Health Catalyst Buying Patient Engagement Company Twistle
Health Catalyst Inc., an analytics and services company, is acquiring Twistle Inc., a patient engagement company that automates communication between care teams and patients to drive better care outcomes and reduce costs.
Albuquerque, N.M.-based Twistle, founded in 2011, describes itself as offering “turn-by-turn” guidance to patients as they navigate care journeys before, during, and after a care episode.
In a recent interview with Healthcare Innovation, John Monson, M.D., executive director of colorectal surgery at AdventHealth in Orlando, Fla., described the role Twistle plays in his department’s deployment of Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) protocols that begin 30 days prior to surgery and continue 30 days post-discharge.
As part of a comprehensive approach to improving outcomes, AdventHealth Orlando deployed Twistle in 2018 to improve pre-operative and post-operative patient engagement. The Twistle pathway for colorectal procedures includes education, preparation, appointment reminders, incision checks, side-effect monitoring, and bi-directional texting with patients. AdventHealth says it has seen a real positive impact with Twistle, including a reduced length of hospital say of 33 percent, a reduced readmission rate of 27.7 percent and reduced ED visit rate of 33 percent.
Salt Lake City-based Health Catalyst (Nasdaq: HCAT) said it anticipates that Twistle’s leading clinical workflow and patient engagement platform, paired with its own population health offering, will enable a comprehensive solution to address the population health needs of healthcare organizations, as well as life science organizations. It added that Health Catalyst’s cloud-based data platform will enhance Twistle’s automation by enabling richer data-driven patient interaction.
“Twistle is a leading healthcare technology company committed to developing software that healthcare organizations and Life Science companies need to keep patients engaged in their healthcare,” said
In a statement, Dan Burton, CEO of Health Catalyst, said Twistle’s “efforts to improve patient outcomes and reduce the cost of care are deeply aligned with our mission to be the catalyst for massive, measurable, data-informed improvements.”
“We anticipate that care teams will realize even more efficiency gains as our automated outreach will be more intelligent and individualized, freeing their time to focus on patients that require intervention to stay on track with their medical plan of care,” said Kulmeet Singh, founder and CEO of Twistle, in a statement.
In an SEC filing, Health Catalyst said the purchase price was approximately $104.5 million in a mix of stock and cash.
