Last week, it announced another new partner, CHE Trinity Health, Livonia, Mich., the 86-hospital Catholic healthcare system formed last year with the merger of Catholic Healthcare East and Trinity Health.
Scott Nordlund, CHE Trinity's executive vice president for growth, strategy and innovation development, said “we are vested in this relationship,” though he declined to disclose the terms. Nordlund and Arnold appeared together at a recent press briefing in Chicago.
Many patient engagement and connectivity services are available on the market, but Nordland said the completeness of Arnold's offering prompted the partnership.
Arnold's latest venture is a rollup of several distinct products, including Sharecare.com, a crowd-sourcing community health platform; the RealAge Test, an extensive health assessment tool; and AskMD, a consumer-facing diagnostic-support application that also serves as a directory, pointing users to healthcare providers who can treat them.
AskMD was added to Arnold's portfolio in 2012 with the acquisition of PKC Corp., the company founded by health IT pioneer and icon Dr. Lawrence Weed.
The strategy for Sharecare is to “invest in the best-of-breed” products, and then, “continue to add to that stack of services,” Arnold said.
CHE Trinity's aim with Sharecare, Nordlund said, isn't just to connect with patients, as a patient portal might do, but to use the Sharecare platform to extend the system's local healthcare outpost names, brands and services throughout the communities CHE Trinity serves.
To illustrate, Arnold said, a Sharecare app can both deliver information about a medical condition and suggest to a consumer which system-affiliated physicians could provide appropriate services for that specific ailment.
The Sharecare rollout at CHE Trinity will begin immediately, limited initially to five or six key regions, Nordlund said. Local leaders of those organizations will help guide what services are offered, he said.
As Sharecare's chairman and CEO, Arnold said he expects to announce another Sharecare partnership with a provider organization later this year.
He hopes to learn from CHE Trinity “the really hard stuff,” such as patient and provider integration, as well as learning which apps and services get used and which don't.
“That's kind of the trick,” Arnold said, “getting people to use it.”
Follow Joseph Conn on Twitter: @MHJConn
