Saints Medical Center of Lowell, Mass., and Steward Health Care System have signed a letter of intent for Saints to become part of Steward, a regional accountable care organization (ACO) and community hospital network based in Boston.

Esaote International has entered an agrement to acquire 3mensio Medical Imaging Systems. The acquisition will enable Esaote's Pie Medical Imaging group to expand its role in healthcare IT.

NCI has acquired the outstanding capital stock of AdvanceMed, an affiliate of CSC, for $62 million.

Morton Hospital and Medical Center, a 154-bed hospital in Taunton, Mass., has agreed to be acquired by Steward Health Care System.

CSC has signed an agreement to acquire all of the outstanding equity of advanced applications provider iSOFT Group. The offer to iSOFT shareholders is 0.17 Australian dollars per share in cash.

Quest Diagnostics has commenced a tender offer for Celera, a genetic diagnostics developer, for $8 per share in cash, or approximately $671 million.

MD-IT, a provider of medical documentation software, has acquired Word For Word Transcription, a company in Lake Worth, Fla.

Since radiologists first began using voice recognition more than 30 years ago, supporters and resistors have debated the software intenselyin clinical journals as well as across reading room cubicle walls.