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Fresenius (FMS) to Jointly Develop Acumen with Epic Systems

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Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co. KGAA (FMS - Free Report) announced that it would jointly develop Acumen 2.0 with Epic Systems Corporation. Acumen is a web-enabled application for nephrologists, providing comprehensive information about the physician practice, dialysis unit, hospital, pharmacy, laboratory and vascular access center.

Stock Performance

Over the last three months, the price performance of Fresenius Medical was not encouraging. The stock added a meager 0.69%, underperforming the Zacks classified Medical Instruments sub-industry’s gain of 8.48%.

Also, the estimate revision trend for the stock lacks luster. The current quarter has seen one estimate moving south over the last month, with no movement in the opposite direction. As a result, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current quarter dropped to 44 cents per share from 45 cents over the same time period.


Coming back to the news, the two companies would jointly upgrade the Acumen application. We believe this partnership between the nation’s two largest providers of electronic health records for nephrologists would enable greater information sharing and communication on a larger scale. Acumen 2.0 presents a significant upgrade of Acumen’s current health IT products. This includes greater ease at systems interoperability, data sharing and care coordination.

Epic is a leading standard information application for large integrated health systems. Its broad connected community for patient information comprises 405 health care organizations. This covers 41,200 clinics, 1,950 hospitals, and over 336,000 physicians. Domestically, the Epic community has access to 60% of the total patient population. Epic’s presence at nearly 2,000 hospitals and extensive integration with hospital systems will provide Acumen 2.0 customers with improved access to important patient data.

Fresenius Medical Care is a leading health care company focused on providing care to people with renal and other chronic conditions. The company has an extensive network of dialysis facilities, outpatient cardiac and vascular labs, urgent care centers, and the country’s largest collection of hospitalist and post-acute providers. One of the world’s largest fully vertically integrated renal company, it offers specialty pharmacy and laboratory services, and manufactures and distributes the most comprehensive line of dialysis equipment, disposable products, and renal pharmaceuticals.

Key Picks

Currently, Fresenius Medical carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Better-ranked stocks in the broader medical sector include Inogen Inc. (INGN - Free Report) , Avinger, Inc. (AVGR - Free Report) and Fluidigm Corporation . Notably, Inogen sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) while Fluidigm and Avinger carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Inogen has a long-term expected earnings growth rate of 17.05%. Notably, the stock has an impressive one-year return of 77.4%.

Avinger projects sales growth of 30.6% for the current year. Additionally, the company posted a positive earnings surprise of 27% last quarter.

Fluidigm Corporation has a long-term expected earnings growth rate of 25%. The stock has added 6.08% over the last one year.
 

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