Premier Inc., which specializes in data analytics and supply chain solutions, announced plans to spend $400 million to acquire CECity Inc., a privately held, software-as-a-service provider specializing in performance management and improvement, pay-for-value reporting and professional education.
Charlotte, N.C.-based Premier said Pittsburgh-based CECity’s services would complement its own. Publicly traded Premier (NASDAQ: PINC) serves an alliance of 3,400 hospitals and health systems, as well as 110,000 non-acute sites of care. CECity serves more than 1.2 million individual healthcare professionals; more than 5,000 individual practices; and more than 100 professional societies, quality improvement organizations and certifying boards. The company is a leading CMS-qualified PQRS (Physician Quality Reporting System) registry and powers approximately 20 percent of the nation's Qualified Clinical Data Registries, which are aligned with PQRS, meaningful use and emerging payment models.
"We are enhancing our capability to provide turn-key performance improvement and measurement reporting solutions in a rapidly expanding market,” said Susan DeVore, president and chief executive officer of Premier, in a prepared statement. “These capabilities are critical given the ongoing movement toward population health, as well as emerging Medicare requirements for all physicians to start reporting on a range of new performance measurements," she said.
Premier said the combined organization would offer solutions that span the continuum of care, supporting providers as they move toward advanced payment models and continue to meet meaningful use requirements. The services will enable medical practices to send clinical patient data in real time to designated registries.
Integrating CECity's capabilities, Premier said it would provide one consolidated source for both ambulatory and acute-care performance management that supports and aligns providers with value-based care. The company also noted that combining CECity's integrated and extensible learning management platform with the collaborative learning and research services developed by Premier and its members would further advance and expand evidence-based quality improvement solutions.
Keith Figlioli, senior vice president of healthcare informatics at Premier, said this was already a proven partnership. "Premier and our member health systems have successfully partnered with CECity on the development and delivery of performance improvement solutions to accountable care organizations. So we already know our integrated solutions are effective."
Keith Figlioli
CECity and its 134 employees/contractors will continue to operate out of its headquarters in Pittsburgh for the foreseeable future as part of Premier's performance services segment.
The transaction is expected to close in Premier's fiscal first quarter ending Sept. 30, 2015.
