Healthcare to dominate at Dictaphone with sale of Communication Recording Systems business

Dictaphone Corp. is parting with its Communication Recording Systems (CRS) business to focus more on the healthcare IT market, the dictation and speech recognition vendor announced this week. Dictaphone said that NICE Systems will be acquiring the assets of its CRS business for $38.5 million. The transaction is expected to close by the end of the second quarter of 2005.
   
According to Rob Schwager, chairman and CEO, it is the appropriate time for Dictaphone to focus its personnel, investment and other resources mainly on the healthcare business. Dictaphone's Healthcare Solutions Group deploys dictation, transcription and speech recognition software systems to hospitals in the United States.
   
The company said it will retain its Integrated Voice Systems and other business units. It intends to use the proceeds of the CRS sale to continue the pursuit of its healthcare IT growth strategy and to prepay a portion of its subordinated debt, Dictaphone said.

Around the web

RBMA President Peter Moffatt discusses some of the biggest obstacles facing the specialty in the new year. 

Deepak Bhatt, MD, director of the Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital and principal investigator of the TRANSFORM trial, explains an emerging technique for cardiac screening: combining coronary CT angiography with artificial intelligence for plaque analysis to create an approach similar to mammography.

A total of 16 cardiology practices from 12 states settled with the DOJ to resolve allegations they overbilled Medicare for imaging agents used to diagnose cardiovascular disease.