By MATTHEW HOLT

I was a little surprised to find out that PointClickCare, a Canadian-based EMR that has a big market share in SNFs and long term care was buying Collective Medical, a Utah-based interoperability-sniffer (that’s a term I just made up). Collective specializes in extracting data from acute care EMRs to find where patients have received care (think: ERs), and transmit that information (think: meds & diagnoses) to other providers. (Press Release here). The logic is that the “post acute” landscape is getting more complex and better integrated with the rest of care, and Collective Medical will help get PointClickCare’s SNFs and the hospitals & home care agencies they work with much more accurate tracking of patient movements between them. Given the mess that sector is experiencing with COVID-19 right now, this should be a good idea.

I spoke to PointClickCare’s Dave Wessinger & Collective Medical’s Chris Klomp about the deal. They of course wouldn’t tell me the price, but Blake Dodge at Business Insider sniffed it out and thinks it’s $650m. Moody’s reports that PointClickCare raised $550m in debt to help–although I doubt those cunning Canucks handed over too much of that cash, and they certainly sound like they want to keep the whole Collective Medical team around.