McKesson, the San Francisco-based healthcare giant, announced it has acquired MedVentive, a Waltham, Mass.-based provider of population and risk management tools that aim to drive transparency in healthcare cost and quality. McKesson says the MedVentive will aim to augment its support system to providers as they become clinically integrated, engage physicians and patients to reduce costs, and transition to an accountable care model.

Founded in 2005 by Jonathan Niloff, M.D., a former associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School, MedVentive has health systems, multispecialty clinics and payers nationwide, including large West Coast risk-based providers, some of the largest U.S. hospital systems, major academic medical centers and provider-based payers, all as existing customers. The combination of McKesson and MedVentive will aim to “enable providers to proactively manage the clinical health of at-risk patient populations by identifying gaps in patient care and delivering actionable information to the physician and care team.”

 “More healthcare providers are beginning to assume risk as we move to value-based reimbursement,” Pat Blake, executive vice president and group president of McKesson Technology Solutions, said in a statement. “Whether it’s for their employee population, a Medicare shared savings plan, or a defined disease state group, providers must understand the risk they are assuming.”

“The industry has long been interested in combining insights derived from claims, clinical and population data to manage risk. With the rise of ACOs and patient centered medical homes, this need extends to any organization that has a vested interest in performance-based care delivery models,” Blake added.