Spheris acquires HealthScribe

Spheris, a global medical transcription technology and outsourcing services company, has announced that it has acquired Avicis Inc., formerly known as HealthScribe Inc.

Avicis/HealthScribe, founded in 1993, currently serves over 150 healthcare facilities with a transcription workforce of over 1,800 medical transcriptionists and a wholly-owned international transcription operation.

As the industry's second largest medical transcription company, Spheris provides a broad choice of technology and services to many of the country's largest and most prestigious acute-care hospitals and group medical practices.

With the acquisition of Avicis/HealthScribe, currently US's third largest medical transcription outsource provider, Spheris is now positioned to more rapidly expand its product and service offering of complete medical transcription technology and outsourcing services to healthcare providers throughout the US and Canada. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

"Combined with Spheris' 3,200 medical transcriptionists, Avicis' 1,800-plus MTs will greatly increase our ability to deliver industry leading turnaround, quality and service," stated David Ehrhardt, Avicis/HealthScribe former president and COO and now Spheris COO.

"The healthcare industry has a responsibility to move rapidly forward to paperless, digitised medical records," stated Steven E Simpson, Spheris president and CEO.

"Companies of scale, such as Spheris, with extended workforce coverage and a clear strategy to convert healthcare provider voice and handwriting to digital medical information are critical to achieving a paperless environment. To accelerate this effort, the combination of two leading North American-based transcription workforces, along with global resource capabilities, makes sound strategic sense." Simpson continued: "Our new, combined company is strongly positioned to advance the cause toward a more clinically effective and economically efficient healthcare industry."

Simpson sees the business combination as an opportunity to respond to customer demand for increased choice. "In addition to listening to our customers we conducted market research this year that affirmed the demand for more innovative approaches ."