The abrupt departure of influential healthcare information technology executive Pamela Pure from McKesson Corp. has left some in the industry scratching their heads and wondering whats next for the IT giant.
The San Francisco-based pharmaceutical supply chain and electronic health-record developer announced unexpectedly last week that Pure, president of McKesson Technology Solutions and executive vice president of the corporation, had left effective March 30. Pure, one of Modern Healthcares Top 25 Women in Healthcare in 2005, was scheduled to give a presentation this week at a McKesson luncheon and news briefing during the annual Healthcare Information Management Systems and Society conference in Chicago.
The announcement triggered one analyst to downgrade the companys stock to neutral from outperform. Mounting headwinds are generating concern for investors, according to R. W. Baird & Co. analyst Eric Coldwell in a market report. Pures departure adds to other economic conditions that have created selling pressures for the technology solutions business, Coldwell said in the report. He declined to comment for this story.