HCA Healthcare sells PatientKeeper to venture firm General Catalyst
The for-profit healthcare system is investing in and forming digital collaboration with the new owner.
Photo: Rusty Russell/Getty Images
HCA Healthcare has announced a deal with venture capital firm General Catalyst that will see the provider sell off its healthcare app development firm PatientKeeper, a provider of electronic health records (EHR) optimization software solutions, to General Catalyst's portfolio company Commure.
While financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, the agreement includes an investment by HCA in Commure, in addition to the formation of a strategic collaboration to push digital transformation. HCA bought Waltham, Massachusetts-based PatientKeeper back in 2014.
The announcement comes as Commure works to build a universal platform and common architecture for open collaboration between care teams and physicians. PatientKeeper currently has more than 70,000 active users.
The suite of software and mobile applications is designed to help solve interoperability issues providers face when accessing and sharing patient information, including EHR optimization software.
The core Clinical Communications Suite integrates clinical results viewing and HIPAA-compliant messaging with embedded patient context, while an advanced version offers additional features like NoteWriter, a clinical documentation app, medication reconciliation and e-prescribing.
The other solution, also available in a core and advanced version, is a revenue integrity suite featuring charge aggregators, financial reporting and clinical documentation.
PatientFlow will migrate to Commure's cloud infrastructure and will continue to be deployed across HCA's more than 180 hospitals across the country – the provider will license the Commure platform – and the two organizations will work together to develop additional solutions to streamline workflows and improve patient care.
WHY THIS MATTERS
The deal includes an investment from HCA, among the nation's biggest hospital operators, with $51.5 billion of revenue in 2020, as well as a plan for General Catalyst and HCA Healthcare to collaborate on new ways to connect HCA Healthcare to other Silicon Valley innovations and technologies.
HCA operates an estimated 164 hospitals and 114 surgery centers in 20 states and England.
Physicians and providers are looking for tools to improve record keeping, with a focus on streamlining clinical and revenue cycle workflows for care teams, billers and coders.
An EHR system-of-record platform such as PatientKeeper can help providers access and act on patient information from a variety of devices, both mobile and desktop.
THE LARGER TREND
A joint blog post written by Commure CEO Brent Dover and PatientKeeper CEO Phil Meer wrote that the transaction represents the first step of a long-term partnership between HCA Healthcare and General Catalyst.
The aim of platforms like PatientKeeper is to make it easier for health systems and hospitals to take control of multiple disparate data sources to help build people-centric workflows and help remove administrative burdens on patients and care professionals.
ON THE RECORD
"We believe the combination of PatientKeeper's physician-friendly clinical software and Commure's modern cloud infrastructure and resources will help promote the development of state-of-the-art solutions more quickly than either could accomplish independently," Sam Hazen, CEO of HCA Healthcare, said by statement.
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