Events Calendar

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12:00 AM - Epic UGM 2025
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The 2025 DirectTrust Annual Conference
2025-08-04 - 2025-08-07    
12:00 am
Three of the most interesting healthcare topics are going to be featured at the DirectTrust Annual conference this year: Interoperability, Identity, and Cybersecurity. These are [...]
ALS Nexus Event Recap and Overview
2025-08-11 - 2025-08-14    
12:00 am
International Conference on Wearable Medical Devices and Sensors
2025-08-12    
12:00 am
Conference Details: International Conference on Wearable Medical Devices and Sensors , on 12th Aug 2025 at New York, New York, USA . The key intention [...]
Epic UGM 2025
2025-08-18 - 2025-08-21    
12:00 am
The largest gathering of Epic Users at the Epic user conference in Verona. Generally highlighted by Epic’s keynote where she often makes big announcements about [...]
Events on 2025-08-04
Events on 2025-08-11
Events on 2025-08-18
Epic UGM 2025
18 Aug 25
Verona

Events

Mergers-Acquisitions

IBM to Acquire Imaging, EHR Firm Merge Healthcare for $1B

personalised healthcare
IBM will re-enter the electronic health records business and also give supercomputer Watson the ability to “see” medical images, thanks to a planned $1 billion acquisition of Merge Healthcare.

“With this acquisition, we’re adding expertise in managing and sharing medical images. Now, we’ll integrate Watson’s ability to ‘see’ with a vast portfolio of health image data,” Mike Rhodin, senior vice president of IBM’s Watson Group, said in a company video released Thursday.

Merge specializes in medical imaging information systems for healthcare providers, clinical research operations and pharmaceutical companies. The Chicago-based vendor also offers EHR and practice management systems for orthopedics, OB/GYN and eye care.

While this will mark IBM’s return as an EHR vendor for the first time in nearly a decade and a half, the tech heavyweight is most excited about the possibilities on the imaging side.

As Watson evolves, we are tackling more complex and meaningful problems by constantly evaluating bigger and more challenging data sets,” John Kelly, senior vice president of IBM’s research portfolio, said in a press release.

“Medical images are some of the most complicated data sets imaginable, and there is perhaps no more important area in which researchers can apply machine learning and cognitive computing.  That’s the real promise of cognitive computing and its artificial intelligence components – helping to make us healthier and to improve the quality of our lives,” Kelly added.

The proposed acquisition of Merge follows Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM’s purchase in April of population health management company Phytel and cloud-based healthcare intelligence vendor Explorys. Those two deals framed the introduction of Watson Health at HIMSS15

Source