Azara Healthcare and SPH Analytics’ Population Health Division Announce Merger

Top-rated companies merge to provide comprehensive population health and value-based healthcare insights to 60,000 providers impacting 25 million lives

Azara Healthcare, a leading provider of population health solutions to the community health market, and SPH Analytics, a leader in healthcare consumer experience measurement, engagement and population-based analytics, announced a merger between Azara Healthcare and SPH Analytics’ population health division. Operating as Azara Healthcare, the new company offers a unique combination of provider-centric population health expertise, data analytics, and direct connectivity between providers and payers. The combined organization will deliver deep population health insights to support government and commercial risk contracts, quality programs, care management, and cost and utilization, while forming strong partnerships among payers, providers, and members, to realize the promise of value-based care.

“We’ve studied population health for a number of years”

“We have spent the last decade collaborating with community health organizations who are expert population health practitioners in underserved populations, with particular emphasis on managed Medicaid,” said Jeff Brandes, who will continue serving in his role as CEO of Azara Healthcare. “As a result of this partnership, our solution is directly tied to the needs of patients and providers. With the addition of the SPH Analytics population health division, Azara now has a robust platform to extend this value to also meet the unique and growing needs of the commercial provider and payer risk markets.”

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Now one of the nation’s largest focused population health companies, Azara Healthcare supports over 60,000 providers and payers, impacting the health of more than 25 million Americans. The company’s combined solutions have received numerous awards and recognition by noted industry analysts such as KLAS Research and Black Book Research.

With the ability to integrate data from diverse sources and help providers tie their clinical data to payer claims data, financial systems, Health Information Exchanges (HIEs), and more, the new Azara Healthcare will now be able to support clients in all aspects of population health. This includes customized population health initiatives, payer-driven value-based contracts, and state and federal government reporting requirements, as well as other physician incentive programs such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid’s Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), Accountable Care and other alternative payment programs.

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“The healthcare information technology space is complicated and often leaves providers and patients with insufficient solutions,” said Kevin Weinstein, formerly President of SPH Analytics’ population health division, now President and Chief Growth Officer of Azara Healthcare. “We have spent nearly two decades delivering strong value by enabling providers to drive behavior change with their patients, ultimately delivering better clinical outcomes and lower total cost of care. By merging with Azara, we’ve created a unique platform with enhanced data analytics, reporting, and interoperability capabilities to advance towards true accountable care models.”

The merger was led by Hughes & Company, a private equity firm exclusively focused on the healthcare technology sector, with support from existing SPH Analytics investor STG. SPH Analytics will remain a minority shareholder and an active business partner with Azara Healthcare.

“We’ve studied population health for a number of years,” said Hughes & Company Managing Director, Travis Hughes. “The promise of population health is not new—but the ability to deliver actionable benefits to patients, providers, and payers is. We see enormous potential to build upon the proven track records of Azara and SPH to create value at scale.”

The company will have headquarters in Burlington, MA, just outside of Boston with offices in Alpharetta, GA, in suburban Atlanta.

Azara Healthcare was advised by Covington Associates and Feinberg Hanson, who served as investment banking and legal advisors, respectively. Hughes & Company was represented by Cooley, while Paul Hastings served as legal counsel for SPH Analytics and STG. Terms of the transactions were not disclosed.

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