Software firm gets Cary building

MedFusion plans to add 50 jobs

MedFusion, a Raleigh company that provides software for physician practices, plans to move into a larger building in Cary and hire as many as 50 employees this year.

The expansion is partly financed with $2.2 million in venture capital that the company raised in 2008.

"We've been weathering the economic storm pretty well," CEO Steve Malik said. "Healthcare IT seems a safe haven."

Last year, MedFusion added 40 employees and new software development projects to raise demand for its products, Malik said. It now employs more than 70.

By mid-February, MedFusion will move into about half of a 55,219 square-foot Cary building that used to be the home of A4 Health Systems, a medical-records software company that was acquired by a publicly traded rival, Allscripts, in 2006.

That company, now known as Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions, last year consolidated its Triangle operations at a North Raleigh campus where it has about 1,000 employees.

Malik bought the former A4 headquarters in November for $7.25 million, according to corporation records and research from Real Capital Analytics.

He said that he plans to lease the other half of the A4 building and put MedFusion's current headquarters in Raleigh, a two-story building with about 20,000 square feet, on the market for sale or lease.

MedFusion's software allows patients to make appointments and fill out paperwork on the Internet. The information is then automatically fed into the physician's billing and medical records systems, because MedFusion offers its products in collaboration with about 40 providers of record-keeping software for medical practices. Allscripts is one of its partners.

E. Townes Duncan, founder of Solidus, a Nashville venture capital firm, took the promise of MedFusion's software personally.

"When I first looked at the deal I was thinking, 'If the doctor I go to would have that, I wouldn't have to fill out that silly clipboard,' " Duncan said. "That alone made it a good investment."

(Staff writer Jack Hagel contributed to this report.)