Electronic Health Reporter

HCA (NYSE:HCA), which operates 164 hospitals and 114 surgery centers in 20 states and England, today announced the signing of an agreement to purchase PatientKeeper, a leading provider of intuitive software and mobile applications that help physicians access and work with patient information.

PatientKeeper is a privately held company that provides applications for physicians that run on an innovative architecture that overlay hospital IT systems. These applications 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.

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 will 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.”

Dr. Jim Jirjis, 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.”

Following the completion of the sale, PatientKeeper’s current President and Chief Executive Officer, Paul Brient, will serve as CEO of the organization, which will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of HCA. PatientKeeper’s approximately 160 employees will continue to serve the company’s more than 100 clients and market its products from the company’s headquarters in Waltham, Mass.

“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 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. PatientKeeper’s intuitive software integrates with existing healthcare information systems to create an effective solution for physicians. Its applications include Charge Capture, Clinical Results Review, CPOE, eSignature, Medication Reconciliation, NoteWriter and Sign Out.

HCA expects to complete the transaction later this year. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Raymond James Health Care Banking acted as financial advisor to PatientKeeper in this transaction.