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WELL Health Technologies Provides Update on Organic Growth of its Virtual Services Business, and announces Tuck-in Acquisition
Tuesday, December 7, 2021Company Profile | Follow Company
WELL Health Provides Update on the Organic Growth of its Virtual Services Business, and announces Tuck-in Acquisition of CognisantMD's Ocean Platform, Canada's Leader in Patient Engagement Technology and eReferral Software
Vancouver, BC, December 7, 2021--(T-Net)--WELL Health Technologies Corp. (TSX: WELL), a company focused on positively impacting health outcomes by leveraging technology to empower healthcare practitioners and their patients globally, has provided key updates on the company's Virtual Services business and announce the 100% acquisition of CognisantMD and its Ocean Platform, an integral part of clinical workflows for practitioners across Canada.
Virtual Services Update:
WELL's Virtual Services encompasses all aspects of their Practitioner enablement platform. This includes key services such as Electronic Medical Records (EMR) software, Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) and digitally oriented patient service businesses such as Circle Medical, Tia Health & WISP.
This also includes WELL's digital app business unit, which hosts numerous physician productivity tools & applications through our Apps.Health ecosystem.
Hamed Shahbazi, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, WELL Health Technologies Corp.
Hamed Shahbazi, Chairman and CEO of WELL Health commented, "We reported WELL's virtual services ecosystem continues to exhibit strong organic growth across the organization with over 50% organic growth as measured on a year over year basis4. As of Q3 2021 and inclusive of our recently completed acquisitions1, our platform was generating approximately $110M in run-rate revenues with 50%+ Adjusted gross margins. We continue to invest through our income statement to activate further organic growth. We are also very pleased to be welcoming the CognisantMD team to the WELL family. Their strong organic growth, experienced healthcare IT brain trust and culture of ingenuity will only add momentum to the success of our digital practitioner enablement platform"
Acquisition of CognisantMD Creator of the Ocean Platform
WELL announced the acquisition of CognisantMD whose Ocean platform includes a full suite of virtual patient engagement tools, including online appointment booking, secure messaging, appointment reminders, and digital forms as well as in-clinic check-in kiosks and tablets.
Each month, Canadians complete over 800,000 patient engagements with their healthcare providers using Ocean's digital tools. Ocean has built unparalleled interoperability, with integrations into over 18 EMRs, Electronic Health Records (EHRs), and provincial healthcare assets and third-party technology platforms using industry-leading open standards including HL7 FHIR5.
Ocean's interoperability is highly strategic for government initiatives, as evidenced by their platform powering eReferrals for the province of Ontario's eServices Program.
Ocean's platform supports over 8,000 physicians, and approximately 35,000 referrals and consults are sent electronically through the platform monthly. Ocean's eReferral system has resulted in reduced wait times, a 12% reduction in unnecessary MRIs, and has a 97% patient satisfaction rate. Ontario's reduced wait times, improved patient outcomes, and cost efficiencies has attracted attention from new provinces, with Ocean recently launching a Proof of Concept for eConsult with the Nova Scotia Health Authority (NSHA), with the aim to add further provinces in the future.
CognisantMD will operate as a stand-alone business within the WELL Digital App Business Unit and will be operated by its current President, Jeff Kavanagh and Medical Director, Dr. Doug Kavanagh.
Ocean has established deep integrations and long-standing partnerships with all the major EMR systems in Canada, including OSCAR Pro on apps.health.
Post transaction, CognisantMD will prioritize increasingly advanced integrations with its ecosystem of reseller partners to market and sell the integrated suite of Ocean solutions across Canada.
Together, Ocean & WELL also plan to build integrations into other EMR assets, including Intrahealth & Cerebrum, creating a sizeable addressable market of new physicians for Ocean's suite of services. In addition, WELL will look to benefit from the suite of Ocean products across its substantial clinical and specialty businesses.
