Kidney Dialysis Company Expands Into The Hospital Business

Dialysis giant DaVita HealthCare Partners is moving into the hospital business. Courtesy of DaVita HealthCare Partners hide caption

Dialysis giant DaVita HealthCare Partners is moving into the hospital business.

Critics of America's health care system say it's really a "sick care" system. Doctors and hospitals only get paid for treating people when they're sick.

But that's starting to change. Health insurance companies and big government payers like Medicare are starting to reward doctors and hospitals for keeping people healthy.

So, many health care companies are trying to position themselves as organizations that help people stay well.

One of the latest is DaVita HealthCare Partners, a provider of kidney dialysis services. The company operates 2,152 dialysis centers in the U.S. and 87 in its fast-growing international buisiness.

DaVita is making a move into primary care, and it just announced a joint venture with a hospital company in Colorado and Kansas.

DaVita CEO Kent Thiry says it's like changing the company from being an electrician into a general contractor. "And in so doing," he says, "[We] have a much more comprehensive impact on how the house gets designed, how it gets built, how it gets maintained for the betterment of those who live in the house. That's the simplest way to characterize the change."

DaVita's partner in the new venture is Centura Health, the biggest hospital company in Colorado. Like DaVita, it is also expanding aggressively into primary care and services beyond hospital-based procedures.

Centura CEO Gary Campbell says that in order for his company to keep people healthy, it needs the ability to crunch lots of health data. The idea is to use computer systems to keep track of peoples' health, and flag health problems before they happen. He says DaVita HealthCare Partners is really good at that.

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Kidney Dialysis Company Expands Into The Hospital Business