Athenahealth (stylized as athenahealth) is a private American company that provides network-enabled services for

healthcare Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health profe ...

and

point-of-care Clinical point of care (POC) is the point in time when clinicians deliver healthcare products and services to patients at the time of care. Clinical documentation Clinical documentation is a record of the critical thinking and judgment of a health ...

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...

s in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The company was founded in 1997 in

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

and is now headquartered in

Watertown, Massachusetts Watertown is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, and is part of Greater Boston. The population was 35,329 in the 2020 census. Its neighborhoods include Bemis, Coolidge Square, East Watertown, Watertown Square, and the West End. Watertown ...

. They have also grown to include operational sites in

Belfast, Maine Belfast is a city in Waldo County, Maine, Waldo County, Maine, in the United States. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the city population was 6,938. Located at the mouth of the Passagassawakeag River estuary on Belfast Bay (Main ...

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...

Burlington, Vermont Burlington is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Vermont and the seat of Chittenden County. It is located south of the Canada–United States border and south of Montreal. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the population was 44,743. It ...

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...

, with international operations in

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

, and

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. On February 15, 2022, the company was acquired by

Bain Capital Bain Capital is an American private investment firm based in Boston. It specializes in private equity, venture capital, credit, public equity, impact investing, life sciences, and real estate. Bain Capital invests across a range of industry se ...

and

Hellman & Friedman Hellman & Friedman LLC (H&F) is an American private equity firm, founded in 1984 by Warren Hellman and Tully Friedman, that makes investments primarily through leveraged buyouts as well as growth capital investments. H&F has focused its efforts o ...

for $17 billion.

Company history

Athena Women's Health

The company was founded by

Jonathan Bush Jonathan James Bush (May 6, 1931 – May 5, 2021) was an American banker who was the fourth child and third son of U. S. Senator Prescott Bush and his wife Dorothy Bush. He was the brother of former Congressman, CIA Director, Vice President and ...

and

Todd Park Todd Park is a Korean American entrepreneur and government executive. He served as Chief Technology Officer of the United States and technology advisor for U.S. President Barack Obama. Early life and education Park was born in 1973 in Salt La ...

in 1997 as Athena Women's Health, a women's health and birthing center in San Diego, California. At the birthing center, only 10% of babies were delivered by

C-section Caesarean section, also known as C-section or caesarean delivery, is the surgical procedure by which one or more babies are delivered through an incision in the mother's abdomen, often performed because vaginal delivery would put the baby or ...

, one third of the national average, and 90% of mothers were able to breastfeed their newborns, beating the national average of 67% at the time.

Athenahealth

In 1998, venture funder Mark Wilson offered to buy Athenahealth's software for $11 million. Bush and Park turned down the offer and transitioned the business model from birthing centers to internet-based healthcare. They rebranded Athena Women's Health to Athenahealth, Inc., pulling in Ed Park, Todd Park's younger brother, an engineer, to develop a practice management system. In 2000, Athenahealth's first client, Anchor Medical Associates, went live on athenaCollector, and, in February, its first electronic claim was submitted. While its first office opened its doors in

Waltham, Massachusetts Waltham ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, and was an early center for the labor movement as well as a major contributor to the American Industrial Revolution. The original home of the Boston Manufacturing Company, th ...

in 2002, Athenahealth moved to Watertown, Massachusetts in 2005 and is still headquartered there today. Athenahealth announced an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

of its common stock on June 22, 2007. The offering was completed on September 20, 2007, at a price of $18 per share. It traded on the

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

exchange under the symbol ATHN until it was taken private in 2019. Since moving its headquarters to Watertown in 2005, Athenahealth has created campuses in: Chennai, India, in 2005; Belfast, Maine, in 2008; Princeton, New Jersey, in 2013; Atlanta, Georgia, and San Francisco, California, in 2014; Austin, Texas, in 2015; and Bangalore and Pune, India, in 2017. In January 2015, Athenahealth announced the acquisition of RazorInsights, a "leader in cloud-based EHR and financial solutions" for rural, critical access, and

community hospital A community hospital can be purely a nominal designation or have a more specific meaning. When specific, it refers to a hospital that is accessible to the general public, and provides a general or specific medical care which is usually short-term, ...

s. The purchase extended Athenahealth's established position in the outpatient market into the 50-bed and under

inpatient care Inpatient care is the care of patients whose condition requires admission to a hospital. Progress in modern medicine and the advent of comprehensive out-patient clinics ensure that patients are only admitted to a hospital when they are extremely ...

environment, which makes up nearly one third of the hospital market. In February 2015, Athenahealth announced that it had purchased webOMR, a web-based clinical applications and EHR platform developed by Boston's

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston, Massachusetts is a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. It was formed out of the 1996 merger of Beth Israel Hospital (founded in 1916) and New England Deaconess Hospital (founded ...

. Athenahealth collaborated with BIDMC on the development of Athenahealth's acute care service offering, using Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Needham, a 58-bed community hospital, as the alpha development site. On February 7, 2018, former CEO of

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...

