QHR Technologies Inc. today announced that the Company has signed a Letter of Intent to acquire up to 100% of the shares in Clinicare Corporation, a privately held Calgary based Electronic Medical Records company. The purchase is subject to TSX Venture Exchange approval, Clinicare shareholder acceptance and to normal closing conditions, which is expected to be completed by the end of November, 2009.
Clinicare’s Board of Directors have unanimously recommended QHR’s offer to acquire their shares of the company and acceptance by the Clinicare shareholders. QHR and Clinicare have entered into an Exclusivity & Standstill Agreement that is effective immediately and until completion of shareholder purchase agreements.
Once completed, QHR will merge the Clinicare operations with its EMR division, Optimed Software Corporation (“Optimed”), and intends to retain Clinicare’s Calgary and Toronto offices. Optimed will then be supporting over 3,000 physicians across Canada in almost every province for its products, with over 2,000 physicians utilizing EMR. QHR believes more Canadian physicians will be using Optimed’s EMR than any other EMR solution and these physician clients have the most extensive EMR database of patient information in Canada.
Clinicare Corporation, founded in 1984, has approximately 1,200 physicians on their EMR and Practice Management software in Canada and the USA. Clinicare is well known in Canadian Healthcare circles as the EMR industry leader for the larger Canadian clinics. Many of Clinicare’s physician clients were the early adopters of EMR systems and the drivers behind the adoption of EMR across Canada.
Clinicare is one of four certified EMR vendors in Manitoba (along with Optimed) and one of six full certification OntarioMD CMS version 3.0 vendors. Physicians who implement CMS 3.0 systems are eligible for part of the $236M in physician funding program recently announced by OntarioMD.
In announcing the acquisition, Mr. Hildebrandt said, “Clinicare and Optimed have been competing for the past 6 years in the EMR market. Both companies have invested significant amounts in development to gain market acceptance and provincial certification. Now those duplicate development dollars can be turned into enhancing our marketing efforts across the country and increasing levels of customer support. The level of functionality that a Clinicare client would use in their EMR system and guidance from many of Canada’s EMR pioneers will be an asset to Optimed’s growing community”.
Internally, Optimed’s General Manager, Fred Chapman, already has a strong relationship with most of the Clinicare customers from his former roles with Clinicare from 1989 until 2005, most recently as COO and VP Sales.
Mr. Karim Kanji, President & CFO for Clinicare states “Clinicare’s shareholders and Board of Directors wanted to ensure that the ongoing operations of Clinicare was placed in the hands of people who understood the EMR business, were able to immediately deliver more current technology and would ensure that our clients’ extensive amount of patient data would be completely transferred when the clients choose to upgrade to Optimed’s product in the next 3-5 years. QHR’s overall business operation goes beyond EMR which allows Clinicare to join a larger organization, thereby protecting our customers’ investments and providing opportunities for our employees to continue servicing the customers they have built relationships with.”
