According to a new report from Austin, Texas-based Mercom Capital Group, a global communications and consulting firm, venture capital funding in healthcare IT in the first quarter of 2012 (Q1) saw an all-time high in investments in the sector. The report says funding accounted for $184 million in 27 deals during the quarter.

According to the report, a total of 46 different venture capital firms invested in Q1, with Connecticut Innovations the only company to participate in multiple deals. Much of the investment comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act/The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (ARRA/HITECH) Act, the report says.

”We are seeing significant momentum in terms of private venture capital funding flowing into the HIT sector, and a robust M&A environment is providing investors and the industry with liquidity and viable exit options,” Raj Prabhu, Managing Partner of Mercom Capital Group, said in a statement. “Since the first quarter of 2010, M&A transactions have outpaced VC funding transactions by almost two to one (98 VC funding deals, 223 M&A transactions), a positive sign for the industry.”

According to the research, health information management (HIM) companies came out on top with $103 million followed by personal health record (PHR) companies with $32 million. In terms of number of deals, PHR companies had four, business and clinical intelligence companies also had four, clinical decision support companies had three, electronic medical record (EMR) companies had two and electronic health record (EHR) companies also had two.

Top VC funding deals in Q1 included $40 million raised by Kinnser Software, a provider of clinical support software to home health companies, got $40 million in the top deal, followed by $22 million by Healthx, a provider of online healthcare portals and communication products to insurers, medical providers and employees.

For mergers and acquisitions, transactions with disclosed details were Verisk Analytics’ acquisition of MediConnect Global, a provider of proprietary systems to facilitate aggregation and analysis of medical records, for $349 million, Nuance Healthcare’s acquisition of Transcend Services, a provider of transcription and clinical documentation services, for $300 million, and DexCom’s acquisition of SweetSpot Diabetes Care, a cloud-based health data company focused on clinical support software in diabetes, for $4.5 million.