Healthcare IT: The Next Frontier?
Updated: Feb 11, 2020
Whether you're a DPO, CISO, CEO, or resigned to "I'm still not sure that I do know", what has been abundantly clear is the active interest companies, and by extension markets, have last year alone shown the healthcare industry; specifically, healthcare information and technology.
Market Insight
Major players like 3M, GE, Philips, and Google all have made extensive forays into different parts of the healthcare market. Conversation between providers and industry players is now replete with talk of "to UPI or not UPI", "to de-identify or not de-identify", or "to anonymize or not anonymize"; meanwhile, our government at the same time is pushing to make patient's data readily available to them via mobile applications.
The overall market outlook on the healthcare industry for the most part seems positive, and the financial statements of Health-IT companies bear that out. With providers and insurers offering more and more online access, research has shown that an increasing number of U.S patients are utilizing online portals to access their medical information.
With a flurry of high-profile, health-tech acquisitions in 2019 and patients granting third-party apps access to their health data, the way forward seems to center on how best to balance privacy concerns and safely expand patient access to their medical records.
Here are seven noteworthy healthcare-related acquisitions that happened in 2019:
Cloud-based clinical trial SaaS Medidata acquired by French 3-D and product life-cycle management specialist Dassault Systèmes for $5.8 billion.
Alphabet announced its $2.1 billion acquisition of wearable activity tracker Fitbit.
Tech retailer Best Buy acquired senior remote monitoring service Critical Signal Technologies for $125 million.
BioTelemetry acquired startup Geneva Healthcare, maker of a remote monitoring platform for implantable cardiac devices, for $45 million.
OptimizeRx, a software company that enables digital health messaging between pharmas and providers, acquired RMDY Health, a SaaS platform designed for digital therapeutics.
Apple acquired asthma monitoring company Tueo Health.
Revenue cycle management specialist Waystar acquired healthcare financial assistance predictive analytics specialist PARO for an undisclosed sum.
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With health providers, insurers, and third-parties moving towards increased automation and computerized operations, compliance with HIPAA guidelines is more important than it has ever been.