Health IT

Philips acquires VitalHealth to boost population health management strategy

In an effort to improve its foothold in the population health space, Philips has acquired VitalHealth, which provides cloud-based population health management solutions. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

In an effort to expand its foothold in the realm of population health, Philips has acquired VitalHealth, which provides cloud-based population health management solutions. Founded in 2006 by the Noaber Foundation and the Mayo Clinic, the company is headquartered in the Netherlands and has approximately 200 employees.

Financial information regarding the acquisition wasn’t disclosed.

In a statement, VitalHealth CEO Laurens van der Tang said that his company’s solutions will complement Philips’:

We are delighted and proud to become part of Philips. Our digital health solutions are highly complementary to the ones that Philips provides. Together, we have the potential to become the undisputed global leader in population health management.

Via email, Derek Ross, Philips’ business leader of population health management, elaborated on what attracted Philips to VitalHealth.

“They have a track record in the Netherlands of being a trusted and effective technology partner to care for providers, and their expertise in care management and patient engagement fit our strategy perfectly,” he said.

Ross described that strategy as containing three distinct aspects: Understand, Navigate and Activate.

As part of the U-N-A approach, Philips first assists its clients in understanding their patients’ clinical and financial needs. Next, it facilitates the workflows of providers to enable care navigation and management. It then activates patients through various engagement techniques.

Ross said his company’s 2016 acquisition of Wellcentive, another provider of population health management solutions, helped with the Understand and Navigate pieces of the puzzle.

VitalHealth will assist with the Navigate and Activate aspects, as the company has its own care coordination platform for providers as well as various telehealth applications for patients.

Wellcentive and VitalHealth aren’t the only organizations Philips has acquired recently. In early December, it nabbed Forcare, an interoperability solutions provider.

The goal is to combine Philips’ clinical informatics solutions for data with Forcare’s interoperability platform.

“We have looked at different interoperability technologies, and we believe that Forcare’s interoperability platform is the most advanced solution in the industry,” Ross said. “We were already working with them, and we were impressed by the maturity, stability and scalability of their technology, as well as the service and implementation skills of their team.”

Additionally, this summer Philips acquired Health & Parenting, a digital health app developer specializing in healthcare and family-related mobile applications for expectant and new parents. At the time, Philips noted Health & Parenting would complement its uGrow platform and add another avenue to gain insight on the needs of new parents.

Photo: John Slater, Getty Images

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