CRANSTON – Mediware Information Systems Inc., a Kansas-based medical-software firm, announced on Tuesday that it will pay $3.5 million to buy Healthcare Automation Inc. (HAI), a local developer of software for home health-care providers.

Mediware (Nasdaq: MEDW) also agreed to pay $2 million to buy Advantage Reimbursement Inc., an Andover, Mass.-based company that was spun off from HAI in February by the two companies’ founders, David A. Belhumeur and Kenneth J. Pereira.

In addition to the $5.5 million combined acquisition price, the agreement also calls for Mediware to give Belhumeur and Pereira up to $1.5 million in bonus payments if HAI and Advantage meet sales targets.

The deal is expected to be finalized by Dec. 15.

“The additions of these organizations to Mediware are an exciting expansion of a growth strategy that includes strategic acquisitions, developing new products, and expansion of our existing customer base,” Thomas Mann, Mediware’s president and CEO, said in a statement.

Mediware, which has made three other acquisitions in the last two years, has been expanding its presence in the home-health services sector since purchasing Santa Rosa, Calif.-based Hann’s On Software a year ago. The addition of HAI and Advantage will give the company a client base of more than 450 facilities, it said.

Mann said Mediware – which was incorporated in New York in 1970 and is headquartered in Lenexa, Kan. – plans to keep all of HAI’s and Advantage’s current employees. Pereira will join Mediware as a vice president and general manager in charge of the company’s new alternate-care solutions division.

Belhumeur and Pereira are also the principals of McCabe Software Inc. and owners of Oridium LLC.

Additional information is available at healthcare-automation.com and mediware.com.