Philips Acquires Medumo to Enhance Digital Diagnostic Services with Patient Diagnostic Management Capabilities

On July 19, 2019, VCBeat (WeChat Official Account: vcbeat) learned that international healthcare giant Philips announced the acquisition of Medumo, a patient navigation platform headquartered in Boston. It is understood that Medumo had previously completed a $2.1 million angel financing round, while the financial terms of this acquisition were not disclosed.

Medumo was founded in 2013 with the aim of helping hospitals, surgical centers, and care teams automatically guide patients throughout the entire care journey. Medumo uses a combination of email and SMS to deliver instructions to patients on behalf of hospitals, aligning with the healthcare trend known as “patient engagement.” Medumo provides healthcare institutions with tools that enable physicians to maintain contact with patients outside the clinical setting.

The Medumo patient navigation platform ensures precise scheduling and timely attendance, meeting patients’ appointment needs at every stage and enabling them to adhere to physician instructions before clinical appointments or after returning home post-surgery. The platform continuously evolves to accommodate patient preferences, such as delivering reminders in the patient’s native language across communication channels (email, SMS, and voice).

Boston Children's Hospital, a partner of Philips, stated that the hospital loses billions of dollars annually due to missed appointments and incorrect surgical preparation or discharge instructions.

For Philips, this acquisition creates opportunities to deliver services to its existing healthcare system customers. A Philips spokesperson stated, “Medumo will provide advanced Diagnostic Patient Management (DPM) services to our expanding portfolio of digital diagnostic offerings.”

In recent years, Philips has been expanding its healthcare portfolio through acquisitions, including medical devices, imaging systems, and alarm systems. A few months ago, it acquired Carestream’s health IT business to expand its radiology informatics operations. In 2018, Philips acquired several startups in multiple fields, including sleep, respiratory care, and next-generation biosensor technologies.

Traditional medical technology companies such as Philips are engaged in fierce competition with tech giants like Apple and Amazon, which are closely eyeing the healthcare sector. From consumer-centric smartwatches equipped with health monitoring features to IT systems designed to assist clinicians in completing patient medical records, these technology companies have been continuously expanding their healthcare businesses.

(Compiled by: Fan Xin)