Publicly traded HCA (NYSE:HCA), which operates 164 hospitals and 114 surgery centers in 20 states and England, has agreed to purchase PatientKeeper, a privately held provider of software and mobile applications that help physicians access and work with patient information.
Waltham, Mass.-based PatientKeeper’s applications overlay hospital IT systems and provide physicians with a set of electronic tools to automate their day in a way that saves them time and allows them to better focus on patient care, according to HCA. PatientKeeper has more than 58,000 active physician users. For the past seven years, physicians at HCA-affiliated hospitals have been using PatientKeeper 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 purchase, for an undisclosed amount, will enable HCA to provide physicians a number of capabilities, including computerized physician order entry (CPOE), medication reconciliation, and documentation.
“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 Jonathan Perlin, M.D., HCA’s chief medical officer and president of its Clinical Services Group, in a prepared statement. “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.”
In the same release, Jim Jirjis, M.D., HCA’s chief health information officer, added, “HCA is investing in advanced, forward-looking informatics approaches to healthcare to improve usability, quality, effectiveness and efficiency of care. The acquisition of PatientKeeper is an important step in that direction. It gives us important influence in the layer of the electronic record that the doctor sees, creating an innovative platform for workflow improvement.”
Paul Brient will continue to serve as CEO of the PatientKeeper organization, which will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of HCA. PatientKeeper’s approximately 160 employees will continue to be based in Waltham, Mass.
