By Healthcare Facilities Today

BIRMINGHAM, AL – Birmingham-based MEDSEEK, the leading provider of a comprehensive software platform to help hospitals and health systems influence patient behavior, today announced the acquisition of Madison, WI-based SymphonyCare, provider of a proven population health and care management solution.  The acquisition expands MEDSEEK’s capabilities in the emerging population health and care management market, creating immediate opportunities for the company to offer an additional set of software and services to its customer base and emerging provider markets.

Over the coming months, MEDSEEK will integrate SymphonyCare’s population segmentation, risk stratification, care management workflow and quality reporting tools with MEDSEEK’s robust suite of health system marketing and digital patient engagement solutions, including the MEDSEEK Empower enterprise patient portal. This combination of capabilities establishes MEDSEEK’s Influence platform as the only end-to-end solution on the market to enable hospitals, primary care providers and ACOs to proactively influence and manage low-risk, rising-risk and high-risk populations using both web and mobile engagement technology.

With the existing SymphonyCare solution already in use by several provider organizations and the integrated solution targeted for release early next year, MEDSEEK expects to bring tens of thousands of patient lives under management in 2014.

“There are many population health management tools on the market, but most lack the critical functionality to successfully engage patients,” said Peter Kuhn, MEDSEEK’s CEO. “While high-touch programs can be effective, high-tech strategies are the key to cost effectively changing patient behavior in a way that is meaningful in terms of reducing unnecessary hospital readmissions, improving medication and nutrition adherence and eliminating gaps in care.” Kuhn continued, “At MEDSEEK, we are expanding our integrated patient influence platform to include all the capabilities critical to our customers who have enrolled in, or are experimenting with, emerging value-based payment models like the mandatory Medicare Hospital Readmission Reduction Program, the Medicare Shared Savings Program or a Patient-Centered Medical Home.”

“This acquisition presents an opportunity for MEDSEEK to quickly align our proven patient engagement technology with new healthcare delivery requirements brought on by healthcare reform,” said Kyra Hagan, VP of Product Strategy at MEDSEEK. “We were looking to augment MEDSEEK’s existing patient-facing technology stack with a proven clinical analytics and business intelligence solution.” Hagan continued, “Our decision to acquire SymphonyCare was cemented by its powerful data integration, information delivery and analysis capabilities. In particular, we were impressed by SymphonyCare’s robust semantic layer that enables users to navigate available data sources, ask their own questions of the data, and translate that data analysis into evidence-based, highly personalized, patient-centered care plans.”

About MEDSEEK

MEDSEEK helps hospitals, health systems, clinicians and ACOs virtually influence prospects and patients before, during and after the clinical encounter. The MEDSEEK Influence platform enables healthcare organizations to meet patients where they are and engage them in new and better ways. By deploying personalized solutions for individual patients, MEDSEEK helps care providers guide people down a preferred path so their organizations can achieve their strategic goals.