An HIT

Certify Data Systems (San Jose, California) a provider of healthcare information exchange solutions for hospitals and physicians' offices, said it has closed a round of Series B funding led by Ziegler HealthVest Partners LP, raising $1.6 million.

Ziegler, a venture capital fund that invests in healthcare services, healthcare IT and wellness, made a Series A investment in Certify in August 2008.

Certify offers an innovative clinical information exchange solution for hospitals and physicians' offices that allows disparate systems to securely and seamlessly exchange clinical data, such as lab reports, discharge summaries and other important patient data.

The company's enterprise-class hospital Gateway and physician HealthDock appliance work in concert as a completely integrated health information network. The Certify solution securely processes all forms of data – everything from HL7 and XML to PDFs, faxes and emails – and delivers this information in real time to the hospital's and physicians' information systems, even if those systems are otherwise incompatible.

The company currently serves four hospitals located in Florida, Illinois, Texas and the Pacific Northwest, making it possible for them to aggregate information about patients sent from doctors in a variety of formats, including XML, electronic faxes and PDF files.

In recent months, Certify has added four integrated delivery networks to the growing list of healthcare systems that employ its solution and strengthened its management team with the appointment of healthcare industry veteran Jeffrey Rideout, MD, as chief strategy officer.