Ecolab (ECL) Rolls Out HDI For Improved Food Surveillance

Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) recently launched a dynamic Health Department Intelligence (HDI) platform with a view to focus on food safety. The HDI platform retrieves and manages health department inspection data for foodservice operators and provides insights to help address food safety risks. This will help the company improve health inspection performance and manage food safety risks efficiently.

The HDI platform transforms public health department inspection information for the advantage of food service operators by gaining access to real-time industry benchmarking data. With this, the Minnesota-based provider of hygiene services has forayed into the booming healthcare IT (HCIT) space.

The HDI platform is designed to collectlocal health department inspection data for food service operators, which is analyzed using an advanced algorithm. Itprovides users with information, thereby helping customers identify, predict and prevent food safety risks across multiple sites.

Healthcare and Data

Big data in healthcare has endless possibilities. The growing need is spurred by the recent major challenge of population health management and an ever-expanding patient base.

Some of the major HCIT bigwigs, which have carved out a niche in the big data domain, are Cerner Corporation (NASDAQ:CERN) and athenahealth, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATHN) . Cerner’s HealtheIntent and Millennium are bigdata platforms, which provide the company with significant exposure to big-data based AI (Artificial Intelligence) trends in the medical world. Meanwhile, athenahealth’s athenaNet shares relevant clinical information with doctors and patients.

Market Trends

According to Center for Science in the Public Interest, the prevalence of foodborne illnesses has led to an estimated $15 billion in annual healthcare costs for Americans.

ResearchAndMarkets opines that the global healthcare IT solutions market is expected to reach a worth of $223.16 billion by 2023, at a CAGR of 13.7% during the forecast period of 2018 to 2023.

Price Performance

The latest developments are likely to provide cushion to Ecolab’s shares which have rallied 15.6%, compared with the industry’s rally of 3% in a year’s time.

Zacks Rank & A Key Pick

Ecolab carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

A better-ranked stock in the broader medical space is Abiomed, Inc. (NASDAQ:ABMD) .

Abiomed has a long-term earnings growth rate of 27%. The stock sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

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