Royal Philips has signed an agreement to acquire Wellcentive, an Atlanta-based provider of population health management software solutions. Financial details of the transaction will not be disclosed.
In population health management, Philips already offers enterprise telehealth, home monitoring, personal emergency response systems, and personal health services that address multiple patient groups. Wellcentive complements Philips’ portfolio with cloud-based IT solutions to import, aggregate, and analyze clinical, claims, and financial data across hospital and health systems. The IT systems aim to help providers deliver coordinated care that meets new health care quality requirements and reimbursement models.
Upon completion of the transaction, Wellcentive and its employees will become part of the population health management business group within Philips. Tom Zajac, CEO of Wellcentive, will be appointed to lead the business group.
“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,” says Jeroen Tas, CEO of connected care and health informatics at Philips. “Our sweet spot is at the point of care, as we give consumers, patients, care teams, and clinicians the tools, such as remote monitoring solutions and therapy devices, to optimize care.”
“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,” Tas adds.
Tom Zajac, CEO of Wellcentive, also spoke out about the deal, commenting: “Over the past 11 years, the Wellcentive team has focused on delivering data-driven clinical, financial, and human outcomes for our customers as they provide care management for more than 30 million patients.”
“Combining forces with Philips and its broad portfolio of health technologies and global reach will create a great foundation to accelerate growth in connected care—from healthy living and prevention, to diagnosis, treatment and home care—enabling consumers, providers, and health organizations to benefit from our combined, stronger offering in population health management,” Zajac says.
Wellcentive’s applications will be integrated in the Philips HealthSuite cloud, the company’s digital enabler for the next generation of connected health solutions. One example of Philips’ existing care programs for population health management is the Intensive Ambulatory Care (eIAC) program, which combines telehealth technologies and population health management software to help care teams monitor and coach patients at home. It aims to improve patient outcomes, care team efficiency, and prevent patients from entering the hospital, where costs are significantly higher.