Microsoft to Acquire Innovative Healthcare Technology and Assets From Global Care Solutions

Building on a worldwide commitment to improving health through software technology, Microsoft Corp. has agreed to acquire software, intellectual property and other assets from Global Care Solutions (GCS), a privately held company based in Bangkok, Thailand, that develops enterprise-class health information systems. The acquisition complements Microsoft’s already strong portfolio of health solutions and will provide hospitals across international markets with a new alternative to achieve improved workflow and patient safety through information technology. GCS employees will join Microsoft’s Health Solutions Group, which will manage product development and delivery. Financial terms were not disclosed.

“We were impressed by Global Care Solutions’ state-of-the-art health information system, which has enabled a hugely complex facility like Bumrungrad International hospital to achieve amazing outcomes related to improved workflow and patient safety,” said Peter Neupert, corporate vice president for the Health Solutions Group at Microsoft. “The international, fully integrated nature of the GCS technology, and the fact that it is built from the ground up on scalable Microsoft technology, makes this a great addition to our portfolio of health enterprise products as we look to power developing and emerging hospital systems around the globe.”

Global Care Solutions designed and developed its end-to-end system in collaboration with Bumrungrad, an internationally accredited facility based in Bangkok. The hospital, which treats more than 1.2 million patients from 190 countries each year, uses the GCS solution to efficiently manage clinical workflow, billing, regulatory compliance and medical records. Microsoft will continue to work closely with Bumrungrad to further build out the functionality and features of the GCS technology.

“We have a diverse patient population at Bumrungrad, with over 400,000 foreign patients every year; half of the 3,200 patients we see each day arrive without appointments,” said Mack Banner, the chief executive officer of the hospital. “The GCS solution has allowed us to manage scheduling demands, multiple languages and medical records so efficiently that the average waiting time to see a doctor is only 17 minutes. The GCS software is a key to our service delivery, medical quality and financial performance, and we look forward to collaborating with Microsoft on extending its applications across our organization.”

The offering from GCS, which has been on the market since 2000, won a Microsoft Certified Partner award for Data Management Solution of the Year in 2003 as an industry-leading acute care, clinical-patient information solution. Global Care Solution’s system is a fully integrated suite of 50 clinical and back-office application modules designed and optimized to run all hospital clinical and administrative operations on Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft SQL Server 2005. It is implemented and in use in seven hospitals around the Asia-Pacific region. The new Microsoft offering based on the GCS technology will complement the company’s current Azyxxi solution, which provides a data integration capability for hospitals with legacy systems already in place.

“We have been developing this product passionately for several years and are thrilled to see a company with the resources of Microsoft poised to bring it to a bigger world stage,” said Pat Downing, CEO of Global Care Solutions. “This is the perfect time in our company’s history to accelerate worldwide availability and allow our product to bring new light to health organizations across the globe, where the deployment of information technology can translate directly to better healthcare and, ultimately, healthier people.”