Healthland (formerly Dairyland) has acquired American Health Net (AHN), a struggling HIS vendor based in Omaha, Nebraska. AHN is the 2nd acquisition by Healthland in the past year, the other being APS, a small, TX-based HIS vendor with about 20 financial system clients.
AHN had been attempting to penetrate the small-hospital market by a re-write of its older financial systems (originally based on Nelson Data) into a Client/Server, VB & SQL platform they called Clarus. The new system demo'd very well, but sales had been hard to come by since all applications were not yet finished. AHN's original management sold out to an Asian-Indian firm a few years ago, who now have sold it to Healthland. AHN had about 15 sites on various pieces of Clarus, plus about 55 on the older financial system.
Healthland has about 400 client hospitals, mostly in the under 25-bed Critical Access Hospital market, which they dominate. In the press release, President Jim Burgess stated the primary interest was in AHN's client base, so their aim will probably be to convert the ANH client base to the Healthland integrated HIS system. I'm sure competitors like CPSI and HMS will be making a few calls on the AHN client base. As if the ARRA stimulus funding isn't generating enough buying activity these days...
