A New Era in Obstetrics Begins

PeriGen, the leading creator of fetal surveillance systems using artificial intelligence for clinical and operational benefits has announced its acquisition of the WatchChild® Fetal Monitoring System from Hill-Rom Holdings. The combination will result in offering labor & delivery units the most comprehensive perinatal safety platform available.

Users of both the PeriGen PeriCALM and WatchChild systems will continue using their current systems with full contracted support. Going forward customers will have access to incremental clinical tools, analytics, increased enterprise management and interfacing libraries as well as a telemedicine infrastructure. Together PeriCALM and WatchChild count many of the nation’s leading health systems and clinicians as clients, development partners, and research collaborators.

PeriGen’s AI-driven clinical decision support (CDS) tools are FDA-cleared and its pattern recognition software was validated in an independent study published by the NICHD. The tools provide valuable clinical, financial and operational benefits to users and will be made available to WatchChild customers.

Additionally, the company will take advantage of unique and significant advances that WatchChild has made in Enterprise Software Management, electronic health record (EHR) integration and immediate access to maternal/fetal data. The combined investments in research and development as well as personnel will also result in expanded clinical, implementation and customer support teams.

The go-forward entity will be led by PeriGen chief executive officer Matthew Sappern. The management team will include senior executives from both companies, including the appointment of Brian Bishop, currently the general manager of WatchChild, as chief product officer responsible for product strategy and development.

“When the PeriGen and WatchChild teams came together to discuss a combination, we shared a vision to provide a suite of clinical and IT management tools that go far beyond basic fetal surveillance and EHR interfacing” said Sappern. “Our respective customers are demanding a strategic solution rather than just a utility that digitizes the fetal strip; they want more clinical, financial and operational control and impact.”

Steven Clark, M.D., professor of maternal fetal medicine at Baylor College of Medicine commented, “I’ve had the pleasure of working independently on research projects with the PeriGen team and seeing how well the technology can augment nursing to the benefit of patients, clinicians and research teams. As a current WatchChild customer, I am excited about this combination.”

“All of us on the WatchChild team are enthusiastic about what this means for our customers in the way of innovation, resources and commitment to advances in patient safety and operational excellence,” said Bishop. “Building on these two platforms, sharing ideas and experience, is an exciting opportunity for the company, our customers and, ultimately, patients.”

In conjunction with the WatchChild acquisition, PeriGen has closed an investment round led by Ambina Partners. As a result of this investment, Greg Share, Ambina Partners’ founder, will join PeriGen’s board together with John Gomez, CEO of cyber security firm Sensato and former CTO of Allscripts.

Together PeriCALM and WatchChild own a sizable footprint in the market with hundreds of clients and installations across the country spanning academic medical centers, tertiary centers, community hospitals and critical access facilities.

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For more information on this news item, PeriGen or PeriCALM, email info@perigen.com