The healthcare industry’s galaxy of point solutions for patient engagement have started to gravitate together through mergers and acquisitions.
In the latest example of this trend, Bethesda, Maryland patient engagement company GetWellNetwork has acquired HealthLoop, a Mountain View, California-based digital health startup focused on patient engagement and care coordination in post-discharge settings.
Financial terms of the deal, which closed earlier this week, were not disclosed.
GetWellNetwork’s main product is focused on improving the inpatient experience through features ranging from scheduling to intake to health education.
HealthLoop, which is focused on post-discharge and follow up care, will help the combined company expand its capabilities to create a more end-to-end digital engagement platform.
The two companies are working to develop an integrated product called GetWell Loop, which will merge HealthLoop’s existing capabilities and consumer-facing platform with GetWell Go, GetWellNetwork’s technology centered on extending the reach of care and promote care plan adherence.
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GetWellNetwork CEO and Founder Michael O’Neil highlighted HealthLoop’s established footprint, parallel mission and cultural alignment as drivers behind the acquisition.
“The acquisition of HealthLoop signals GetWell’s acceleration into consumer digital health. Combining our highly complementary portfolios provides the scale, geographic breadth and proven technology needed to capitalize on market growth opportunities,” O’Neil wrote in an email.
HealthLoop has around 70 client sites, and holds roughly 250,000 active yearly users driving more than 7.2 million annual patient interactions. The merger serves to expand GetWellNetwork’s presence in middle market, single specialty practices and hospitals.
With the addition of HealthLoop, the company has extended its reach into nearly 700 healthcare providers with customers including Kaiser Permanente, UCSF Health and Boston Children’s Hospital. The combined company will have around 300 employees and projects to earn roughly $90 million in revenue this year.
HealthLoop CEO Todd Johnson will continue on as GetWell’s senior vice president and general manager of GetWell Loop, heading up the combined company’s Silicon Valley office, where he will be in change of ambulatory product development and sales.
Johnson said GetWellNetwork, which was founded in 2000, has long been an established leader in patient engagement and pointed to how integrating the two companies’ offerings can improve outcomes for patients.
“HealthLoop as a core product is going to continue to develop and grow and were going to continue to pump in resources for research and development, it’s really about putting the foot on gas and reaching more patients faster,” Johnson said in a phone interview.
“When you think about product strategy there’s natural places to work together, for example if I’m sitting in the hospital bed why not get started on the recovery plan as soon as possible.”
He added how we was struck by how the internal mission statements and values of GetWellNetork and HealthLoop’ mirrored each other.
“It’s a natural extension because the patient experience doesn’t stop and start when they enter or exit the hospital,” Johnson said.
“If you take a long view of the healthcare, there’s been focus about reducing the length of care, now we can discharge them and they can be engaged through the entire process.”
In the release announcing the acquisition GetWellNetworks said the HealthLoop deal “signals plans for more long-term strategic investments.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by Johnson who spoke about his excitement in tackling the “huge untapped opportunities” in patient engagement by “putting together the category killers” that can address the problem in an end-to-end way. He predicted over the next few years that the space will see mass consolidation as vendors push to develop their own end-to-end platforms.
The purchase of HealthLoop is the latest acquisition in recent years by GetWellNetwork.
Other patient engagement startups aquired by the company include Seamless Medical Systems last year, Skylight Healthcare Systems in 2015 and Marbella technologies in 2014.
GetWellNetwork itself was acquired by private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe back in 2013 before being flipped to Pamplona Capital earlier this year.
Photo: Kritchanut, Getty Images
