| Omnicare Acquires Medical Communications Software, Inc. |
COVINGTON, Ky., April 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Omnicare, Inc. (NYSE: OCR) today announced it has acquired Medical Communications Software, Inc. ("MCS"), a privately owned long-term care software company based in Shawnee, Kansas, in a pooling-of-interests transaction. MCS specializes in developing clinical software systems for skilled nursing, subacute and assisted living facilities. Its software product line includes resident assessment/care planning packages, outcomes measurement software, quality assurance and case mix systems. MCS has software installations in over 1,200 facilities in 47 states. "The acquisition of MCS significantly enhances our current line of long- term care software systems and expands our base of software installations to over 4,700 facilities. This makes Omnicare the largest provider of resident assessment and care planning software to long-term care facilities in the nation," said Joel F. Gemunder, Omnicare president. "The addition of MCS and its experienced management and staff to our Accu- Med Data Management Group will provide numerous growth opportunities. MCS' software system, particularly its sophisticated case mix module, will provide our client facilities with a fully integrated platform to compile and assess cost data related to patient diagnoses, drug utilization, treatment plans and other aspects of care. MCS' system allows the client facility to predict and track costs by diagnosis and levels of care, and where appropriate, to determine and analyze, on a resident-specific and facility-specific basis, resource utilization groups (RUGs) and case mix indices. This will be increasingly important to skilled nursing facilities under the new Prospective Payment System for Medicare reimbursement and to managed care organizations and other large payers as their enrollment of elderly members grows. This unique feature of MCS' software will be incorporated into Omnicare's broader- based Accu-Max(TM) suite of state-of-the-art software for long-term care which includes a complete clinical system (resident assessment/care planning), and financial management, precosting and admissions and resource utilization groups (RUGs)/case mix reporting modules," he said. "Equally important, with access to resident assessment/care plan data and our proprietary drug formulary, Omnicare pharmacists can measure the clinical and financial effectiveness of drug therapies and develop guidelines for selecting the most appropriate course of pharmaceutical treatment for the elderly. Moreover, the addition of MCS will further expand the comprehensive clinical database which Omnicare is compiling on long-term care facility residents. This facilitates our disease and outcomes management in the geriatric population and enhances the opportunities for our contract research businesses," Mr. Gemunder explained. "We believe this transaction represents a very positive step that will benefit our clients and our employees," said Stephen Blackford, MCS president. "We have been impressed by Omnicare's commitment not only to lead the industry as an institutional pharmacy services provider, but also to become the technology leader in long-term care. Working together, we can provide our long-term care clients with efficient, cost-effective software packages that will meet their ever-increasing needs in a new reimbursement environment and that provide the basis for superior care for the elderly." Omnicare, headquartered in Covington, Kentucky, is a leading geriatric pharmaceutical care company with current annualized revenues of approximately $1.2 billion. Including its pending acquisition of CompScript, Inc., Omnicare serves nearly 470,000 residents in more than 5,700 long-term care facilities in 37 states, making it the nation's largest provider of professional pharmacy and related consulting and data management services for long-term care, assisted living and other institutional health care facilities. Omnicare also provides comprehensive clinical research services for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.
SOURCE Omnicare, Inc. |