Philips' PerformanceBridge Practice To Aid Banner Health

Koninklijke Philips N.V. (NYSE:PHG) and Arizona-based Banner Health recently expanded their multi-year partnership to include Philips’ PerformanceBridge Practice. Adopting PerformanceBridge Practice across its network, accelerating clinical transformation in radiology will facilitate Banner’s goal of improving care for patients.

The collaboration is built upon the long-term strategic partnership between the two companies, which has enabled both of them to identify solution delivery projects as well as innovative technologies. The collaboration will help pinpoint improvement opportunities, where a Philips Solution Advisor will facilitate Banner in the development of solutions to address areas for improvement.

Per the agreement, PerformanceBridge Practice, a suite of operational performance improvement software and services, will be rolled out in all 28 of Banner’s radiology departments in a two-phased approach. The roll out will start with Banner’s 16 Arizona and academic sites, and will be expanded to its 12 radiology departments in five other states. Leveraging PerformanceBridge Practice will optimize Banner’s radiology department by enabling it to deliver on the Quadruple Aim of enhancing productivity, enhancing the patient and staff experience, as well as delivering better value-based care.

Our Take

In the past couple of years, Philips has successfully morphed from a lighting company into a healthcare technology provider. Further, the company's transformation from a hardware-oriented to a software-driven business, with a higher-margin and recurring-revenue model is impressive.

However, the company’s near-term profitability is likely to be hurt by sluggish growth prospects of the healthcare market on a global scale. In light of uncertainties like slowing government spending and events surrounding the ACA (Affordable Care Act) legislation, the company expects the United States to witness low-single digit growth in the healthcare industry. Further, country-specific risks for China like anti-corruption initiatives, slow GDP growth and centralized tendering are likely to dampen the prospects of the healthcare industry, thwarting growth. Not surprisingly, the Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) company has returned 10.4% in the last six months, underperforming the industry’s growth of 13.3%.

Stocks to Consider

Some better-ranked stocks from the same space include Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ:GRMN) , Control4 Corporation (NASDAQ:CTRL) and Advanced Energy Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:AEIS) . While Garmin sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), Control4 Corporation and Advanced Energy Industries carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Garmin has surpassed estimates in the trailing four quarters, with an average positive earnings surprise of 15.9%.

Control4 Corporation has outpaced estimates in the preceding four quarters, with an average earnings surprise of 100.7%.

Advanced Energy Industries has surpassed estimates in the trailing four quarters, with an average positive earnings surprise of 13.5%.

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