Jeffrey Immelt Jeffrey Robert Immelt (born February 19, 1956) is an American business executive currently working as a venture partner at New Enterprise Associates. He previously served as the CEO of General Electric from 2001 to 2017, and the CEO of GE's Medi ...

became the chairman of the board. On June 6, 2018, Immelt was named executive chairman. Athenahealth announced its acquisition of Praxify Technologies in June 2017. From 2017 to 2018, under pressure from investor

Elliott Management Elliott Investment Management is an American investment management firm. It is also one of the largest activist funds in the world. It is the management affiliate of American hedge funds Elliott Associates L.P. and Elliott International Limit ...

, Athenahealth undertook substantial cost-cutting measures, and Bush resigned. In November 2018, Athenahealth was bought by Elliott and

Veritas Capital Veritas Capital is a New York-based private-equity firm founded in 1992 that invests in companies providing critical products and services, primarily technology-enabled products and services, to government and commercial customers worldwide. The ...

for $5.7 billion, and then merged with an organisation that

had acquired from GE Healthcare in April 2018. In late 2018, Athenahealth's private equity firm announced it was combining Virence Health into Athenahealth. Virence was the former Clinical Business Solutions division of GE Healthcare which combined some assets from the former IDX Systems with its prior acquisitions of MedicaLogic and Millbrook. On January 28, 2021, the

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...

reported that Athenahealth violated the False Claims Act (FCA) by paying illegal kickbacks to generate sales of its EHR product, athenaClinicals. On February 15, 2022, the company was acquired by

and

for $17 billion.

Illegal kickback allegations

On January 28, 2021, the

reported that Athenahealth has agreed to pay $18.25 million to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act (FCA) by paying illegal kickbacks to generate sales of its EHR product, athenaClinicals.

Products and services

athenaOne

athenaOne is Athenahealth's fully integrated suite of

cloud-based Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage (cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over multip ...

services, combining practice management (athenaCollector), an

electronic health record An electronic health record (EHR) is the systematized collection of patient and population electronically stored health information in a digital format. These records can be shared across different health care settings. Records are shared throu ...

(EHR) system (athenaClinicals), and care coordination (athenaCommunicator) into a single packaged offering.

athenaCollector

Athenahealth's first product, athenaCollector, a cloud-based revenue cycle and practice management service, was launched in 2000. Built by Ed Park, the revenue cycle management system formed the foundation of athenaNet, Athenahealth's web-based system at large. (Ed Park would go on to become Athenahealth's Chief Operating Officer and member of its board.)

athenaClinicals

In 2006, the company launched athenaClinicals, reported as the "first economically sustainable, service-based" electronic medical records (EMR) system. athenaClinicals has been ranked as leading the market in EHR usability, due to its productivity and ability to reduce providers’ work, effectiveness of delivering patient care, and intuitive user interface.

athenaCommunicator

In 2008, Athenahealth introduced athenaCommunicator to manage phone calls. Since then, the product has evolved into a suite of "patient engagement services," including a

patient portal Patient portals are healthcare-related online applications that allow patients to interact and communicate with their healthcare providers, such as physicians and hospitals. Typically, portal services are available on the Internet at all hours o ...

, patient self-scheduling solution, and live operator service to better help patients to schedule appointments, reschedule appointments, and make payments.

Epocrates

In 2013, the company purchased the Epocrates mobile brand, and continued to occupy Epocrates's offices in Princeton, New Jersey and San Francisco, California. Epocrates aggregates treatment information, including dosing and

contraindication In medicine, a contraindication is a condition that serves as a reason not to take a certain medical treatment due to the harm that it would cause the patient. Contraindication is the opposite of indication, which is a reason to use a certain tre ...

s, to provide clinical decision support in the prescribing moments of care. Epocrates drug monographs have also been embedded into the athenaClinicals EHR system to enhance productivity and reduce time not spent on patients.

Partnerships

More Disruption Please

Athenahealth's More Disruption Please (MDP) program was launched in 2011. The initiative is both a partner program and an incubator environment for independent companies to develop products and services connected to Athenahealth's ecosystem. In 2014, Athenahealth created the More Disruption Please accelerator, an opportunity for young

startups A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an Entrepreneurship, entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses t ...

still finding their legs to begin developing in Athenahealth's MDP space. “The goal of he MDP acceleratoris to lower the barrier of entry for the best solutions to help us build the healthcare Internet,” said Mandira Singh, director of the More Disruption Please program. In its first full year, the accelerator added five companies to its portfolio. In April 2016, Athenahealth acquired Arsenal Health, which developed a Smart Scheduling service for healthcare providers. Arsenal Health was Athenahealth's first MDP investment, in 2014. Athenahealth launched MDP Labs in 2017. The program invites all entrepreneurs, from startups to mature companies, to innovate in healthcare and fix what's broken. Athenahealth's MDP Labs offered workspace in its downtown San Francisco office, tailored programming, dedicated mentorship, opportunities for partnerships and funding, and exposure to potential clients., though ended around 2019 with the closure of the San Francisco and other offices.

References

External links

* {{Authority control, state=expanded Companies based in Watertown, Massachusetts Software companies based in Massachusetts Health care companies based in Massachusetts Electronic health record software companies 2007 initial public offerings Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq 2019 mergers and acquisitions Health care companies established in 1997 Software companies established in 1997 American companies established in 1997 1997 establishments in California Private equity portfolio companies Software companies of the United States 2022 mergers and acquisitions Bain Capital companies