Becker's Hospital Review

69 CIO / HEALTH IT Athenahealth purchased by 2 firms for $17B: 5 details By Naomi Diaz A thenahealth has been acquired by two private equity firms, Hellman & Friedman and Bain Capital, for $17 billion. "We are thrilled to partner with Hellman & Friedman and Bain Capital as we take the next step in our evolution and continue our work to transform and improve the delivery of healthcare," Bob Segert, chair and CEO of Athenahealth, said in a Feb. 15 news release. Five details of the acquisition: 1. Mr. Segert and Athenahealth's management team will continue to lead the company. 2. In February 2019, Veritas and Elliott acquired Athen- ahealth for $5.7 billion but considered selling the company or filing an initial public offering in September 2021. 3. Hellman & Friedman and Bain Capital entered an agree- ment to acquire Athenahealth on Nov. 22, 2021. 4. The acquisition was completed Feb. 15. 5. The joint investment includes Hellman & Friedman, Bain Capital Private Equity and Bain Capital Tech Opportunities; Veritas Capital and Evergreen Coast Capital, an Elliott In- vestment Management affiliate, will each keep a minority investment in Athenahealth. Other new co-investors in- clude an affiliate of GIC and a wholly owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. n Fully remote work, PTO and paying to interview: Inside tech's response to the 'Great Resignation' By Katie Adams T he "Great Resignation" has created a large gap between the supply and demand of tech workers, forcing the industry to trial novel approaches to staff recruitment and retention, according to a Feb. 11 Wired report. Seventy-six percent of global IT leaders have critical skills gaps on their team, according to data from training com- pany Global Knowledge. To attract qualified candidates, some companies are in- creasing the amount of paid time off they offer. Others are offering candidates money to interview, often increasing the compensation amount for each round of interviews. Tech companies are also posting fully remote positions to improve recruitment efforts. Maureen Carroll, senior director of global talent acquisition at digital marketing firm Vista, told Wired that switching to remote-first in- creased the company's job applications by 300 percent. Many tech companies, including Facebook, Twitter and Shopify, have pivoted to primarily remote work. Amazon, PayPal, Intel and Pinterest revealed in reports issued to shareholders that rejecting remote work is significantly harming their efforts to attract talent. n Why Health Affairs couldn't promote its February issue By Molly Gamble H ealth Affairs' entire February issue was devoted to the topic of racism and health, but Google and Twitter blocked its paid media ads to promote the content, flagging racism as "sensitive content." "Sure, racism is 'sensitive content,' which is what we were told by each platform," Patti Sweet, Health Affairs' director of digital strategy, wrote. "But the research we published is exactly the sort of sensitive content our country needs right now: peer-reviewed research rooted in sound methods that demonstrate and explore the rela- tionship between racism and health." e issue contained more than 20 peer- reviewed articles anchored in the intersec- tion of racism and health, such as "Negative Patient Descriptors: Documenting Ra- cial Bias In e Electronic Health Record," "Racial And Ethnic Disparities In Patient Experience Of Care Among Nonelderly Medicaid Managed Care Enrollees," and "Structural Racism And Black Women's Employment In e U.S. Healthcare Sector." Noting the years of planning and thousands of hours of work that went into the February issue, Ms. Sweet said Health Affairs aimed to ensure nonsubscribers were aware of it through paid placement of the content on Twitter and Google (via YouTube) targeted to individual users based on interests, profession, age and location. But the two platforms' automated systems flagged the term "racism" as sensitive content and withheld approval for the paid ads, effec- tively placing them in digital limbo. Health Affairs said it appealed the decisions by Google and Twitter, but also called on in- dividuals to overpower the digital gatekeepers. "We can't change the algorithm so let's play the game," Ms. Sweet wrote. "e more shares, clicks, views, comments, etc. that this post and all our content on racism and health gets, the more signals we send. ese signals tell the platforms that our content is important, that we have the authority to publish on this topic — and that users like you want to read it." "Join us in our small act of civil disobedi- ence. When it comes to our issue of Racism & Health, read it. Listen to it. Watch it. Search for it. Share it. Tweet about it. Email it. We hope our ads will show up soon. Until then, let's beat the algorithm." Health Affairs is a peer-reviewed health policy journal. n

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