APR 27, 2012 11:44am ET

Related Links

Three HIT Vendors Make Buys
June 18, 2013
CMS Updates 2014 Clinical Quality Measures for Eligible Professionals
June 18, 2013
EHR Vendors Develop a Code of Conduct
June 11, 2013
HIT Vendor News Roundup: Krames, Wolters Kluwer, RAM Technologies & NextGen
June 11, 2013
Expert: Industry Not Ready for SNOMED Criteria in Stage 2
June 10, 2013
Cleveland Clinic Expanding Patient EHR Access
June 7, 2013
CCHIT Framework Walks Through I.T. Needs of ACOs
June 7, 2013

Financial Decline, Departures Roil Allscripts

Print
Reprints
Email

The stock price of physician/hospital software vendor Allscripts dropped 40.6 percent at the open of trading on April 27 after the company announced poor first quarter financial results, lowered expectations for the rest of 2012, and announced the departure of its chief financial officer and four board members including Chairman Phil Pead.

Pead was terminated and three board members opposing the decision resigned. CFO Bill Davis will leave in May to join another company outside the industry. Allscripts has named Dave Morgan, senior vice president of finance, as interim CFO.

Nearly 45 million shares traded hands during the first hour of trading on April 27, compared with a daily average of about 3 million shares. The stock had lost up to 45 percent of its value during extended trading after the market closed on April 26.

Allscripts announced first quarter revenue of $364.7 million, which was $23 million below what investment analytics expected, according to Thomson Reuters. Non-GAPP earnings per share for the quarter totaled 12 cents, half of what was expected.

In a statement, CEO Glen Tullman acknowledged problems with integration of the Allscripts and Eclipsys product lines, new releases and customer satisfaction.

“Our overall results were primarily affected by lower than expected sales and an unfavorable sales mix, which directly impacted revenue and profit,” he said. “In addition, our investments in improving client experience and accelerating product development, as well has higher than expected software development expense, also put pressure on our bottom line.

“While Allscripts continued to win important new clients, including three new Sunrise Clinical Manager contracts in the quarter, a number of our clients and prospects delayed commitments as they wait for us to introduce new releases and demonstrate more robust integration. This dynamic, combined with the recent reorganization of our sales and service teams, were the primary factors that caused sales to be lower than our expectations.

“We believe our revised full-year guidance for the remainder of 2012 gives us flexibility to further invest as necessary to improve client experience and focus on key product requirements and innovation, which will be our highest priority.”

At least five investment firms have downgraded Allscripts stock and an article on the Forbes Web site called on Tullman to resign.

Comments (3)
Vendor services do not drive changes in healthcare, the changes eminate from "delivery innovation". Health Information systems are a commodity and unfortunately - the technology changes so fast that it is hard to build a decent return on system investments before the system is considered "old". Little patches and updates won't do it - and all of the health information system's promise of great savings, have never bee substaintated in hard dollars. Allscripts is not alone in underestimating training and implementation costs and now that the real costs are being exposed - the grand illusion has lost it's luster to the medical practice that needs to be ultra careful on how it spends the health care dollar. The record of a sustainable model for EHR and clinical integration that has useful hard dollar value - is still yet to come.
Posted by Dennis G | Friday, April 27 2012 at 4:03PM ET
The majority of EMRs today do not improve provider productivity .. they actually hurt it. The beneficiaries of these applications tend to be the policy people who want more data to ... well, lots of different things. Should practices automate? Yes, but the automation needs to be built around improved processes and defined achieveable benefits not an analyst's or a policy person's need for better data.
Posted by Arthur T | Monday, April 30 2012 at 1:25PM ET
Add Your Comments:
You must be registered to post a comment.
Not Registered?
You must be registered to post a comment. Click here to register.
Already registered? Log in here
Please note you must now log in with your email address and password.
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn

There are well over 400 accountable care organizations in the nation now and about two dozen self-sustaining health information exchanges.

Login  |  My Account  |  White Papers  |  Web Seminars  |  Events |  Newsletters |  eBooks
FOLLOW US
Already a subscriber? Log in here
Please note you must now log in with your email address and password.