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Thursday 15 April 2021

Alcidion snaps up Hospedia’s ExtraMed

Australian-headquartered smart health tech provider, Alcidion Group, has acquired ExtraMed, a UK patient flow software company and wholly owned subsidiary of bedside communication and entertainment provider, Hospedia.

The move makes sense for both parties. Hospedia rose from the ashes of Patientline, the largest provider of NHS bedside phones and TVs. It bought ExtraMed in 2012. Five years later, James Steventon was appointed Hospedia CEO, and he started to refocus Hospedia and ExtraMed as separate businesses and brands, due to their different customers, purchasers, and propositions. ExtraMed had built up a client base of nine NHS Trusts including involvement as a partner in a 10- year Digital Control Centre project at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, as part of the Northern Care Alliance NHS Group (see here). Financial details of Extramed’s sale have not been revealed. However, it follows that Steventon will use the funds from the sale to invest in Hospedia’s future.

Meanwhile, Alcidion continues to invest to scale its business. In its last financial year its Group turnover stood at AUS$18.6m with a pre-tax loss of AUS$4m. The company has committed to completing investment in FY21 with the cost base stabilising thereafter. Having raised capital in 2019, the Group has been actively searching for and assessing potentially suitable acquisition candidates. In the UK – which accounts for c22% of Group turnover – one of the key aims has been to drive uptake of the company’s entire product suite. It works with more than 40 hospitals across the UK through its Miya product suite, which includes the electronic observations module Patientrack. We have been tracking Alcidion’s progress in the UK market. Its solution appeals to Trusts that want to take a best of breed approach that harnesses the power of AI and automation (see here).

According to the acquisition announcement, it will, at first, be “business as usual” for Alcidion and ExtraMed. However, the belief is that by drawing on the shared knowledge of the two organisations, Alcidon will quickly be able to enhance its offerings providing new opportunities around “integration, automation, clinical decision support, resource management, patient observation, and clinical communication.”

The big takeaway is that it makes much more sense for ExtraMed to be part of Alcidion than part of Hospedia. Although Hospedia had early plans to try and incorporate ExtraMed’s patient flow technology into Hospedia’s bedside communications, it soon became clear to Steventon that this was the wrong form factor and synergies were limited. The acquisition is another step in Alcidion’s strategy to continue enhancing its proposition through investment in its capabilities and in its partner network. The synergies are clear; ExtraMed’s digital expertise has the potential to enhance Alcidion’s patient care offerings to hospitals and associated primary and social care organisations, while the ExtraMed proposition should benefit from Alcidion’s expertise in developing and delivering patient care technology.

Posted by: Georgina O'Toole at 08:52