Real-time health care communications network NaviNet announced that it has acquired mobile-care-management company Prematics to boost NaviNet's presence on mobile devices.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
NaviNet is a provider of UPIM (unified patient information management). The company's Insurer Connect will incorporate the mobile messaging and e-prescribing functionality of Prematics' services, NaviNet reports.
Doctors and clinicians will be able to inform patients about medication reactions and costs as well as send prescriptions electronically at the point of care.
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"NaviNet's acquisition of Prematics highlights our patient-centric approach to health information management, enhances our clinical product offerings and extends NaviNet from the desktop to the exam room," Brad Waugh, NaviNet's president and CEO, said in a statement. "Doctors using handhelds will benefit from single-source access to integrated clinical, administrative and financial information from health plans, physicians and other sources of patient data."
In addition to e-prescriptions, handheld devices will enable doctors to access preauthorizations and precertifications in the exam room, Waugh said.
Delivering administrative, financial and clinical information in real time will help streamline physicians' workflow, noted Alicia Allen, NaviNet's director of corporate marketing. During consultation, doctors will be able to advise patients on which medications might be more affordable, Allen told eWEEK.
The deal expands on a partnership made public on Sept. 17 when NaviNet had announced that its mobile health network of wellness and insurance claims information from health plans would be available within Prematics' mobile Care Communication application.
As part of the deal announced Dec. 6, the integration of Prematics technology into NaviNet will make the brief doctor/patient consultation of about 7.5 minutes "more powerful," Waugh said in a company video. "We're now putting that power of information into the hands of the doctor," Waugh said.
NaviNet's messaging network connects 462,000 doctors and about 6,000 hospitals, according to Waugh.
With Prematics' foothold in the mobile space, the deal will make NaviNet's wellness and health workflow resources more widely available at the doctor's fingertips on iPads and smartphones.
An early adopter in mobile health on the iPad and smartphones, NaviNet serves as a mobile resource for 70 percent of physicians, Waugh noted.
"NaviNet's relationships with leading national, commercial and Blue plans, and its dominant footprint in the physician practice market, will bring the benefits of mobile clinical messaging and e-prescribing to an even larger audience, improving care and saving costs for even more physicians, health plans and patients across the country," Kevin Hutchinson, president and CEO of Prematics, said in a statement.
At the MGMA 2010 conference in New Orleans in October, NaviNet rolled out two new products: NaviNet EMR (electronic medical record) and NaviNet PM (practice management), which will be available in the first quarter of 2011.
Prematics will no longer exist as a brand and will integrate its products into NaviNet's applications, Allen said. NaviNet will announce a revised product lineup within the next 90 days, she added.
Currently, NaviNet and Prematics products are SAAS (software as a service) applications, and Prematics services also run on iPad, iPhone, iPad Touch and Windows Mobile devices.
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