Athenahealth will acquire Healthcare Data Services, adding the Boston-based firm's healthcare data analysis and population health management tools for payers and providers to its portfolio of Web-based offerings.

Executives said they expect the deal to close October 2012. They did not provide financial terms of the deal.
 
The acquisition will  strengthen athenahealth’s ability to support healthcare organizations to navigate the growing number of risk-based payment models, and align care coordination with patient population needs, they said.

"Value-based payment models are fundamentally changing the way patient care is coordinated, delivered, and reimbursed," said Jonathan Bush, CEO and chairman of athenahealth. "With HDS, we can help healthcare organizations to thrive in the face of change-to drive down costs through smart, high quality care coordination and to understand the totality of services being provided. This acquisition supports our existing efforts to create an information backbone that makes health care work as it should."

Piper Jaffrey Sean Wieland says the acquisition is a "smart move."

HDS will give athenahealth access to a broader data set across the continuum of care for the purposes of care coordination and population health management, he says. "The way I see it, it docs had this kind of data 20 years ago. Managed care and capitation might have worked!"

New payment models offered by the U.S. government and commercial health plans aim to create a reimbursement system that links care reimbursement to the quality of care delivered and, ultimately, to reduce overall health are expenses for populations of patients. These risk-based contracts come in a variety of models, including pay-for-performance (P4P) incentives, bundled payments, shared savings and global capitation; each requires improved insight into patient population data so that health care organizations can gauge and manage patient needs while simultaneously tracking and adjusting their own performance against risk-based reimbursement contracts.

"By combining HDS with athenahealth, we expect to create a comprehensive, easy-to-access platform for health care organizations to take on and succeed in the face of payment reform and the shift to accountable care," said Jonathan Porter, co-founder of HDS. "The massive changes going on in healthcare reimbursement create challenges, but more so create opportunities. Together with athenahealth, we would be able to bridge the gap between providers, payers, and patients by providing ready-to-use population health management capabilities as part of EHR workflows that support restructured payment models and ensure the delivery of appropriate and necessary care to patients."