This news deserved a new thread title.....Gary Cohen...

This news deserved a new thread title.....Gary Cohen gone!

E-Health Insider

iSoft, hard times
02 Sep 2010



A year ago, iSoft executive chairman and chief executive Gary Cohen was bullish about its prospects. This year, iSoft has posted a loss, Cohen has left both posts, and the companys operations are under review. Sarah Bruce reports.

What a difference a year can make. This time last year, iSoft, one of the two big software providers to the National Programme for IT in the NHS, posted profits of 20m for the fiscal year 2009, on revenues of 317m.

Although it was still waiting for local service provider CSC to get its Lorenzo software live at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Trust, Gary Cohen, the-then executive chairman and chief executive, was confident this would happen by March.

Indeed, in a telephone link-up to E-Health Insider Live 2009, he predicted that 25 trusts would go-live with the strategic EPR in 2010. He also predicted that the company would pick-up business in the South of England, which has been without an LSP since Fujitsu left the national programme in 2008.

At the start of this week, iSoft posted losses of 221m to the Australian Stock Exchange on revenues that had fallen 20% to 249m.

Cohen, who ceased to be executive chairman in June, stood down as chief executive. And new chairman Robert Moran announced that iSoft would review its costs and operations.