Elsevier announces acquisition of London-based InferMed

InferMed's decision support technology will augment Elsevier's evidence-based clinical solutions suite

Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, announced today the acquisition of InferMed, a London-based clinical decision support (CDS) technology company.

InferMed's Arezzo technology supports clinicians in choosing the most appropriate treatment path for each patient. Arezzo matches appropriate evidence-based guidelines with patient information and dynamically evaluates best-practice options in the light of current patient and disease information. Arezzo helps physicians improve care outcomes while taking unnecessary costs out of the system.

InferMed CDS systems are installed in several regional and national health systems that provide patient-facing "self-care" advice, as well as supporting nurse triage telephone services. Arezzo Pathways integrates with primary care clinical systems, reading data from the patient record to pro-actively offer guidance on best practice. Arezzo Pathways can support care plans in primary or community settings, helping to ensure timely and accurate referrals for urgent or specialist treatment for example. InferMed's MACRO is an industry-standard electronic data capture solution proven in commercial and not-for-profit clinical research since 1999. MACRO incorporates Arezzo CDS and can support adaptive/genomic clinical studies. InferMed won a prestigious Queen's Award for Enterprise in Innovation 2012 in the UK for its work in developing and commercializing these decision support systems.

"This acquisition bolsters Elsevier's set of point-of-care solutions, providing our customers with a greater ability to improve the quality of care and patient outcomes," said Jay Katzen, President, Elsevier Clinical Solutions. "InferMed will enhance our point-of-care decision support suite and provide additional capabilities to deliver better information where and when clinicians and patients have the need.

"In addition to integrating InferMed's technology into Elsevier's decision support suite, we are excited to support the great work InferMed does with its existing clients," Katzen said.

Elsevier Clinical Solutions' suite includes embedded workflow and decision support, clinical reference and patient engagement, including ClinicalKey, CPM CarePoints, ExitCare, and InOrder by Elsevier.

"Clinicians are overloaded with sometimes distracting materials, so they still very much need the right, evidence-based information at the right time in order to choose the most appropriate treatment for each patient," said Robert Dunlop, Clinical Director at InferMed. "Arezzo only offers information that's pertinent to the case in hand, yet the complete guideline remains in the background should complex cases demand little-used pathways.

"Together, with the global reach of Elsevier, we can further address the needs of acute and primary care institutions. We have a greater opportunity to meet that need as a part of Elsevier Clinical Solutions," Dunlop said.

InferMed is headquartered in London and has employees in France, Australia and New Zealand. The acquisition is effective immediately and financial terms of the transaction are not being disclosed.