Stalis acquires Silverlink

01 Sep 2008

UK health IT vendor Stalis has acquired clinical software developer Silverlink for an undisclosed sum.

Stalis says the merged company will be better able to provide UK public and private healthcare customers with a significantly expanded local care record service solution.

The company says the market is showing signs of renewed life, with opportunities arising as NHS trusts seek interim solutions and foundation trusts begin to show their independence.

The merger is intended to enable the development of a single integrated product line, combining Silverlink’s clinical software and Stalis’ expertise in data migration, integration and warehousing.

Silverlink is the developer of the PCS patient administration system, which is widely used within the NHS. PCS, which is also supplied by iSoft as iCS, is implemented in 18 NHS trusts under 11 major contracts. The most recent is at Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, which Stalis implemented in 2007.

Stalis is best known as a provider of data migration services and its CareXML patient data repository suite. CareXML has recently been expanded to include a local data warehouse and business activity manager, which is being implemented at Moorfields Eye Hospital, Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust and the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre NHS Trust.

Roger Wallhouse, chairman of Stalis, told E-Health Insider that the deal was partly driven by the need to respond to new market opportunities in the NHS, and particularly by the growing need that many trusts have for interim systems.

“Trusts are looking for interim solutions and the new company will be able to offer them a much more capable range of solutions, not just a PAS but a full electronic patient record solution,” he said. “We strongly believe we will be able to offer the market an unrivalled solution at a time when trusts will have a greater freedom of choice."

John Evitt, co-founder of Silverlink, said the merger would provide “enhanced capability to our clients and build upon what we have collectively achieved to date.”

Stalis says it is currently developing the next version of its clinical work station, ePatient, which in its new version will be fully integrated with PCS to provide a single electronic patient record in support of all clinical specialties.

The Stalis chairman said that over the past 30 years, the development of clinical IT in the UK had been driven forward by small and medium sized enterprises, who are close to their NHS and private sector customers and responsive to their needs.

“SMEs continue to be by far and away the best provdiers of software in healthcare,” said Wallhouse. “The view that only big firms can deliver is absolute nonsense in many ways.”

The deal, which has been under discussion for the past 18-months, has been carried out in two stages. For the time being both companies will continue to trade under their existing names. Once the deal completed they will trade as Stalis Ltd.

The deal, which has been funded by Stalis’s current Private Equity investors and HSBC PLC Corporate and Structured UK, was finally announced last Friday.

Jon Hoeksma

Reader's Comments

Like a phoenix from the ashes ...

01 Sep 08 18:59

"Market is showing signs of renewed life, with opportunities arising as NHS trusts seek interim solutions and foundation trusts begin to show their independence."

Interim solutions? Independence? Are they saying that the National Programme's death throes are breathing new life into NHS IT?

Tell us something we didn't know already!