IBM, Baxter Form Venture to Tap Health-Care Market
The world’s dominant computer firm and the nation’s largest hospital supply concern said Thursday that they would join forces to develop computer products and services for the rapidly growing health-care information management market.
International Business Machines Corp. and Baxter International Inc. said they will form a joint venture information management company that will serve all segments of the health-care industry. The new company, a 50-50 partnership between IBM and Baxter, will employ 800 when it becomes operational.
The joint venture will sell products and services to hospitals of all sizes as well as to individual doctors and group practices, said Scott Roeth, director of health industries at Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM. “We will have services for financial applications and clinical applications of health care,” he added. These software products would, for example, manage hospital billing and patient-care records.
$11-Billion Market
The joint venture is expected to be in place by the end of the year to compete in the $11-billion worldwide market for health-care-related computer products and services. The companies declined to disclose financial terms of the transaction.
Both IBM and Baxter currently provide a range of computer products and services to the health-care industry. Baxter, based in Deerfield, Ill., said it will spin off its Systems and Annson Systems divisions into the new partnership.
IBM said certain of its health-care software products and development projects will also be transferred to the Long Island, N.Y.-based joint venture, as well as a small number of IBM employees.
The joint venture will take over the software applications portion of an ongoing IBM project to develop an integrated bedside workstation for nurses, Roeth said. “We have a great interest in the nursing area,” he said. The goal of the project is to provide nurses immediate access to patient records, allowing them to update those computer records at the bedside. “We want to automate as much as we can for the nurse at bedside,” he added.
