McKesson, Change Healthcare finalize new IT company

The creation of a new data and analytics company, combining McKesson’s technology solutions unit with Nashville, Tenn.-based Change Healthcare, has been completed.

First announced in June 2016, the merger unites “the majority” of McKesson Technology Solutions with substantially all of Change, with the new company retaining the Change Healthcare name. Neil de Crescenzo, President and CEO of Change since September 2013, will remain CEO.

“Over the last several years, our industry has experienced a continued shift toward value-based care, requiring an increasingly consumer-centered approach to healthcare,” de Crescenzo said in a press release. “Change Healthcare will be distinctly positioned to leverage its data, analytics and forward-thinking insights to bring new innovative solutions to payers, providers and consumers as they strive to achieve the best healthcare outcomes as efficiently as possible in this new environment.”

Among those joining him in the C-suite will be CFO Randy Giles, who has been with Change since 2014 and held the same position at Coventry Healthcare. Those transferring to the new company from McKesson include Rod O’Reilly as president of software and analytics; Erkan Akyuz as president of imaging, workflow and care solutions; and Pat Leonard, president of technology-enabled services.

McKesson will have a 70 percent stake in the new company, and it will be jointly governed by McKesson and Change shareholders.

“Today marks an exciting step forward to achieve enhanced benefits for our customers, employees and stockholders,” said John Hammergren, Change Healthcare chairman, as well as chairman and CEO of McKesson “I want to thank all of the employees who made today possible and who will continue the important work of building an industry-leading company that will help make the vision of value-based care a reality for payers, providers and consumers.”

The press release said integration activities begun last June will now accelerate. The end result, according to de Crescenzo, will be a company that can “inspire a better healthcare system through a broad set of complementary capabilities that will deliver wide-ranging financial, operational and clinical benefits to payers, providers and consumers.”

The changes may include a move. According to the Atlanta Business Chronicle, the company is considering relocating its headquarters to the Atlanta area from Nashville.