Change Healthcare on Thursday said it acquired National Decision Support Company.

Change CEO Neil de Crescenzo said NDSC’s cloud-based services add tools for evidence-based medicine to its product portfolio.

The companies have partnered in the past. Change’s InterQual team, for instance, integrated the NDSC automation engine to streamline medical reviews and prior authorizations by accessing clinical data in electronic health records platforms.

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Change also gains a number of NDSC products from the acquisition. NDSC CareSelect Imaging brings a unique distribution license with the American College of Radiology to present evidence-based guidelines in accordance with the Appropriate Use Criteria at the point of care, the companies said.

Likewise, NDSC's CareSelect Choosing Wisely is based on the American Board of Internal Medicine’s similarly-named initiative to promote conversations between doctors and patients to avoid unnecessary medical tests or treatments.

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NDSC’s CareSelect Lab, based on a partnership with the Mayo Clinic, is a clinical decision support tool that ties into EHRs and aggregates clinical knowledge to recommend best practices.

"NDSC puts clinical intelligence in the hands of physicians and other clinicians as they are delivering care,” de Crescenzo added. “With medical guidelines, clinicians can make decisions that lead to better patient outcomes, improve efficiency, and optimize care paths based on world-class clinical expertise."

NDSC CEO Michael Mardini will lead the team with Change Healthcare from NDSC’s Madison, Wisconsin offices.

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Email the writer: tom.sullivan@himssmedia.com