Just a week after detailing its plan to spend $400 million to acquire CECity Inc., Premier Inc. (NASDAQ: PINC) announced it also bought Healthcare Insights LLC for $65 million in cash.
Based in Libertyville, Ill., privately held Healthcare Insights provides hospitals and healthcare systems with budgeting, forecasting, labor productivity and cost analytic software. Charlotte, N.C.-based Premier, which specializes in data analytics and supply chain solutions, serves an alliance of 3,400 hospitals and health systems, as well as 110,000 non-acute sites of care.
In explaining its interest in acquiring Healthcare Insights, Premier noted that coupled with the growing movement to value-based payments, healthcare providers need solutions that can help them understand cost drivers and opportunities for improvement in detail. Healthcare Insights will enable Premier to add budgeting, clinical financial management and productivity analytics to existing cost and quality applications, including the company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution.
“It is not enough to have financial, operational and clinical data. Health systems must understand how to translate that information into effective cost containment strategies, as well as superior clinical outcomes,” said Keith Figlioli, Premier’s senior vice president of health informatics, in a prepared statement.
Founded in 2000, Healthcare Insights’ current customer base includes more than 7,500 users across 200 facilities associated with 94 health systems, 49 of which do not currently have a relationship with Premier. Research firm KLAS has ranked Healthcare Insights first place in budgeting for the past four years.
When it announced the CECity purchase last week, Premier said that integrating CECity's capabilities would allow it to provide one consolidated source for both ambulatory and acute-care performance management that supports and aligns providers with value-based care. The company also noted that combining CECity's integrated and extensible learning management platform with the collaborative learning and research services developed by Premier and its members would further advance and expand evidence-based quality improvement solutions.
