Iron Mountain Acquires Records Management Firm

Data protection provider Iron Mountain announced on Oct. 2 the acquisition of RMS Services-USA, a $27 million records management company and a major provider of outsourced file room services for hospitals. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Known since 1951 as the company that trucks away enterprise data tape cassettes to safe archive locations, Iron Mountain also supplies storage management software, such as the Connected Backup for PC and LiveVault Server Backup packages, as well as online storage.

Adding the health records management function augments Iron Mountains existing health care records division, an Iron Mountain spokesperson said.

RMS mission during its 30-year history has been to help large health care systems improve organizational performance and operating results through comprehensive, next-generation file room and film library management solutions, the spokesperson said.

"Iron Mountain and RMS have a shared vision of making electronic medical records a reality," said Mark Rempe, Iron Mountains vice president of Health Information Services said.

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"RMS enterprise-wide file room and film library solutions complement Iron Mountains current health information services solutions, and further helps to solve the evolving challenges of healthcare providers that are transitioning to electronic health records," said Rempe.

Furthermore, RMS is a proven innovator in the hospital medical records management industry, and Iron Mountain will benefit from the addition of the companys executive team, Rempe added.

Iron Mountain, based in Framingham, Mass., will retain former RMS employees and is committed to ensuring that customers will be supported by the same staff that presently services their accounts, company officials said.

Additionally, Ed Santangelo, former RMS president and CEO, and his leadership team, will be joining Iron Mountain. Santangelo will become president of Health Information Services Consulting.

"Iron Mountain understands our value proposition, as well as the healthcare market, and has the geographic footprint and capital to finance our growth and to support and retain our client base," Santangelo said.

Both Iron Mountain and RMS have years of experience in delivering health information management services that solve specialized file room and film management problems of healthcare providers—such as managing both physical and digital records simultaneously, enabling timely access to patient records, and complying with ever-growing patient-privacy and records-management regulations, Rempe said.

During the past 20 years, Iron Mountain has served more than 45,000 healthcare accounts in North America—including 2,000 hospitals, Rempe said.

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