News in brief - June 20, 2005

CMS offers free tech assistance - HealthGate to deregister its stock

CMS offers free tech assistance

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in May entered into a three-year contract under which it will pay a national network of Quality Improvement Organizations to help small and medium-size practices assess and use electronic medical records and other information technology in their offices.

Doctors will not have to pay for the service, which is scheduled to begin this year.

More information is available on the Web site of the American Health Quality Assn., which represents QIOs (www.ahqa.org/pub/media/159_679_5182.cfm).

HealthGate to deregister its stock

HealthGate Data Corp. on May 26 filed a document with the Securities and Exchange Commission to voluntarily deregister its stock from the Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board and to suspend filing financial reports with the SEC.

The Burlington, Mass-based company, which sells evidence-based clinical guidelines software, said its action was based on a number of factors, including the cost of filing reports, its stock being held by fewer than 300 shareholders and lack of liquidity for its stock.

HealthGate now expects its stock to trade on the Pink Sheets, an electronic quotation service primarily for penny stocks and stocks that don't meet listing requirements of major stock exchanges. But there is no assurance that trading in its stock will continue, HealthGate said.

A few weeks previously, HealthGate had announced the sale of its patient content repository business to Ipswich, Mass.-based EBSCO Publishing for $8.1 million in cash, plus the assumption of liabilities.