Eden Prairie, Minn.-based Ingenix, a health information technology and services company, announced it is acquiring San Jose, Calif.-based Axolotl, a health information exchange (HIE) provider. The combined company will enable health information to be shared effectively and securely for the benefit of patients and health care professionals. The Axolotl management team will remain in place and will lead Ingenix’s efforts in health care community connectivity.
Axolotl develops and implements HIE solutions for states, communities, hospitals and health systems. Ingenix brings decision-support capabilities that can be combined with an HIE solution to further enhance health outcomes and improve efficiencies.
Ingenix currently provides health information technology and consulting solutions to more than 240,000 physicians and nearly 6,000 hospitals. Ingenix also serves multiple state and federal government agencies and health care payers with solutions, including decision support, care management, data warehousing, revenue cycle management, and with consulting on health and human services policy and program implementation.
Ingenix and Axolotl both offer solutions that are interoperable with multiple health information solutions. Axolotl’s Elysium Exchange solutions are used by nearly 30,000 physicians, 100,000 health care professionals, over 200 hospitals, 20 Regional Health Information Organizations (RHIOs), and four statewide HIEs–sharing information from more than 35 million patients.
Recent U.S. government stimulus funding has put greater national attention and resources behind developing HIEs. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) provides $783 million in near-term direct funding for the implementation of statewide and community HIEs and $36.5 billion in incentives for hospitals and physicians to promote implementation and utilization of interoperable electronic medical record (EMR) systems. Axolotl’s HIE solutions provide the clinical networking capability to support ARRA interoperability standards and assist hospitals and physicians in meeting “meaningful use” requirements across a variety of health information and electronic health record systems.
