Microsoft to Halt Sales of Amalga HIS Systems – Full Speed Ahead With Amalga UIS and HealthVault

If you are a casual reader here, this may be a bit confusing with the products, but there have been two versions of Amalga that Microsoft has produced and marketed. The Amalga HIS Systems was a total EHR program from ground up for hospitals that had nothing in Health IT and was sold to the international market outside the US and this is the system that is coming to a close, however, current customers of course will continue to be supported. If you remember back in 2007, this was a software system purchased by Microsoft.

Microsoft Renames Its Enterprise Health Care Software - Amalga

Now back on track the Amalga UIS aggregation system which is in use all over the US is continuing, which bridges current Health IT systems with aggregating patient data for better patient care and information. Last year I spoke with Steve Shihadeh, a vice president with Microsoft Health Solutions and he explained the difference between he 2 products quite well as well as how HeatlhVault integrates as the PHR solution.

Steve Shihadeh, VP Microsoft Health Solutions Group – The Amalga Software Solution for Aggregating Hospital Information (Interview)

Also I spoke recently to Chris Sullivan at Microsoft and he gave me a recent update on the support and software aimed at helping the smaller practices and clinics.

Microsoft Talks About Healthcare Provider Solutions – Interview With US Director Chris Sullivan

Also in the news of late was a mention of President Steve Ballmer waking up the government a bit on how long software projects work at Microsoft and their evaluation, so this story kind of fits the mold here with what Mr. Ballmer announced, in other words urging government entities to evaluate their processes sooner and not hang on to antiquated processes or software. BD

Shrinking Federal Budgets May Be Opening Doors of Opportunity for Microsoft – US CIO Shelving Projects That are Not Working

Microsoft is to stop selling its Amalga Hospital Information System to new customers, the company will also cease development of the Amalga HIS product family.

The company will instead focus its efforts on two platforms, the Amalga Unified Intelligence System for enterprise health customers; and the HealthVault personal health records platform for consumer health.

Microsoft says that Amalga UIS is a highly flexible solution that enables healthcare organizations to reengineer workflows and get information to professionals when and where they need it. So far the system is in use at 125 hospitals.

The US technology giant says that when combined with Microsoft HealthVault, a Web-based personal health platform designed to put people in control of their health information, Amalga UIS supports consumer engagement and patient-provider connections.

The Amalga HIS product was acquired from Global Care Solutions in 2007, developed for healthcare systems in emerging economies. Microsoft has found it more difficult than anticipated to commoditize HIS technology, and found the procurement processes longer than expected.