Dive Brief:

• The Mayo Clinic and medical device maker Baxter International announced Tuesday they will collaborate to open a renal care center at the hospital’s campus in Jacksonville, Florida.
• The outpatient clinic will be part of the Mayo Clinic Dialysis Center on the Jacksonville campus and will integrate Baxter’s clinical service model and chronic kidney disease management program.
• The dialysis clinic collaboration is the first initiative to come out of a broader five-year agreement between Baxter and Mayo Clinic announced in 2017 and will allow for co-development of new products and services.

Dive Insight:

Hospitals have been actively expanding in non-acute settings such as outpatient surgery centers and, increasingly, are partnering with suppliers to find ways to meet goals for providing more effective and efficient value-based care. According to a recent study from L.E.K. Consulting, 54% of health system decision makers in 2018 indicated a strong interest in working with outside service providers, up from 26% in 2016.

Large medical device companies including Medtronic and Boston Scientific are forging hospital partnerships aimed at finding new ways to improve care and reduce costs. Medtronic, for example, in February announced a partnership with Lehigh Valley Health Network in Pennsylvania to create programs spanning more than 70 major medical conditions. Boston Scientific and the Mayo Clinic also have a long-term collaboration to share intellectual property to develop medical devices.

Baxter and Mayo Clinic said the aim of their five-year agreement is to advance innovation in therapeutic areas that have high unmet patient needs, such as renal disease. The agreement also has a five-year renewal option.

Baxter already has renal care services clinics in Asia, Europe and Latin America. The clinics offer Baxter's technologies and often have a chronic kidney disease management program that focuses on slowing the progression of the condition, according to the company.

"We firmly believe there is a path to better care for kidney patients, which starts by managing the disease before dialysis is required and through simpler, more effective innovations," Laura Angelini, general manager of Baxter’s renal care business, said in a press release.

For dialysis patients, the Mayo Clinic Dialysis Center offers home dialysis support, outpatient dialysis services, nutrition counseling and temporary dialysis if patients need treatment while traveling.