providers to provide best practices and suggestions for the DHMSM contract. “Transforming care is about so much more than standards and technology,” said Andy Maner, managing partner at IBM Federal. “Having an ecosystem of experts ready to provide expertise at the outset of DHMSM will prove to be invaluable and unmatched in the marketplace.” Read More.

athenahealth  announced it will acquire RazorInsights, a leader in cloud-based electronic health record (EHR) and financial solutions for rural, critical access and community hospitals. By uniting the strengths and resources of athenahealth and RazorInsights, the combined organization is positioned to introduce new cloud-based services tied to the delivery of clinical and financial results for rural, critical access and community hospitals. In addition to positioning athenahealth to serve a new segment of the health care market, athenahealth expects this acquisition to accelerate its work to advance connectedness across the care continuum. athenahealth plans to leverage RazorInsights’ inpatient expertise and award-winning technology to extend its presence into the 50-bed-and-under inpatient care environment, which accounts for approximately one-third of the U.S. hospital market. Read More.

par8o, Healthcare’s Operating System, announced $10.5 million in Series A funding fromAtlas Venture, Founder Collective, CHV Capital and other investors. Since the company’s founding in 2012, a growing and diverse list of organizations have adopted the par8o platform, including Harvard Medical School affiliated hospitals in Boston and facilities that are part of the Mount Sinai Health System in New York. Started by the physicians who founded SERMO, par8o traces its roots back to the on-line discussions around the Affordable Care Act (ACA).The par8o Healthcare Operating System allows healthcare organizations to optimize their networks of providers and other resources to deliver quality care.