With their strong value proposition for the medical profession, software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers of electronic medical records are attracting strong interest from both buyers and sellers. The observation comes from Office Practicum's Ellen Purdy, during an interview at the ACG 2017 M&A East conference in Philadelphia.

PURDY: Healthcare IT is a very broad description, right? We're specifically in the electronic health record software as a service base. And it is a hot market right now for sellers and for buyers. It's a hot market. It's an important part of the healthcare industry. We help make doctors' offices more efficient, more effective and help them provide better value based care. And so there are many private equity firms that are interested in our type of company. We are growing at over 25% a year. We're profitable; we're in a niche space; and those are all of the types of characteristics that attract private equity buyers to our space.