Healthcare workforce and staffing company AMN Healthcare Services bought virtual care provider Synzi Holdings for $42.5 million in cash, the former's Q1 earnings call revealed.

The acquisition was completed in early April, according to MedCityNews, which broke the news. As part of the deal, AMN Healthcare will be acquiring Synzi's remote patient monitoring and virtual care tools, which cater to home health needs and outpatients markets.

Synzi has an app that was developed to help home health agencies and other caregivers provide care remotely. Patients are able to tap into video calls with a provider, and families and interpreters are able to join as well.

The tool has a messaging function, as well as, a function to send out updates and alerts to patients. Synzi's tech is able to translate messages into a patient's preferred language.

On the provider side, users can access digital assessments on patient progress, a view of colleague's availability, secure messaging and other functions.

WHY IT MATTERS

As the population continues to age in the U.S., more and more individuals are seeking care at home. According to a Rock Health report, 77% of people over the age of 55 say they want to age in place, but only 50% believe that they will.

Technology has increasingly come into the conversation as a way to help to facilitate aging in place. Today there are scores of companies working on providing home healthcare digitally.

“The impact of severe shortages of talent within healthcare will have lasting effects,” Susan R. Salka, CEO of AMN Healthcare, said in a statement about the purchase.  “To ensure AMN is well-prepared to continue evolving and delivering on our promise of total talent solutions, we are increasing investments in our team and technologies, in particular our digital capabilities.

"At the same time, we are making greater investments in building talent solutions for all reaches of the care continuum. Last month, we were thrilled to close the acquisition of Synzi, adding technology-enabled virtual care solutions for the outpatient and home health markets, where more healthcare will be delivered in the future.”

THE LARGER TREND

The virtual care space is an M&A hot spot. In March, SOC Telemedicine bought fellow acute care telemedicine provider Access Physicians. Just a month before, Cigna's health services subsidiary Evernorth announced its plans to buy telehealth provider MDlive. Then in January GetWellNetwork announced the acquisition of patient-messaging company Docent Health for an undisclosed sum.   

M&A is a popular exit option for the entire digital health ecosystem. MobiHealthNews and its sister publications tracked a whopping 64 M&As in 2020 alone.