Siemens Healthcare to acquire MobileMD

Today, Siemens Healthcare (NYSE: SI) announced that the company has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire all issued and outstanding equity of MobileMD, Inc., of Yardley, Pa., a provider of health information exchange (HIE) solutions. Since the transaction is not subject to any regulatory clearances, it is expected that the closing will occur as promptly as practicable. MobileMD's cloud-deployed HIE service liberates patient information across a community of providers, regardless of geographic, organizational, or health IT system boundaries. The HIE solution is in use by more than 110 hospitals and more than 2,000 physician practices. By allowing physician practices to maintain their preferred ambulatory health IT solution, hospitals connect even more doctors with valuable patient data, such as laboratory results, imaging results and discharge notes. When hospitals and physician practices connect through MobileMD they can engage in a robust clinical dialog that can better coordinate care by including results delivery, online ordering, referrals, scheduling, and more. The solution reduces providers' reliance on paper, phone and faxed information, and can lead to fewer duplicative or unavailable patient records, improved utilization, and a better patient experience. Along with MobileMD's focus on driving connectivity within an entire community, these efforts collectively provide the ability to deliver more coordinated patient care across settings, with a level of data availability and clinical continuity that supports organizational initiatives such as accountable care.

"The goals behind many of our country's broad, health reform initiatives are intended to improve the quality of care by doing two basic things: increase utilization of electronic technology, for a variety of benefits, and improve the coordination of care among entities that had previously not shared data well," said John Glaser, PhD, CEO, Siemens Healthcare, Health Services Business Unit. "Patients come into the healthcare system expecting physicians to help them get well by coordinating their care. Patients generally should not need to be concerned with the logistics of how their care is coordinated – they should rightfully expect that it will be coordinated. Siemens was impressed with MobileMD's capabilities to enable this level of data sharing while maintaining an impressive focus on customer satisfaction. MobileMD customers can expect to continue to experience this same level, or an improved level, of service, commitment and partnership."

MobileMD has been active in the health information exchange space since 2005. Through exceptional service and routinely delivering on their commitments the company has rapidly built a loyal customer base and an exceptional product. The company markets the cloud-based 4D HIE™, which addresses information sharing in four dimensions: care, service, economics and technology – providing physicians with near real-time, secure, clinical and administrative information regardless of location, affiliation, EMR technology or vendor.

"Connecting with our physician community is probably the single most important step needed to begin our journey toward providing accountable care and MobileMD fills that need," said Tom Pacek, Chief Information Officer, South Jersey Healthcare. "With MobileMD and Siemens we can deploy cost-effective, standards-based technology to make information available in a timely manner for our community physicians. This becomes a tremendous value-add for South Jersey Healthcare. The fact that Siemens is a leader on the provider side of the healthcare business helps assure me that MobileMD will be able to maintain its focus on delivering what I need as a healthcare provider."

MobileMD addresses the technical, legal and business complexities of connecting health systems, hospitals and physician communities in the United States healthcare market. The company's advanced transformation and distribution service provides a secure platform that supports information exchange directly into provider EHRs.

"While hospitals remain a focal point of care in the community, we see a paradigm shift whereby care is increasingly coordinated and delivered throughout the entire community at myriad locations and care settings. Patients are treated along a continuum, not at discrete locations. For patients, each event, each encounter with a provider impacts past and future care delivery. Improving clinical data access and information flow are therefore critical components necessary to facilitate a successful paradigm shift," said Todd Fisher, Vice President, MobileMD, a Siemens Business. "The synergies between our product offerings and our shared passion for improving care quality through information technology, coupled with a sizable number of common installations, created an opportunity to immediately address the needs of hospitals, physician practices and patients."