Healthcare Matters

Chicago-based Merge Healthcare has hired Allen & Company, an investment banking firm “to explore a number of strategic options, including its possible sale.” More than 1,500 hospitals and health systems use Merge solutions to manage an image, create and disseminate diagnostic reports, screen and monitor patients, etc. According to Merge, “customers are able to integrate image management with specialty products for cardiology, radiology, orthopedics, eye care, lab, anesthesiology and more to provide a foundation for interoperability.”

Merge has been a big player in the EHR marketplace, enabling image management and integration for more than 20 years. But its curious. Demand now is not only surging, but the Federal government is actually subsidizing EHR adoption. So let’s speculate for a second: Are the technologies for creating EHRs and enabling image integration becoming commodities?

—Tom Finn