A junior member of the Loucks family appears off to a good start in creating his own health-care empire.
More Top Picks Best Clip On Magnifiers For Glasses
David Loucks, the 33-year-old son of former Baxter International Inc. Chairman Vernon Loucks, has engineered his own company’s biggest potential growth platform to date.
The younger Loucks’ Evanston-based InLight Inc. on Tuesday is expected to announce a merger with ProMedex Inc. of Raleigh, N.C., in a stock-for-stock swap valued at $110 million. InLight and chief executive Loucks will control the combined company.
David Loucks, like most health-industry executives of his generation, is making his mark via e-commerce, although he’s following in his father’s acquisitive dealmaking ways. The elder Loucks built Deerfield-based Baxter into a medical products giant.
Because ProMedex has contracts with more than 20 insurance companies, including Aetna Inc. and 16 Blue Cross plans, InLight is increasing the audience it has for its health-information lines.
The deal will give InLight’s Web-based health-information products an additional audience of 500,000 insured patients who use ProMedex abilities to analyze medical claims data and manage diseases over the Internet.
Unlike Internet firms targeting consumers solely via the Web, InLight works to initially reach patients at the hospital, doctor’s office or when they enroll with a health insurer. Once admitted to the hospital, for example, patients can set up their own home page profile based on their illness or disease using either an InLight kiosk, browser or television-based system.
“It has to happen when they have a clinical intervention,” said David Loucks.
“We create a prescription of their own health information,” Loucks said. “They create their own home page.”
Currently, 100 hospitals and 350 outpatient facilities have access to the InLight system, including the Cleveland Clinic and University of Chicago Hospitals, Loucks said.
“We’re trying to bring them information specific to their [health problem],” he added. “Once they access our system, they understand more about their treatment.”
Plan proposed: American Health Care Providers Inc. has proposed a reorganization plan to the Illinois Department of Insurance in a move to head off possible liquidation of the Richton Park-based health maintenance organization.
Financial terms of the plan have yet to be disclosed, but American did say the HMO would sell “a minority ownership interest to a new investor” as a way to infuse the company with cash.
The Insurance Department, which hasn’t responded to American’s plan, is seeking to liquidate American, alleging the HMO is insolvent by $25 million. Unless the state accepts American’s proposal, a liquidation proceeding is scheduled to resume next month in Cook County Circuit Court.
Turnaround sought: A helping hand: Norwegian-American Hospital is the latest Chicago health-care facility to commission an outside management firm to turn around struggling operations.
The West Side hospital’s parent, Norwegian-American Healthcare Systems, has rehired Nashville-based Brim Healthcare Inc., which managed the hospital for a period during the 1980s.
Like other hospitals in the area, Norwegian-American is suffering from the federal government’s dramatic slowdown of spending on Medicare, the federal health insurance program for elderly and disabled people. The revenue reduction contributed to an operation loss of about $1.3 million last year, said Norman Dahl, chairman of the hospital parent’s board.
Despite bringing in outside managers to replace longtime chief executive Clarence Nagelvoort, who resigned two weeks ago, Norwegian-American won’t entertain the idea of a merger or buyout, Dahl said.
“We just needed a management change,” Dahl said. “We will be better off to stand alone.”
———-
E-mail Bruce Japsen at [email protected]
More Top Picks Best Polarized Sunglasses For Golfers