Sharecare expands health education capabilities, acquires CareLinx home care for $65M (updated)

August 19, 2021 | by

Sharecare, a free/paid app platform that enables users to consolidate and manage all their health and wellness data, is adding to its health management platform additional tools for patient engagement, including more health education. These four will be available on the Sharecare platform in Q4 this year, based on their release:

  • “All Together Better” social aggregator – a dynamic, curated collection of social media content containing relevant conversations, influencers, and news.
  • Condition-specific chatbot – this lets users explore their condition-specific questions through a range of questions and topics related to their health concerns
  • Condition-specific virtual assistant – a virtual assistant to help navigate questions, answers, and resources
  • Interactive data visualization and mapping – this new mobile- and web-based experience takes users on a highly interactive data-driven health education journey with animated graphics and national- to community-level maps.

Interestingly, both care management and health education are converging in services such as Emmi Wolters Kluwer, Milliman HealthIO, and even apps such as Wellframe which have added biometric alerts and RPM. Release, Mobihealthnews

Last week, Sharecare had its own ‘shake’ of the home care market with the acquisition of CareLinx, a home care provider with a network of 450,000 caregivers. The CareLinx platform facilitates care team management and delivery of a wide variety of home support services. Sharecare acquired it from Europ Assistance for $65 million–$54.6 million in cash and $10.4 million in Sharecare common stock. Another shakeup of the otherwise sleepy home care market, in size smaller than the Honor-Home Instead deal that also took place last week. Release

Earlier this year [TTA 18 Feb], Sharecare went the SPAC route with Falcon Capital Acquisition Corp., trading on NASDAQ under SHCR as of 2 July. Sharecare received $571 million in gross proceeds and is reported to have a valuation of $3.9 billion. Management is staying in place. Release, Capital 

Speaking of aggregation, in the past two years, Sharecare has become an aggregator, or perhaps a conglomerate, of multiple digital health companies that operate separately or are integrated within the company. Their recent purchases include two AI platforms–doc.ai.in capturing data; WhiteHatAI, which is now Sharecare Payment Integrity; MindSciences (DrJud.com) in behavioral health and smoking cessation; and value-based care gap closer Visualize Health into their provider dashboard.

Home care rocked: Honor Technology acquires home care provider Home Instead

August 14, 2021 | by

Honor Technology, which provides tech-based management services to home care agencies, has acquired home care provider Home Instead. Home Instead, the world’s largest network and international franchiser of home care services, has 1,200 offices in 14 countries with 100,000 caregivers (and largest in the UK with 13,000). Home Instead will retain its name and operate as a subsidiary of Honor. No financial or management terms were disclosed, but the valuation of the company will top $2.1 billion (£1.5bn). 

It’s a bit like the guppy swallowing the whale. Honor is only six years old, compared to 25-year-old Home Instead. Honor, which started out as a West Coast-based on-demand care company, now provides an operational platform to generally smaller home care agencies for services such as billing, scheduling, staffing, and other back-office functions for a negotiated share of its agency partners’ revenue. The guppy has to date a modest $255 million in financial backing, including last October’s $140 million Series D, from firms such as T. Rowe Price, Baillie Gifford, and Andreessen Horowitz. Supposedly the deal was inked in months, starting with a speculative phone call between Honor CEO Seth Sternberg and Home Instead CEO Jeff Huber.

Home Instead definitely saw value in Honor’s analytics, which profiles caregivers’ motivations to find the best fit for what shifts and duty suits them best. Recruitment and retention of caregivers is a major worldwide problem. According to LaingBuisson’s article on the acquisition, the UK alone has a shortage of 4,500 caregivers. This also converges into staffing health systems’ moves into hospital-at-home care. Martin Jones, Home Instead’s UK chief executive noted that ‘The hospital of the future is the home. And our future will be fuelled by a vibrant, respected workforce delivering care with skill and compassion.”

“To drive innovation, Honor will substantially increase its investment in research and development through engineering and technology. Honor and Home Instead also plan to extend their advocacy and social purpose initiatives. The combination will empower professional caregivers and enable millions more older adults across the globe to receive the support they need now and in the future.” 

It’s a huge deal in the sleepy home care business, and it vaults Honor into a position to shake up the home care business even further. Honor release, Honor blog, HomeHealthCareNews, McKnight’s Senior Living  Hat tip to reader Adrian Scaife. Laurie Orlov in her Aging and Health Technology Watch also has an interesting take on the acquisition being exactly right.