Medsphere Systems, a purveyor of an open-source electronic health record system derived from a federal EHR, has acquired ChartLogic, a provider of a web-based systems and billing services for office-based physicians.
Salt Lake City-based ChartLogic's sales push is that it uses speech recognition and templates customized to a physician's medical specialty to create a more facile physician-computer user interface, speeding up documentation times for a complete patient note to 90 seconds.
The Veterans Health Administration's VistA system on which Medsphere's OpenVistA EHR is based serves 990 outpatient clinics as well as more than 150 hospitals. So, this acquisition wasn't to provide Medsphere with an ambulatory EHR, but with additional customers, according to Irv Lichtenwald, Medsphere president and CEO.
Lichtenwald would not disclose the value of the all-stock transaction. All ChartLogic employees will become Medsphere employees. Its CEO, Zubin Emsley, will become president of the ChartLogic division of Medsphere, based in Carlsbad, Ca., Lichtenwald said.
The deal is expected to close June 30, according to a press release.
No Medsphere clients have their inpatient EHR system connected to ChartLogic's EHR, yet, he said. But several of those hospitals do have ChartLogic-using physicians in their service areas. The two EHRs will be integrated in the near future, he said.
“ChartLogic has done a very good job and has built up a group of clients throughout the U.S.,” Lichtenwald said. “And if you look at the goal of interoperability, it only makes sense to expand in this area. Hospitals make money today by getting patients in beds. They get patients through emergency rooms and referrals from doctors.” Having an integrated EHR serving both and “playing nicely with one another” will be good for both, he said.
In February, Medsphere acquired Cleveland-based MBS/Net, which also provides health IT systems to ambulatory physician practices.
Medsphere aims to have both its OpenVistA and ChartLogic software tested and certified for use in Stage 3 of the federal EHR incentive payment program before the end of 2017, Lichtenwald said.
