Boston Scientific is the latest cardiovascular company to pair up with healthcare providers and software makers to extend its reach.

Marie Thibault

Like its competitor, Medtronic, Boston Scientific has found itself working more closely with hospitals to help centers increase efficiency and save money. Unlike Medtronic, however, the Marlborough, MA-based company will not directly manage hospital catheterization (cath) labs to do this.

On April 30, Boston Scientific announced two new partnerships outside of its usual device relationships. Under an agreement with MedAxiom, which is a cardiovascular consulting company and network for healthcare providers, Boston Scientific will design and offer programs to improve cardiovascular care and to help centers put in place methods of becoming more efficient at every step; the company calls this "care pathway transformation." According to a press release, "this agreement brings together Boston Scientific's strong expertise in lean practices, process improvement and supply chain optimization with MedAxiom's deep experience in cardiovascular program leadership." 

Also recently announced is an agreement with TogetherMD, to potentially combine TogetherMD's healthcare data analytics software with Boston Scientific cardiovascular products to provide what the company calls "performance optimization." This would give caregivers useful data to track "robust industry benchmarking data and analysis of ongoing operational and financial performance, and billing and coding accuracy," according to the release. Also according to the release, "TogetherMD has reported improved reimbursement and average service line cost savings of approximately $1.5 million from the introduction of similar initiatives in single hospital sites."

Boston Scientific now has its ADVANTICS solutions brand to house these collaborations, as well as a capital financing partnership. 

David Hurrell MD, senior consulting cardiologist at the Minneapolis Heart Institute, Allina Health System, said in the release, "Most hospital systems can benefit from the sharing of best practices—and methods to make this easier to do are welcome. We are already seeing how our work with Boston Scientific can improve the quality and efficiencies of cardiovascular care." 

During Boston Scientific's investor day on May 1, president and chief executive officer Michael Mahoney said of the partnerships: 

This approach seems to contrast with Medtronic's take on the hospital business. Back in 2013, Medtronic announced it had begun managing cath labs for some hospitals in Europe and had also purchased an equity stake in an Italian company that manages outsourced cath labs. That same year, Medtronic also bought Cardiocom, a developer of remote monitoring and patient software for integrated care of chronic diseases. More recently, Medtronic purchased Diabeter, a diabetes clinic and research center in The Netherlands, moving another step further into the hospital management business model. 

Marie Thibault is the associate editor at MD+DI. Reach her at [email protected] and on Twitter @medtechmarie. 

[Image courtesy of Boston Scientific Corp.]