What You Should Know:
– GetWellNetwork is acquiring Docent Health, a digital health company. Docent provides a patient engagement platform used by healthcare organizations to coordinate personalized care at scale through AI-enabled communication technology.
– The acquisition advances GetWellNetwork’s mission to empower patients and families to be more active participants in their care, and extends important health programs for disadvantaged populations and those suffering health disparities — which are proven to be particularly critical during COVID-19 and the vaccine rollout.
GetWellNetwork, a global leader in patient engagement, announced today the acquisition of Docent Health, an innovative enterprise consumer engagement platform that enables healthcare organizations to coordinate personalized care at scale through AI-enabled communication technology. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.
AI-Enabled Consumer Health Engagement
Docent Health primarily leverages intelligent, real-time text messaging to improve patient outcomes and retention by guiding patients to the “next best step” in their care across episodes, a critical time when patients often don’t know what additional services they need or are at risk of seeking care outside of their home network. Docent Health’s comprehensive support delivers results by capturing and analyzing unique patient data to triage patients to the right ancillary services and community resources, increasing annual wellness visits, driving follow-up from a hospital or ED discharge, and closing referrals to specialists. It supports a wide range of programs and services, including:
– COVID-19 tracing and monitoring
– Health equity
– Mental health, among many others.
“Docent Health has delivered impressive outcomes in some of the largest health systems in the U.S., offering inspiring and important programs aimed at disadvantaged populations and health disparities,” said Michael O’Neil, GetWellNetwork Founder + CEO. “We are excited to combine Docent Health’s unique engagement capabilities with GetWellNetwork’s library of 230+ digital care journeys to create a next-generation platform for patient outcomes and loyalty.”
Recent Milestones
Docent Health recently announced noteworthy results and an enterprise expansion with CommonSpirit Health, a nonprofit health system serving patients in 137 hospitals and 1000+ care sites across 21 states. “The real-time capabilities from Docent Health’s platform take away much of the burden of care coordination, allowing us to scale services, which is particularly important for vulnerable or underserved patients in CommonSpirit’s communities,” said Alisahah Cole, MD, System Vice President of Population Health Innovation and Policy at CommonSpirit Health. “We are excited to bring Docent Health’s human-centric model to more of our patients with complex care needs.”
Post-Acquisition Plans
Docent Health’s talented team will join GetWellNetwork, which will continue to invest in pre-acquisition growth plans. Royal Tuthill, Founder + President of Docent Health, will join the executive leadership team as General Manager, Docent Health and play a key role in ongoing product and commercial strategy.
Why It Matters
“The combination of GetWellNetwork and Docent Health — two mission-driven, innovative companies — offers health systems a human-centered, end-to-end solution solving one of the biggest challenges in healthcare today: fragmentation of services and relationships,” said Tuthill. “Our ability to engage populations at-scale with personalized support, across all points of care, ensures we will be able to further the mission and business results of our partners while continuing to drive meaningful outcomes for communities most in need.”
The combined product offerings enable GetWellNetwork to create a more comprehensive, seamless, and integrated patient engagement experience, and will be available for implementation immediately.
