US medical insurer Aetna to buy Medicity for about $500 million

Aetna Inc, the third largest medical insurer in the US, yesterday agreed to buy health information technology company Medicity, for about $500 million.

Salt Lake City, Utah-based Medicity was founded in 1998 by an emergency department physician frustrated by the lack of patient information available when needed to make critical, often life and death clinical decisions.

Long before anyone envisioned that government funds would be available to electronically exchange health information between physicians, hospitals, and other providers, Medicity made its mark as an innovator in the HIE market.

Medicity provides technology that helps more than 700 hospitals and 125,000 physicians participate in the exchange of patient information anytime, anywhere.

Having the largest installed base of enterprise HIE systems for hospitals, physicians and other health care providers, Medicity helps patients and their families to proactively manage their health and enhance physician-to-physician collaboration to improve patient care while reducing costs.

Aetna, based in Hartford, Connecticut is one of the nation's leading diversified health care benefits companies, serving about 35.4 million people with information and resources to help them make better informed decisions about their health care.