Sharecare, the health and wellness engagement platform founded by WebMD founder Jeff Arnold and television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz, has acquired QualityHealth, a patient identification and engagement platform that works with health systems and pharmaceutical companies, for an undisclosed sum. QualityHealth will be kept more or less intact as its 50 million member database will help Sharecare scale its other offerings.
"We’re very excited about it," Kathy Harris, senior vice president of corporate development for Sharecare, said at a press event in Atlanta. "It gives Sharecare scale very rapidly, it will increase our revenue opportunity both in the consumer and the B2B markets, and more importantly it will allow us to reach tens of millions of consumers in addition to what we already do and help them lead their healthiest lives."
Sharecare is increasingly looking to B2B partnerships with providers to get its products, like its year-old app AskMD, into the hands of more consumers. Last month it partnered with CHE Trinity Health, one of the largest not-for-profit healthcare systems in the US, to equip its 30 million patients spread across 20 states with Sharecare’s portfolio of patient engagement tools.
According to Sharecare, the acquisition of QualityHealth will more than triple the company's reach and enable it to work with larger scale partners such as health plans and health exchanges. The company is also bringing on QualityHealth CEO Rob Rebak, whose new title will be President of Consumer Solutions at Sharecare. While he'll continue to lead QualityHealth, which will retain its Jersey City, New Jersey office, Rebak will also lead a new business unit at Sharecare focused on consumer revenue, partners, and member acquisition.
"Because of our complementary consumer assets and client solutions, this merger will unquestionably drive substantial growth for the company and value for our clients, enabling us to better serve our established life science client base and expand our provider and payer clients," Rebak said in a statement. "Most importantly, we'll be able to drive more meaningful health consumer engagement. This partnership is a great step forward in building a highly differentiated, truly world-class patient engagement company."
Harris told MobiHealthNews that the acquisition is complementary to Sharecare’s broader acquisition strategy, which is focused on “bringing velocity to the business by adding content, users, great IP or all three.” One example is Sharecare’s much-touted RealAge Test feature. Sharecare acquired RealAge in 2012.
The company has also previously acquired BACTES, a a provider of release of information and audit management services, and PKC Corporation, a developer of healthcare decision support software.
