IBM to buy health care software firm

IBM said Wednesday that it has agreed to buy Initiate Systems, a privately held company that makes software designed to help health care companies manage and share information.

Initiate’s software is geared toward customers in both the private sector and government, all of whom deal with a huge amount of health care information across different systems. Initiate’s Interoperable Health software tries to help health care companies and government agencies more quickly find and share patient and clinical data, thereby saving them time and money.