Microsoft sheds Health Solutions Group

At HIMSS12 in Las Vegas, Microsoft and GE Healthcare have announced further details of their new joint company – Caradigm – which was first announced earlier in February.

Caradigm will take products and personnel from Microsoft’s Health Solutions Group, which will cease to exist, and from GE Healthcare.

It will also take responsibility for Microsoft Amalga customers, including Milton Keynes Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in the UK.

Sources in Las Vegas close to Microsoft told eHealth insider the creation of the new company was triggered by Microsoft’s impatience with the HSG initiative, which was originally created to commoditise healthcare IT software.

Speaking anonymously, former HSG employees said Microsoft had called time on the HSG after five years of investment, and that the writing had been on the wall for some time. “The expectation was to create a billion dollar company,” said one Las Vegas insider.

Another source expressed relief that the HSG assets had been found a new home and not just been liquidated.

The official line is that Caradigm has been created to “transform the care paradigm.” The new company will focus on enabling healthcare providers and professionals to use real-time, system-wide intelligence to improve healthcare quality and outcomes.

Caradigm will develop and market an open, interoperable technology platform and collaborative clinical applications.

These will be focused on enabling better population health management to improve outcomes and the economics of health and wellness

Microsoft will transfer across its Amalga health intelligence platform and its single sign-on products; while GE Healthcare will contribute its eHealth health information exchange and Qualibra, a clinical knowledge tool.

At a Tuesday launch event at the HIMSS12 show, Michael J. Simpson, the GE executive who will be chief executive officer of the new company, told eHealth Insider that Caradigm would have “a strong focus on the UK” and that it would aim to work with Milton Keynes to develop it as a “reference site” for Amalga.

Microsoft will retain the HealthVault personal health platform, which is now expected to be positioned as a consumer proposition. Sources told EHI the decision to retain HealthVault was a close run thing.

In October 2011, Microsoft sold its Amalga Health Information System and Amalga RIS/PACS solutions to Orion Health Asia Pacific.