I’ve been writing and tracking the EHR consolidation world for a long time. It’s always fascinating to me to see how various EHR companies merge, shut down, or build their own little (and sometimes big) empire. Today I was greeted by the announcement that Modernizing Medicine had acquired gMed. I found the announcement pretty ironic since I keynoted both companies EHR user conference last year. So, I know both companies really well.
On face, they are both companies in southern Florida and so that’s going to make the transition a lot easier. Not to mention the competition for talent in the area as they grow will be a lot easier with the combined company. I talked to Dan Cane, CEO and co-founder of Modernizing Medicine, and Joe Rubinsztain, MD, CEO and founder of gMed, today about the acquisition. They told me that the combined companies will have roughly 10,000 specialty providers and 420 employees. Plus, Dan Cane commented that they expect to add over 50 to that head count over the next little while. Dan also noted that if you use meaningful use attestation data (which is a decent, but faulty proxy for EHR market share) then it puts the combined companies in the top 15 of EHR vendors. That’s pretty interesting considering they only serve a handful of medical specialties.
I’ve recently written about the power of a specialty EHR company and both of these companies had been executing the specialty specific EHR approach with great success. Who doesn’t like a piece of software that’s customized uniquely for their needs?
I asked Dan and Joe about the future plans for the two software platforms. They’re cognizant that gMed has been so successful in the marketplace because of the tight integration between its PM, EHR, and endoscopy report writer. So, I got the feeling that Modernizing Medicine will be very careful to not “disrupt the apple cart.” Although, I think Modernizing Medicine is keenly interested in taking gMed’s 18 years of experience in gastroenterology and incorporating that knowledge and expertise into the Modernizing Medicine technology. So, I think we’ll see this play out slowly and once Modernizing Medicine has caught their product up to gMed, we’ll see them sunset the gMed software. That could be a year or two at least.
There’s one caveat to all of that though. First, gMed has a PM and Modernizing Medicine doesn’t have one. I asked if Modernizing Medicine would start using the gMed PM. They won’t (at least for now) and I think that’s because Modernizing Medicine wants a truly integrated PM if they’re going to roll out their own PM. Plus, gMed’s PM has so many gastro specific features that I’m not sure it would be a good fit for a dermatologist (one of Modernizing Medicine’s best specialties). My guess is that Modernizing Medicine will utilize gMed’s PM experience to finally roll out their own PM, but we’ll see. They certainly have plenty to tackle when it comes to gastro EHR and deciding what they want to do with the endoscopy report writer which is very popular and important part of what set gMed apart from other EHR vendors.
I respect both gMed and Modernizing Medicine. So, I’m really interested to see what’s going to happen with the combined companies.
I have generally been extremely critical of EMR consolidation, acquisitions. This is one that I feel can have a positive outcome. For two reasons. One, Modernizing medicine has a better UX. Second, if MM can ‘learn’ from Gmed’s PM and billing, use Gmed’s knowledge in developing a truly integrated PM versus building a bridge to and retrofitting Gmed’s PM.
One thing is sure, it is a long term strategy.
I will be watching closely.