CHICAGO – Officials of the brand-new AllscriptsMisys Healthcare Solutions, Inc. are out to prove that bigger is better.

Company officials formally announced the merger on Monday of Chicago-based Allscripts with Misys Healthcare, the Raleigh, N.C.-based healthcare arm of British banking giant Misys, following votes of approval last week by shareholders at both organizations. The new company, based in Chicago, is touted as one of the largest providers of electronic health record and practice management services in the country, with access to roughly 700 hospitals, 7,000 post-acute and homecare agencies and 150,000 physicians.

The merger, first announced in March, drew concern from analysts who thought the two companies could be taking on too much. Those concerns deepened last month, when the ongoing global banking crisis led to the collapse of Lehman Brothers and forced Misys to seek a new financing deal for its share of the merger. That issue was resolved when Misys secured new funding from a lending group composed of HSBC, the Bank of Ireland and the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Both Glen Tullman, Allscripts' CEO, and Mike Lawrie, the new company's executive chairman and Misys' chief executive, say they weren't worried.

"The market believes in the underlying fundamentals of this transaction," said Tullman. "Healthcare is not going to go away. The problems in healthcare have to be solved."