Healthcare technology company athenahealth is laying off 178 employees, less than 3% of its workforce, and 100 employees will be "redeployed to higher priority areas" of the business.

According to an email obtained by The Boston Globe, athenahealth CEO Bob Segert pointed to industry trends, hiring that outpaced the company's revenue growth and economic conditions – such as higher interest rates, inflation and "changing tax regulations" – to explain the layoffs and reorganization. 

Segert also said the company would do away with its home internet and mobile-device reimbursement programs, as well as its transportation subsidy, and pare down its office footprint.

"At athenahealth, we are continuously reviewing and evolving our structure and priorities in line with our growth strategy, macroeconomic conditions and the evolving needs of our customers and business. We are making some internal changes to better position our organization for its next phase of growth, and as a result, we are reducing our global workforce by less than 3%.

"While this represents a small percentage of our total employees, it is difficult to say goodbye to any of our people and we are actively working to support all impacted employees," a company spokesperson told MobiHealthNews in an email. 

THE LARGER TREND

athenahealth, which offers an electronic health record and physician practice tools, was once a publicly-traded company that went private in 2019 after completing a $5.7 billion private equity deal with Veritas Capital. The consolidation led to a round of layoffs in 2019 affecting 4% of its workforce to streamline its operations. 

In 2021, athenahealth announced it would be jointly acquired by affiliates of Bain Capital and Hellman & Friedman for $17 billion. The deal closed about a year ago. 

In a November interview with the Globe, highlighted by Healthcare IT News, Segert said the company could once again go public. 

"When you think about athena, it was a great public company and it lost its way a little bit," Segert told the Globe. "We’ve transformed that, created a ton of value. It’s ready to go public again if we so choose that path."

The healthcare tech company is the latest in a string of layoffs seen throughout the digital health and health tech sectors in the past year. Philips announced it would cut 6,000 jobs worldwide by 2025, while telehealth staffing and services company Wheel and digital mental health company Mindstrong also announced layoffs this week.