KPN Health strengthens position in healthcare sector with acquisition of Itzos
KPN Health has acquired Vianen-based integration specialist Itzos, thereby taking a further step in making data from healthcare information systems available to healthcare institutions at national, regional and local levels. Enabling data sharing will simplify collaboration between healthcare institutions and will make healthcare information available and usable digitally. The acquisition fits with KPN Health's ambition to connect everyone securely to healthcare.
“Access to healthcare data plays an important role in keeping healthcare accessible and future-proof,” says Vinood Mangroelal, Executive Vice President of KPN Health. “KPN Health Exchange makes it possible for us to facilitate this data exchange in a secure and standardized way. KPN and Itzos have been working together on the KPN Health Exchange for some time, with Itzos focusing primarily on data management and integration. With Itzos's complementary expertise and solutions, we are enriching our KPN Health Exchange services and accelerating the move towards standardized and scalable platforms. In partnership with Itzos, there are opportunities to respond even better to the increasing market demand for digital data exchange, which contributes to the further digitalization of healthcare."
“For the best patient/client and healthcare experience, collaboration and adequate data sharing is necessary; all disciplines within the healthcare industry are aware of that,” adds Mark van Dijk, managing director of Itzos. “Our solutions for data integration and exchange have proven themselves in healthcare; from hospitals to laboratories and from eldercare institutions to mental healthcare. KPN possesses the technological expertise and cutting-edge infrastructure to increase the scalability of our solutions so as to meet the increasing market demand for data exchange services. With this acquisition, KPN Health provides us with a future-proof foundation for the continued development and operational management of our services.”
Digital data exchange for everyone
Unlocking and sharing healthcare data is necessary so as to make healthcare more accessible and future-proof. Every Dutch citizen will soon be able to access their medical records from a single environment, where the records of different healthcare providers such as hospitals, family doctors, physiotherapists and eldercare providers are stored. This can be done using a PHE (Personal Health Environment). This is an app or website that displays all that data in a single file that is accessible only to the user. Self-measured health data, from a step counter or blood pressure monitor for example, can also be added to the PHE.
KPN Health Exchange is a KPN service that provides healthcare organizations with data infrastructure to make healthcare information accessible, securely and in a standardized form, to patients, healthcare professionals and eHealth applications. KPN Health exchange is an open ecosystem; the services are being developed by KPN, its partners, and healthcare institutions. With KPN Health Exchange, healthcare institutions retain full control of their data and medical information.
Itzos
Itzos is one of the largest providers of integration and data management solutions for healthcare in the Netherlands. Itzos primarily uses the InterSystems data platform for this, as well as independently developed systems. As an independent company within KPN Health, Itzos will become part of the data exchange proposition for healthcare. The current management team will be part of it too.