Health care trading network buys case support platform

LOUISVILLE — Global Healthcare Exchange Inc. bought Explorer Surgical Corp. on undisclosed terms. GHX is a Louisville-based software-as-a-service company. Explorer Surgical operates a digital and remote case support platform and is based in Chicago.

GHX’s main offering is GHX Exchange, which connects health care providers and suppliers of goods and services via electronic platform, a back-office supply-chain and purchasing system and incorporating data and analytics globally, according to its website, news reports and a press release on the acquisition.

Explorer Surgical’s work also includes connecting suppliers with health care providers, including remote mentoring and performance-tracking tools. One offering lets hospitals “guide, track and analyze activity in the operating room, and improve communication and performance,” startup journal Chicago Inno said.

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“Patient care decisions must be grounded in data, product expertise and procedural best practices because lives depend on it,” GHX president and CEO Bruce Johnson said in a press release announcing the deal.

“Healthcare is rife with inefficiency and must standardize the operational and clinical best practices and products that yield the best possible patient outcomes,” Explorer Surgical co-founder and CEO Jennifer Fried said.

Explorer Surgical had raised $11 million in funding through April, led by Aphelion Capital in California and Sofia Fund, a Minnesota group investing in technology companies run by women, Chicago Inno said.

The acquisition of Explorer Surgical follows GHX’s purchase of Lumere, founded as Procured Health in 2014 and focused on cutting health care costs with data and analytics, in January 2020. In 2018 it bought Medical Columbus AG, a cloud-based health care supply-chain manager.

GHX was founded in 2000 by industry suppliers including Medtronic Inc., Abbott Laboratories, GE Healthcare, Johnson & Johnson and Baxter International. Other owners joined through February 2014 a healthcare journal said, reporting its sale to private equity firm Thoma Bravo LLC.

The private equity firm at the time generally invested up to $300 million in its acquisitions. Additional acquisitions followed its buyout.

In May 2017, Singapore-based Temasek Holdings Ltd. bought most of Thoma Bravo’s stake. Thoma Bravo exited its investment fully in June 2021 when Warburg Pincus made a minority investment in GHX. PE Hub said the Pincus investment was $500 million.

GHX works with 5,600 health care providers and 950 suppliers in the U.S. and Europe, its website said. In the Warburg investment press release, GHX said its platform serves providers with 80% of licensed hospital beds in the U.S. and that 85% of medical-surgical products flow through the platform.

The Lumere deal contributed to GHX operating “the largest uniform core of item, vendor, transaction data and clinical evidence” in the industry, the press release said.

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