HCA Agrees To Acquire PatientKeeper
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
Acquisition Provides Electronic Tools To Automate Physicians’ Day For Efficiency.
Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) has announced the purchase of PatientKeeper, a provider of software and mobile applications that help physicians access and work with patient information. HCA, which operates 164 hospitals and 114 surgery centers in 20 states and England, “relies heavily” on PatientKeeper and is may have acquired it to keep from being acquired by another organization “that could be negative to HCA’s interests,” according to John Osberg, managing partner at Informed Partners LLC.
The privately-held PatientKeeper provides applications for physicians that run on an architecture that overlay hospital IT systems. With these applications, physicians have access to a set of electronic tools to automate their day in a way that makes them more efficient and patient-centered.
PatientKeeper has been utilized by physicians at HCA-affiliated hospitals for the past seven years, allowing them to access a single view of their patients’ information across a variety of hospital systems, to streamline workflow, and to help improve patient care.
This acquisition is anticipated to facilitate the continued development of HCA’s electronic health record and enable HCA to provide physicians a number of capabilities, including computerized physician order entry (CPOE), medication reconciliation, and documentation. Furthermore, the combined companies will continue to enhance and expand PatientKeeper product offerings.
“With its agreement to acquire PatientKeeper, HCA has taken an important step toward the creation of an exceptional user experience for our clinicians to interact with patients’ electronic health records to provide and document care,” said Dr. Jonathan B. Perlin, HCA’s Chief Medical Officer and President, Clinical Services Group. “Our combined companies are positioned to provide a unique approach to the electronic health record that will foster the safest and most effective care for our patients.”
“We have worked closely with HCA for many years and our teams share a passion for technology innovation that promotes continuous quality improvement in a way that truly saves physicians time,” said PatientKeeper’s current President and Chief Executive Officer, Paul Brient. “This is an opportunity to align a software vendor with one of the leading healthcare providers in the world. It gives us a platform that will allow for real-time innovation and the opportunity to improve the delivery of healthcare.”
PatientKeeper serves more than 58,000 physician users, and its software integrates with existing healthcare information systems to create a solution for physicians. Its applications include Charge Capture, Clinical Results Review, CPOE, eSignature, Medication Reconciliation, NoteWriter, and Sign Out.