Kaiser Permanente has completed its acquisition of Danville, Pennsylvania-based Geisinger, first announced a year ago. The health system is now the inaugural member of Risant Health, a Kaiser spinoff focused on advancing and accelerating value-based care models.

WHY IT MATTERS
Risant Health plans to acquire four or five other community-based health systems in the next few years, according to Kaiser. But its addition of Geisinger as the first one sets a high bar for technology-enabled care innovation.

The aim is to focus on boosting access to value-based care across its coverage population, drawing on the deep expertise of both health systems to create a new platform that can "expand and accelerate the adoption of value-based care in diverse, multipayer, multiprovider, community-based health system environments," according to Risant Health.

With the close of the transaction, Dr. Jaewon Ryu – Geisinger's president and CEO since 2019 – will be the first CEO of Risant Health.

It was announced this past month that Dr. Terry Gilliland will be the new president and CEO of Geisinger.

As it begins its stated mission to improve the health of millions of patients nationwide by expanding the use and availability of accountable care, Risant Health combines the complementary skill sets of its founding members: Kaiser's long experience with integrated care and coverage, and Geisinger's value-based care efforts with an array of payers and providers, some serving vulnerable urban and rural communities.

Geisinger – which will maintain its name and mission – will take the lead shaping Risant Health's strategy, building on its own long history of IT-enabled innovation with new access to capital, technology and resources to enable innovation and investment in patient care, while continuing the expansion of Geisinger Health Plan.

THE LARGER TREND
In June 2023, Dr. Ryu spoke with Healthcare Finance News about the Kaiser acquisition and what Geisinger would bring to the new Risant Health organization.

"This path with Kaiser Permanente through Risant Health presented a great way to join with a fellow nonprofit, mission-aligned organization that is like-minded and focused on improving health outcomes, affordability and access. Kaiser Permanente has been a best-in-class organization of this approach for quite some time, often viewed as the gold standard in value-based care," he told HFN executive editor Susan Morse.

"Geisinger has been similarly committed to advancing innovation and value-based care models, partnering with other payers and other physician groups and health systems to do so," he added. Together, we can make high-quality, equitable, evidence-based care available to many more communities across the country."

ON THE RECORD
"Risant Health and Geisinger share a vision for the future of healthcare," said Risant Health's Board Chair Greg A. Adams, in a statement announcing the closing of the acquisition. "Through Risant Health, we will leverage our industry-leading expertise and innovation to increase the country's access to high-quality and evidence-based health care, which we know improves care quality and the patient and member experience."

"Geisinger is proud to formally join Risant Health as its inaugural health system, which will accelerate our vision to make better health easier, more affordable and more accessible for the communities we serve," added Ryu. "Geisinger now can extend its vision, strategy and impact to more Pennsylvanians because of the access to an expanded set of tools, expertise and capital that joining Risant Health provides."

Mike Miliard is executive editor of Healthcare IT News
Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS publication.