Dive Brief:
- Royal Philips announced Wednesday it has acquired Georgia-based Wellcentive, a U.S. population health management technology company.
- Wellcentive employees will join Philips' Population Health Management business group, which will be led by CEO Tom Zajac, according to the release.
- The financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
Dive Insight:
The acquisition is part of a partnership trend among healthcare organizations some of which are targeted at supporting population health initiatives and expanding health IT services. Earlier this month, for example, Princeton HealthCare System and Pennsylvania Health System signed a letter of intent for a partnership for such purposes.
These deals come as a result of new quality of care requirements and reimbursement models that have gone from fee-for-service focused to being tied to the value of care provided.
“With this strategic acquisition, we will strengthen our Population Health Management business and its leadership, as health systems gradually shift from volume to value-based care, and provide more preventative and chronic care services outside of the hospital,” Philips CEO of Connected Care & Health Informatics Jeroen Tas said in a statement, adding, “Wellcentive’s solutions will provide our customers with the ability to collect data from large populations, detect patterns, assess risks and then deploy care programs tailored to the needs of specific groups.”
Wellcentive’s cloud-based IT solutions that have the ability of importing, aggregating, and analyzing clinical, claims, and financial data will become part of Philips' HealthSuite cloud under the agreement.