Stanson Health

Stanson Health operates as a clinical decision support (CDS) and analytics company, primarily serving hospitals, health systems, and other healthcare providers. The company was established in 2013 as a spinout from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, co-founded by Dr. Scott Weingarten and Darren Dworkin. Dr. Weingarten, a physician and seasoned entrepreneur, previously co-founded Zynx Health, another influential company in the clinical support space. His background as a primary care physician and his tenure as Chief Clinical Transformation Officer at Cedars-Sinai informed Stanson's core mission to embed evidence-based best practices directly into the clinical workflow.

The company’s business model is centered on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform that integrates directly with major electronic health record (EHR) systems like Epic, Cerner, and Athenahealth. This integration allows Stanson's solutions to provide real-time, patient-specific alerts and guidance to clinicians at the point of care. The technology is designed to be non-intrusive, triggering alerts only when a patient's data matches a specific profile, thereby making the recommendations highly relevant to the provider's immediate decisions. Stanson generates revenue by licensing its CDS platform to healthcare facilities, helping them to reduce unnecessary medical procedures, improve the quality and safety of care, and ensure compliance with regulations such as the Protecting Access to Medicare Act (PAMA).

Stanson Health's product suite aims to address several critical areas in healthcare delivery. Its core CDS solution analyzes patient data to guide physician decisions, helping to eliminate low-value care in areas like advanced imaging, high-cost medications, and lab utilization. The platform also includes tools for Hierarchical Condition Category (HCC) coding and documentation, which are crucial for accurate risk adjustment in value-based payment models. Furthermore, Stanson has developed solutions to streamline the often cumbersome electronic prior authorization (ePA) process for both medical and pharmacy benefits. In November 2018, the company reached a significant milestone when it was acquired by Premier Inc., a major healthcare improvement company, for an initial $51.5 million. This acquisition was intended to integrate Stanson's point-of-care tools with Premier's broader data and analytics offerings, scaling the solution to a larger network of providers.

Keywords: clinical decision support, point of care, electronic health record integration, healthcare analytics, value-based care, prior authorization, medical necessity, appropriate use criteria, PAMA compliance, HCC coding, risk adjustment, care standardization, evidence-based medicine, physician workflow, Scott Weingarten, Cedars-Sinai, Premier Inc., Zynx Health, clinical process improvement, SaaS