When Advocate Aurora Enterprises — a subsidiary of Advocate Aurora Health – acquired the home care provider Senior Helpers around this time last year, it came as a surprise to some.
The surprise wasn’t due to the fact that Senior Helpers was acquired, but instead because of the acquiree. The Midwest-based Advocate Aurora Health is one of the largest not-for-profit, integrated health systems in the U.S., which was not the type of entity expected to take over a non-medical home care franchise.
Advocate Aurora Enterprises President Scott Powder told Home Health Care News at the time why the move made sense from its perspective. Now, its vision is being advanced, as the company announced Monday that it is acquiring MobileHelp, a home-focused provider of remote patient monitoring (RPM) capabilities and personal emergency response systems.
The deal marks the fourth transaction for Advocate Aurora Enterprises, which is building “a portfolio of innovative consumer health and wellness companies that are adjacent or complementary to its core business of clinical care,” Powder told HHCN.
“A year ago, almost to the day, we acquired Senior Helpers,” Powder said. “And we have been looking for some time to augment that with a set of technology solutions that will allow people to stay in their home safely, and to provide the ability to really understand what’s happening to them in their homes. MobileHelp really is the perfect fit for that.”
Overall, Advocate Aurora’s suite of services – outside of its core health system offerings – include home health, hospice and home care.
On its end, Senior Helpers has also expressed the desire to get more into traditional home health care, according to its CEO, Peter Ross.
“One of the new service lines [we’re looking into is] home health clinical services, now that we are owned by Advocate Aurora, which has experience in this area,” Ross recently told HHCN. “This new service line would open the door for more collaboration with hospitals and managed care organizations throughout the country. In addition, this service line would provide additional revenue sources for our franchisees and corporate stores.”
Advocate Aurora’s goal is to ultimately bundle all of these services together to ensure individuals can stay in their homes, whether those services be on the technology, labor or clinical side of things.
“We think there’s going to be bundles that we bring together depending on the needs of a client, and some may be a little more technology focused, some may be more labor focused, or a mix thereof. And so we’re really excited about the integration of all these capabilities.”
MobileHelp will create more touchpoints with patients outside of Advocate Aurora’s walls. Additionally, its personal safety and monitoring systems, the company believes, will support the “industry-wide shift from episodic care to a more holistic approach.”
The technology company’s personal emergency response systems can pinpoint a user’s location, which allows emergency assistance to reach them quicker, if needed. MobileHelp is already currently in over 300,000 households. Pairing that technology with Senior Helpers will immediately scale its platform’s usage.
“One of the things that I’m also very excited about is that Advocate Aurora, in terms of these investments, is really looking at a much longer time horizon than than maybe a typical investor who may be looking at a three- to five-year time period,” MobileHelp CEO Rob Flippo told HHCN. “Advocate is looking at 15 years out, in terms of what what health care delivery could look like. And that’s really going to allow us to make very different long-term strategic decisions.”
Clear Arch Health, a sister company of MobileHelp’s, is also a part of the deal. Its platform will help with customized monitoring plans to drive adherence and enhance patients’ support systems in their homes.
Its president, John Bojanowski, told HHCN that the power of this relationship will not just come from a specific technology or service, but instead, the integration of all sorts of forward-looking technologies and services.
Right now, Advocate Aurora Enterprises’ focus remains on uniting Senior Helpers, MobileHelp, Care Arch Health and its other clinical arms, Powder said.
More transactions could be coming down the line, however, as it looks to fill out the full continuum under its own roof.
“Over time, we’re certainly going to continue to be looking at capabilities that enable people to stay in their home and receive more services in their home,” Powder said.
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