Amir Javidan WELL's Chief Operating Officer commented, "WELL has been impressed with CognisantMD and its leadership from the very beginning of our journey together. Watching CognisantMD develop from an app partner to the progression of joining the WELL family as a tuck-in acquisition shows the power of WELL's platform and industry connectivity. With Ocean now powering the Provider Network platform of two provinces, we believe they are well positioned as the category leader for eReferral and eConsult purposes across Canada. A suite of best-in-class engagement tools and eReferral connectivity from primary to specialty and acute care are key areas of focus for our practitioner enablement platform, and we are excited to get CognisantMD further integrated into the WELL ecosystem in the coming months."
Dr. Doug Kavanagh, Medical Director of CognisantMD also commented, "Over the past few years, clinicians across Canada have embraced the Ocean Platform as an integral part of clinical workflows from their EMR. We're excited to join forces with WELL as we continue to pursue our shared goal of improving outcomes for patients by providing clinicians with technology that helps to improve the efficiency, reliability, and accuracy of healthcare records."
"We look forward to being a part of the larger WELL Health ecosystem, allowing us to leverage the management, capital allocation and shared services expertise of WELL while continuing to expand and serve patients and providers, who are universally demanding better health data interoperability," commented Jeff Kavanagh, CEO, CognisantMD. "With the resources of the WELL organization, we see huge potential for the Ocean platform not just in Canada but outside as well; really we're just getting started."
Transaction Details
The consideration paid by WELL in connection with the acquisition of CoginsantMD was approximately $10,570,000, in cash at closing. In addition, WELL will pay $7,000,000 in time-based payments, as well as a conditional earn-out based on overall operating performance of up to approximately $7,000,000. The consideration is subject to standard closing adjustments and a working capital holdback. Full achievement of the performance based earnout would imply an acquisition multiple of less than 5X future EBITDA.
About WELL Health Technologies Corp.
WELL is a technology enabled healthcare company whose overarching objective is to positively impact health outcomes to empower and support healthcare practitioners and their patients. WELL has built an innovative practitioner enablement platform that includes comprehensive end to end practice management tools inclusive of virtual care and digital patient engagement capabilities as well as Electronic Medical Records (EMR), Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) and data protection services. WELL uses this platform to power healthcare practitioners both inside and outside of WELL's own omni-channel patient services offerings. WELL owns and operates Canada's largest network of outpatient medical clinics serving primary and specialized healthcare services and is the provider of a leading multi-national multi-disciplinary telehealth offering. WELL is publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "WELL" and is part of the TSX Composite Index. To learn more about the company, please visit: www.well.company.
Footnotes:
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization ("EBITDA") and Adjusted EBITDA should not be construed as alternatives to net income/loss determined in accordance with IFRS. EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA do not have any standardized meaning under IFRS and therefore may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other issuers. The Company defines Adjusted EBITDA as EBITDA (i) less net rent expense on premise leases considered to be finance leases under IFRS and (ii) before transaction, restructuring, and integration costs, time-based earn-out expense, change in fair value of investments, share of loss of associates, foreign exchange gain/loss, and stock-based compensation expense. The Company considers Adjusted EBITDA a financial metric that measures cash that the Company can use to fund working capital requirements, service future interest and principal debt repayments and fund future growth initiatives.
4. The 50% growth figure includes all assets that were owned in the WELL family within the virtual services group as of Oct 1, 2021 (the day after our Q3)
5. HL7 FHIR means Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources which is a standard describing data formats and elements and an application programming interface for exchanging electronic health records. The standard was created by the Health Level Seven International health-care standards organization.
Notice Regarding Forward Looking Information Certain statements in this news release related to the Company are forward-looking statements and are prospective in nature. Forward-looking statements are not based on historical facts, but rather on current expectations and projections about future events, and are therefore subject to risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from the future results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. [ MORE ] |
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WELL Health Technologies Corp.
Vancouver (Other Tech Sectors)
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