This week Zoll Medical Corporation, a medical device and software company, announced that it acquired patient charting and revenue cycle management company Golden Hour for an undisclosed sum.
The companies, which both offer charting and services related to the emergency medical services market, will now be able to combine its efforts, according to a statement.
“We have been looking at this acquisition for the better part of a year and exploring it and doing a lot of due diligence on it,” Rick Clyne, VP of digital marketing at Zoll, told MobiHealthNews. “The EMS chart component of the Golden Hour business is very much part of our client market’s sweet spot and we have been aware of them, and competed with them for a number of years. We have a ton of respect for what they are able to do and the design and engineering of their product. So we looked at them, and saw a great opportunity to combine both organizations' expertise in charting.”
What's the impact
Clyne said that Zoll Medical has focused on working with larger operations, while Golden Hour has focused on a smaller organization. This acquisition will give the former the opportunity to work with EMS agencies of all sizes.
“We see it as being something that gives us an additional market share and that’s always desirable. It’s a great opportunity to drive essentially a more efficient and better business model with EMS, with, again, incredible innovation, better data and interoperability,” Clyne said. “We see that delivering better business process and tools to our market, which are ultimately going to allow [practitioners] to provide a better patient experience as well.”
Combining the two platforms could also help the companies tackle interoperability.
"Joining forces with Zoll will have an immediate positive impact on our combined customer bases,” Kevin Hutton, chairman and CEO of Golden Hour, said in a statement. "Golden Hour's offerings are a natural fit with Zoll's SaaS platform and will accelerate the goal of driving data interoperability in healthcare."
What's the trend
This isn’t Zoll’s first acquisition this year. In January the company acquired Payor Logic, a patient receivable and insurance discovery company for providers.
However, Zoll’s wearable defibrillator LifeVest recently came under scrutiny when it faced a range of lawsuits and FDA actions over problems with the device.
The FDA reports that at least two people died because their vests failed to activate because of an electrical issue. Meanwhile local press in Pittsburgh reported that the devices are causing burns and rashes when they activate erroneously.
