AMN Healthcare has acquired virtual care provider Synzi for $42.5 million with the aim of solidifying its position in an evolving healthcare market.
The Dallas-based staffing company announced the acquisition, which closed in April, in its latest financial statement released earlier this month.
Synzi offers virtual care and remote patient monitoring platforms in the home health and outpatient arenas. These solutions enable organizations to conduct virtual visits and use secure messaging, text and email for communications between clinicians as well as with their patients.
Multiple participants can be included in the virtual visits including physicians, nurses, medically certified interpreters, family and caregivers, said Susan Salka, president and CEO of AMN Healthcare, in an email.
“[Synzi’s] services augment our traditional healthcare staffing services, which now include clinicians of all types as well as healthcare leaders,” she said. “In an era of system consolidation, cost pressures and a demand by healthcare consumers for convenience, Synzi delivers the right solution at the right time.”
As the Covid-19 pandemic made its way across the country last year, healthcare staffing needs grew exponentially. AMN Healthcare, like most other healthcare organizations, leveraged technology to adapt to the new demand. The Synzi acquisition builds on that, Salka said.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Further, the pandemic accelerated the move to outpatient and at-home care as inpatient facilities filled up with Covid-19 patients. Thus, the acquisition also plays a key role in AMN Healthcare’s strategy to contend with these marketplace changes over the next five to 10 years, she added.
“Virtual care offers flexibility in ways regular staff augmentation cannot,” she said. “AMN sees great opportunity for technology-enabled solutions to support care delivery in both outpatient and post-acute care.”
The popularity of virtual care exploded amid the Covid-19 pandemic, and experts believe it is here to stay. This has promoted various stakeholders, from providers and payers to mobile carriers and tech companies, to enter the telehealth market in one way or the other.
AMN Healthcare’s acquisition announcement comes along with its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2021.
The company gained $886 million in consolidated revenue, up 47% compared to Q1 in 2020. Net income was $70 million, jumping up from $13 million in the same quarter the year prior.
The company’s technology and workforce solutions segment revenue was $89 million in the first quarter of this year, an increase of 120% year over year.
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