US company Lockheed Martin, which has a strategic partnership with Israeli company Sirius Technologies in the North American clinical medicine information systems market, has recently signed agreements to computerise the clinical systems and clinical data warehouses of two US health organisations that include five hospitals and sixty clinics.
Lockheed Martin is a huge US company with annual sales turnover of $30 billion. The company has a wide range of technological activities, from building space shuttles and advanced combat aircraft to management of complex computerisation and systems integration projects that bring together multifarious technologies. In recent years, Lockheed Martin has sought to increase the proportion of its revenue deriving from the private sector. Medical information systems for very large medical organisations is one of a select list of strategic areas Lockheed Martin has chosen to focus upon.
Sirius Technologies is an Israeli software house that specialises in enterprise systems for computerising clinical workstations and clinical data warehouses in medical organisations. The company operates from offices in the Malha technology park in Jerusalem, and through a subsidiary in Atlanta, Georgia.
The first medical organisation with which Lockheed signed an agreement is ACMH, which provides various medical services to an extensive rural area in north-west Pennsylvania. Under the agreement, Lockheed Martin will supply ACMH with Sirius software products for the clinic environment, a clinical data warehouse, and integration of the Sirius system with the organisation’s existing systems. The importance of the deal lies in its potential as an archetypal model for the US Congress, (which is financing part of the project), for the computerisation of a regional hospital serving a rural population over a wide geographical area.
The second medical organisation with which Lockheed Martin has signed an agreement is UHS, an association of four hospitals, fifty peripheral clinics, two long term care organisations, and a home care organisation. UHS serves a district with 2.5 million residents in the west of New York State.
The two companies are at advanced stages of joint negotiations over other agreements with medium-size and large medical organisations in the US, some of which are expected to be signed before the end of 1998.
Published by Israel's Business Arena on July 14, 1998