Xerox ACS Unit Buys Teleservices Provider TMS Health

Xerox’s Affiliated Computer Services IT outsourcing unit has acquired pharmaceutical teleservices company TMS Health from Palm Beach Capital, a private equity company, Xerox has announced. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

TMS, a teleservices company based in Boca Raton, Fla., will now become part of ACS, and TMS CEO Guy Amato will remain in his current role.

Xerox announced its purchase of ACS in September 2009 and completed the transaction in February 2010.

With the addition of TMS, ACS will be one of the largest customer service providers to the pharmaceutical, biotech and health care industries, Xerox reports.

By integrating TMS, ACS plans to enhance communication among pharmaceutical firms, physicians, consumers and pharmacists.

“TMS brings strong communication capabilities to the deal,” said Connie Harvey, group president of ACS Healthcare Payer and Insurance, in a statement. “Together, we will save clients money and help them more effectively reach constituents.”

The deal will combine ACS’s expertise in delivering health care information through IT outsourcing with TMS’s focus on customer communication using video detailing, according to ACS.

“Video detailing is primarily being used to augment the old delivery model, armies of people driving in cars to deliver educational and promotional information,” Amato told eWEEK. “Now we can do that through the voice channel-it creates a virtual pharmaceutical sales rep.”

In addition to the pharmaceutical marketing side, TMS also uses its video detailing technology to help patients with medication compliance, Amato said.

TMS provides video for CRM platforms designed for the health care industry, according to Amato.

Video implementation is growing within the health care industry. It can be combined with pharmaceutical marketing efforts, like with TMS, or incorporated into electronic medical records, as with telehealth provider InteractiveMD. In August, InteractiveMD announced that its remote patient monitoring systems will now support video examinations.