Athenahealth pays $63 million to acquire health app maker Praxify Technologies
Cloud-based EHR company athenahealth will buy Silicon Valley company Praxify Technologies in $63 million deal, athenahealth announced Thursday.
Praxify comes with a number of applications, including a personal assistant program integrated with EHRs and artificial intelligence aimed at patient engagement.
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Palo Alto-based Praxify was founded in 2010 with the aim of reinventing how doctors work. Watertown, Mass.-based athenahealth was founded in 1997 with a similar idea: To take the burden of paperwork, or digital documentation off the doctors’ docket, the better for them to practice medicine.
The acquisition of Praxify will advance athenahealth's platform strategy and mobile capabilities. Praxify has invested in developing machine learning and natural language processing technology over the years.
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“In combination with our cloud platform and services, Praxify's team and technology will help us further reduce the many inefficiencies of healthcare's clinical and operational workflows," Prakash Khot, athenahealth’s chief technology officer, said in a statement,
The underlying technology on which Praxify is built will be integrated into athenahealth's cloud platform. Knot noted, it would create new opportunities for both internal and third-party developers to rapidly build and launch applications. positioning athenahealth to speed development and delivery of innovation at scale for the healthcare industry.
The last time athenahealth acquired another company was in 2013 when it purchased San Mateo, California-based Epocrates for about $293 million. Epocrates had a popular clinical content app used by more than 300,000 physicians at the time.
Completion of the Praxify transaction is subject to customary closing conditions.
Whether and what effect the acquisition might have on investment firm Elliott Asscociates’ plans regarding athenahealth is hard to peg. The firm, led by activist investor Paul Singer, purchased a 9.2 percent stake in athenahealth last month. Singer is reputed to buy enough stock to force change, often leading to a sale of the company.
Twitter: @Bernie_HITN
Email the writer: bernie.monegain@himssmedia.com
