With the struggling economy expected to dominate the conversation at HIMSS09, MEDecision, Inc. is sending a strong message of its own.

The Wayne, Pa.-based technology vendor is issuing a flurry of press releases in the days leading up to next week’s show in Chicago - including Thursday’s announcement of the planned acquisition of Hx Technologies, Inc. (HxTI). The company has also increased by four times its show floor space and is sponsoring a Saturday payer symposium and payer roundtable breakfast on Monday.

“Were making a statement of strength and stability of the company,” said Scott A. Storrer, the company’s chief operating officer and president. “In these difficult economic times, we are healthy and stable and strong.”

The latest news has MEDecision acquiring HxTI, a Philadelphia-based provider of health information exchange software and services, for an undisclosed price. The deal allows MEDecision to embed HxTI’s HIE technology into its Alineo collaborative healthcare management platform and Nexalign health information exchange.

Storrer said MEDecision’s increased presence in the public eye is directly related to President Barack Obama’s endorsement of healthcare IT as the bridge to an improved healthcare system. With the inclusion of $19 billion in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to compel healthcare providers to demonstrate meaningful use of interoperable health records, he said MEDecision’s HIT products fit the bill.

“Nexalign is truly a meaningful electronic health record,” he said.

The key, of course, is an accepted definition of “meaningful”- a task expected to be completed by the new Health and Human Services Secretary, once one is appointed. For now, Storrer said, MEDecision is relying on the judgment of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which defines a meaningful EHR as one that contains real-time access to patient medical data as well as images of diagnostic quality.

“A lot of the major companies are looking for that content,” Storrer said. “They’re seeking to build what we already have” in Nexalign, which was released a little more than a year ago.

Company officials plan to augment Nexalign this year to make it even more “meaningful.” They plan to enhance the product’s clinical analytics capabilities as well as allowing for real-time access to EMR systems, laboratory, pharmacy, radiology and other ancillary data and information exchange services to support the Patient Centered Medical Home model of care.

“We’re looking for more savvy real-time connections across the spectrum and a higher degree of clinical analytics,” Storrer said.

It’s been a heady year for MEDecision, which went private after its June 2008 acquisition by the Chicago-based Health Care Service Corporation. Storrer, who came on board after the deal, said the company has seen 40 percent growth this past year.

While at HIMSS09, MEDecision is looking to establish partnerships with vendors in the so-called EMR ecosystem. That includes vendors of EMRs, personal health records, practice management systems, health information systems, provider portals, consumer portals and eRx/formulary services.

The key, says Storrer, is to convince distributors not to invest in start-ups or new technologies when the existing technologies, properly bundled, can do the job.

“In its pure sense, this really is a health information exchange,” said Storrer.