Heritage Group, a strategic healthcare fund with backing from multiple corporates, has raised a $157m and made its first two investments.
Paul Wallace, Heritage Group Managing Director, said: "The Fund’s mix of limited partners, which include some of the nation’s leading hospital systems and healthcare companies across many sectors, reflects where healthcare is headed: towards a more collaborative approach to the delivery of care.
Since an initial closing last year, the Fund has added four new limited partners (fund investors), Amedisys, a US-based health and hospice care company, Cardinal Health, a Fortune 50 distributor of pharmaceuticals and medical products, Health Care Service Corporation, the fourth largest health insurance company in the, operating the Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in Illinois, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, and Memorial Hermann Healthcare System, the largest not-for-profit healthcare system in Texas.
Other limited partners are Community Health Systems, Iowa Health System, LifePoint Hospitals, Trinity Health and Vanguard Health Systems.
Mark Blake, executive vice president of strategy and corporate development, Cardinal Health, said: "With healthcare reform driving towards the three pillars of access, quality and cost, leaders from all sectors of the industry are recognizing that we need new, creative solutions. What attracted us to the Fund was the philosophy that collaboration is the key to innovation. Heritage has brought together a powerful ecosystem of providers, service companies and entrepreneurs and helped to organize us around the toughest challenges. We’re already seeing the strategic benefits of the network."
Amedisys Chief Executive Officer Bill Borne said: "For Amedisys, the Fund offers us a way to collaborate with the broader industry marketplace and search for solutions that address specific challenges we are all facing."