Microsoft Corp. has acquired "health intelligence" software that
pulls patient data from various sources into one location and
allows instant access to health records.
The software, called Azyxxi, which rhymes with "Trixie," was
first deployed a decade ago in the emergency department of
Washington Hospital Center, the largest private hospital in
Washington, D.C.
As part of the deal to acquire the intellectual property for the
software, Microsoft also will work with MedStar Health,
which operates the hospital, to further develop and expand Azyxxi,
company and hospital officials said Wednesday.
Software creators Craig Feied, Mark Smith, and Fidrik Iskandar,
all medical doctors, and about 40 employees from the Washington
Hospital Center development team will join Microsoft and work on
Azyxxi, it was announced during a press conference at the
hospital.
Smith will stay as chairman of the hospital's emergency medicine
department and also will be chief clinical liaison to
Microsoft.
Peter Neupert, vice president of Microsoft's health solutions
group, will head a new company division that includes the employees
involved in the acquisition. That division will manage product
development and commercialization with the goal of releasing Azyxxi
in the U.S. and eventually globally.
Washington Hospital Center will be the "development lab" for
ongoing Azyxxi work, developing product prototypes and trying out
new features of the software.
Azyxxi was designed to allow data sharing across disparate
software systems and currently manages more than 40T bytes of live
data that can be immediately accessed, according to its development
team. It was built on Microsoft's .Net Framework, with the
company's SQL Server database. It can be used on a variety of
devices, including tablet and pocket PCs and scales relative to the
size of the health-care institution.
The software was described Wednesday as being easy to install,
with a user friendly interface and "almost zero downtime."
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
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