athenahealth may go public a second time. This was teased by CEO Bob Segert in the Boston Globe (paywalled) earlier this week. He claimed in the article that since the company went private in 2019, they have added nearly 2,000 clients each year of the past three and that revenues are in the billions. Healthcare IT News recaps some of their moves from going from public to private and downsizing to today. Their other news is that they have instituted a clinical advisory board of 30 members (!) to provide feedback and guidance on clinical features and direction to athenahealth’s product team. One hopes that the sharper members advise a change in the first letter of their name from the oh-so-twee lowercase to an uppercase ‘A’. 

NextGen Healthcare, an EHR/EMR and revenue cycle management software provider for medical/dental practices, is acquiring reseller partner TSI Healthcare. The agreement is for $68 million in cash upfront, with a contingent consideration of up to $22 million in cash if TSI meets certain goals by March 2025. TSI has been a NextGen reseller for 16 years. The acquisition will enable NextGen to expand in key specialties including rheumatology, pulmonology, and cardiology. No mention is made of management or staff transition, nor of SEC review as NextGen is a publicly traded company on Nasdaq. Hat tip to HISTalk 2 Dec. Release, BusinessJournals Triangle

Massachusetts-based Cloudwave is acquiring Sensato Cybersecurity to increase cybersecurity capabilities. Cloudwave provides cloud services hosting with cybersecurity capabilities exclusively to healthcare organizations. Sensato adds cybersecurity-as-a-service (CaaS) to manage security needs, determine where security gaps are, and threat intelligence. Transaction price and details were not disclosed, but Sensato’s founder John Gomez will join CloudWave as chief security and engineering officer. Healthcare IT News  Cybersecurity continues to be top-of-mind for healthcare organizations. The latest Big Data Breach at CommonSpirit Health system hospitals got even worse, with the third-party breach of an undisclosed number of patient records at their Franciscan Health hospitals in September and October. This followed the ransomware attack on other CommonSpirit system hospitals’ EHRs in October. Healthcare IT News

As we near the end of the year, funding is wrapping up with a flurry in some surprising areas such as optimizing metabolism and care coordination for chronic conditions, reducing burden on primary care practices/GPs. One is for an early-stage company in the UK for the latter.

• Lumen’s $62 million Series B was led by Pitango Venture Capital with Hanwha Group and Resolute Ventures.   Lumen measures metabolism via a handheld, breathalyzer-like device equipped with a CO2 sensor that analyzes whether the body is burning fats or carbs for fuel which can promote weight loss, energy for fitness, and sleep. With that data, the app delivers to users personalized meal plans and nutrition along with when to eat. The new funding will be used to expand these nutrition and lifestyle coaching services. The device is sold direct to consumers, with the app services sold on a SaaS basis: three yearly plans with a range of services from $249 to (on sale) $349.  Mobihealthnews, MedCityNews
• Another Series B raise of $140 million went to UpStream, for total funding of $185 million. UpStream is in the decidedly unsexy area of care coordination, workflow, and financial platform technology for groups of advanced primary care practices enrolled in value-based full-risk care models, most of which are centered around Medicare and Medicare Advantage. They also deploy pharmacist-led care teams into primary care practices. Their platform and services are free to the practice, with a risk-sharing agreement that pays UpStream through savings (upside risk) but also holds them accountable if savings are below the benchmark (downside risk). Practices are paid on quality during the performance year versus having to wait for CMS to pay in Q3-4 of the following year. This is an MSO (management services organization) ‘in a box’ versus organizing ACOs that is mainly technology-based, a new wrinkle for this Editor who used to be in marketing this area. MedCityNews, Mobihealthnews
• Aide Health is a clinician-to-patient platform for better management of chronic conditions now bolstered with £1 million in pre-seed funding. Founded by Ian Wharton, CEO, and Brian Snyder, COO, the platform measures physical, mental, and social wellbeing markers for more proactive care. Aide is piloting with the NHS for asthma or Type 2 diabetes with a cohort aged 18 to 75.  Funding was led by Hambro Perks through its EIS fund, with participation from Fuel Ventures, 1818 Ventures, and APX. BusinessCloud (UK)