Kelowna-based QHR Technologies Inc. has announced it will acquire EMIS Inc., the Canadian branch of the U.K.’s largest vendor of electronic medical records (EMR) technology.
The deal will see QHR’s EMR division, Optimed Software Corp., absorb EMIS’s Canadian client base and staff.
QHR president and CEO Al Hildebrandt noted that this is QHR’s 11th acquisition over the past eight years across Canada.
EMIS is one of five provincially approved and subsidized physician information technology office (PITO) vendors.
Hildebrandt noted that, while Optimed will originally continue to support EMIS’ technology, it will be applying for the PITO designation for its own EMR technology, Accuro EMR, under the technology change provisions of that designation.
Hildebrandt said Optimed successfully carried out a similar process in Ontario last November, replacing the Ontario government-approved EMR product with Optimed’s product following an acquisition.
He noted that the end goal of the EMIS acquisition, as with earlier acquisitions, is the transition from the acquired company’s client base to Optimed’s technology
“You cannot afford to keep duplicate development streams going,” he said.
Currently about 25% of Canadian doctors use EMR systems, he said, and the market is growing. As to Optimed’s expansion plans into the B.C. market, Hildebrandt said the company is looking “to get as many doctors as we can.”
But he noted that acquisition plays only a limited part in expansion in the EMR market.
“It’s done mostly by referrals.”