System C Healthcare has acquired private sector health IT specialists IQ Systems Services in a deal worth approximately £2m, it was announced today.
IQ is a leading supplier of patient management and clinical software solutions for private treatment centres and hospitals.
The company’s most popular product is IQUtopia, a purpose-built patient management, healthcare scheduling and clinical records management system. The system supports deployment across multiple healthcare facilities delivering cost advantages through centralised deployment and management.
IQUtopia conforms to NHS standards for information governance and security by strictly controlling access to patient-specific data and is in place at numerous private sector treatment centres including Sussex Orthopaedic NHS Treatment Centre, Will Adams NHS Treatment Centre (Gillingham), St Marys NHS Treatment Centre (Portsmouth), Midlands NHS Treatment Centre (Burton) and Eccleshill NHS Treatment Centre (Bradford) amongst others.
System C’s chief executive, Ian Denley, said: “We believe that the role of the private sector in most major health economies will be become increasingly important over the medium term, and with its significant customers and an established and well thought of product, the acquisition of IQ enables System C to expand directly into the private healthcare provider market.
“We will work closely with IQ to enhance IQUtopia, strengthen the professional services available to IQ customers, and further expand the strategic relationship with their clients,” said Dr Denley.
System C says that IQUtopia complements their MedWay patient administration and electronic patient record software, which is typically deployed into larger NHS acute trusts. System C has recently won a £7.5m contract to supply MedWay to the Isle of Man Government.
System C’s founding director, Markus Bolton, told E-Health Insider that the two companies will work together with no site closures or redundancies. In particular, development overlap will be performed to ensure their products are compatible.
“MedWay is built around big hospitals whilst ITUtopia is designed for smaller groups of people, so there will be development overlap done soon. It will take a while, but we’re looking to improve both systems and use the knowledge from them to improve our product range in both the public and private sector.”
System C says it hopes that the acquisition of IQ will accelerate its expansion into the private healthcare market as well as strengthening its product portfolio.
Bolton said that System C had already begun small amounts of work with private sector centres, and is keen to increase this through working with IQ System’s large private healthcare customer base.
IQ’s current customers include a number of major private healthcare providers including Mercury Healthcare (acquired by Care UK in April 2007), Centres of Clinical Excellence (“CCE”) and Nations Healthcare (acquired by CCE in June 2007).
System C will pay £0.8m in cash on completion, with up to a further £1.36m payable in a mixture of cash and shares over the next two years dependent on the achievement of performance targets. In the year to 31 December 2006, IQ reported turnover of £0.9m.
John Wyatt Barton, co-director of IQ, said: “Working with System C will open up many new opportunities for us. Their professional services capability and their scale are just what our clients have been asking for and they have key products which complement IQUtopia. There is a tremendous cultural fit between the two companies and we look forward to working in close collaboration to meet the exciting new opportunities ahead.”
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