Iron Mountain Acquires Health Care Records Management Company

Seizing on a services opportunity by expanding its presence in the health care sector, Iron Mountain on Tuesday announced the acquisition of RMS Services.

RMS is a records and file-room management services company that focuses on the health care industry. As more U.S. health-care providers trade in paper-based medical records for electronic systems, they need help converting and storing that information. Records management company Iron Mountain said it hopes to satisfy those requests with this acquisition.

Although terms of the deal weren't disclosed, RMS generated sales of $27 million last year, said Mark Rempe, Iron Mountain VP of health information services. By comparison, Iron Mountain racked up revenue of $2.4 billion last year through its data protection, records management, and disaster recovery-back up services.

While Iron Mountain already has offered its services to the health care sector, the company has a bigger presence in other industries, namely financial services and legal, he said. But with the pressure on the long-time laggard health care market to digitize its paper-based record systems, Iron Mountain sees a growth potential in that sector, he said.

The company already has 45,000 customer accounts in the health care sector, including 2,000 hospitals.

"Health care organizations know where they need to go, that they need to digitize their records," he said. "But that's daunting and expensive, and we hope we can make it easier and save them money," he said.

With its acquisition of RMS, Iron Mountain will "strengthen our position in health care," Rempe said. Iron Mountain services to health care providers include storage and management of paper and digital records, including radiology films, as well as conversion services to digitize paper-based information.