athenahealth is investing in analytics.

Long known for supplying business IT services for physician practices, the Watertown, Mass.-based company announced Monday the planned acquisition of Anodyne Health Partners, Inc., an Alpharetta, Ga.-based provider of software-as-a-service-based business intelligence solutions. The proposed deal consists of a cash payment of $22.3 million and up to $7.7 million in additional considerations.

“Anodyne Health Partners has developed what we believe is the best Web-based business intelligence and reporting capability in the market, which it delivers to all size practices with particular success in large and enterprise-level medical group clients,” said Jonathan Bush, athenahealth’s chairman and CEO, in an Oct. 5 press release announcing the acquisition. “By offering this capability through our national physician network, we will enhance our services to existing clients while creating a pathway for additional growth of our core services.”

With a customer base of some 14,000 healthcare providers, Anodyne Health offers its Anodyne Intelligence platform and other services designed to organize and review a practice’s revenue cycle information and pull out critical operational and administrative data. That product will continue to be offered as a stand-alone product by Anodyne – which will operate as a separate, branded division of athenahealth – and will be integrated into athenahealth’s athenaCollector platform as the company looks to broaden its practice management and electronic health record offerings.

Michael Funk, Anodyne’s CEO, said, “By joining with athenahealth, we believe there is a tremendous opportunity to expand the development and use of the Web-based tools we have built and to accelerate adoption of athenahealth's practice management, electronic health record and patient communication services in the large group and enterprise market.

A business process outsourcing division of Anodyne is excluded from the sale and will be spun off as a separate company prior to closing, which is expected sometime this month.