Healthcare Information Services history

In 1978 IMS acquired Argentan Ltd. to further capitalize on the opportunity created by the new law.

In 1979 the company introduced one of its most important products, the multinational integrated data analysis service.

In 1982, Dragon Systems developed a voice recognition prototype to the cheers of medical assistants everywhere!

Further product and service development at IMS was influenced by Dun & Bradstreet's (D&B) acquisition of IMS in 1988.

In 1989 IMS introduced new services based on information gathered from physicians, initially in France and West Germany.

In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee established the World Wide Web and while healthcare wasn’t immediately affected, the web and browser technology established an expectation of how to access, share and navigate information.

The study wouldn’t be published until 1991, but it found security issues, lack of standards and cost were the primary barriers to adopting electronic health records at the time.

In 1994, the World Health Organization adopted the ICD-10 coding standard.

In 1995, D&B made Sales Technologies an operating unit of IMS, with the intent of further developing mobile information services specifically for healthcare and pharmaceutical sales professionals.

1996: Growth of healthcare industry-related businesses leads D&B to spin off IMS Health as a subsidiary of Cognizant Corporation.

In 1998 D&B spun off IMS and Nielsen from Cognizant Corporation, with Cognizant becoming a subsidiary of the newly formed IMS Health, Inc.

In December 1999 IMS Health launched the i-squared Internet portal.

With more than 10,000 reports available, in May 2000 IMS Health introduced an online store, at open.imshealth.com, as an alternative to the i-squared portal.

2001: The acquisition of Cambridge Pharma Consultancy fortifies consulting operations.

Toward that end, in March 2002, IMS Health acquired Cambridge Pharma Consultancy, a healthcare consulting and advisory company in the United Kingdom.

Through an alliance with Harris Interactive, announced in March 2003, IMS Health planned to develop custom research and consulting services through online physicians panels.

In his 2004 State of the Union Address, President George W. Bush called for computerized health records – the beginning of the electronic health record (EHR) revolution.

The MU program launched in stages beginning in 2011.

Akanji Daniel O., were chiefly responsible for the establishment and development of Nigeria's Health Records more than 40 years ago, Lorraine Nicholson (2012) reports.

In 2014, the ONC created Stage 2, which sought to extend the requirements of Stage 1 and promote more advanced clinical processes.

As of 2015 96 percent of hospitals and 87 percent of office-based physician practices were using electronic health records (EHRs).

Stage 3 began this year and extends into 2018.