20150420-NEWS--1-NAT-CCI-CL_--
4/17/2015
4:07 PM
Page 1
$2.00/APRIL 20 - 26, 2015
Collapse of piece of Garfield Building might force city to take closer look at its building code — P. 4 Progressive Insurance’s innovation garage is getting good use of its idea-driven ‘mechanics’ — P. 5
Clinic’s alliances as hearty as ever Ever-growing health system is being more proactive in adding to its substantial list of affiliations By TIMOTHY MAGAW tmagaw@crain.com
If Ohio is the heart of it all, Cleveland Clinic might be its veins. Over the last several years, the Clinic’s highly regarded Heart & Vascular Institute has forged contracts with hospitals across the country — both big and small —for
help improving their own heart programs. The affiliations have provided a solid revenue stream for the business-minded health system, but also helped it establish roots well beyond Northeast Ohio, where population growth has remained stagnant. The Clinic’s affiliation model is now actively seeking out new part-
ners around the country — whereas previously it had been more reactive — as it looks to build an impressive national network for heart care to cater to some of the nation’s largest employers, such as Lowe’s, Walmart and Boeing, which already do business with the Clinic. Now, the Clinic is looking to do the same with some of its other ser-
vice lines. It already has pieced together a national orthopedics network and hopes to do the same with its Bariatric & Metabolic Institute. As for the heart program, already this year, the Clinic announced three new affiliations and has others in the pipeline. To date, the Clinic’s heart program has some
sort of relationship with almost two dozen hospitals and health systems across the country. Seven of those hospitals are part of the Clinic’s growing Cardiac Specialty Network, making them the Clinic’s exclusive partners for heart-care referrals in certain geographies. Take the recent partnership with See CLINIC, page 26
Explorys-IBM deal big for both parties Charlie Lougheed was nervous when he got up in front of his employees to tell them that IBM had just bought Explorys — a health data analytics software company that happens to be one of the fastest-growing tech businesses in Northeast Ohio. But it seems Lougheed didn’t have much to worry about. “When I announced it Monday night (April 13), it was a roar,” he said. Lougheed, Explorys’ president, told Crain’s Cleveland Business that his team has good reason to cheer. He said that IBM wants the company’s employees and its management team — not just its technology. An IBM executive made similar comments. Plus, IBM will be able to help Explorys scale up faster, which is one of the company’s biggest challenges, Lougheed said. The Cleve-
land Clinic spinoff grew from nothing to 145 employees in just six years, but it still only serves a fraction of the hospitals in the United States. “We’re going to continue to grow and expand,” he said. Last week — after what Lougheed described as an extremely short courting period — IBM said it bought Explorys for an undisclosed price. Neither company would say much more, but the price probably would be measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars, given Explorys’ size, its growth rate and the blazing hot industry in which it operates. Explorys will be incorporated into IBM’s Watson business unit. You may remember Watson as the computerized “Jeopardy!” contestant that crushed two of the world’s best players, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, back in 2011. But IBM also believes that See EXPLORYS, page 24
0
NEWSPAPER
74470 83781
7
16
Vol. 36, No. 16 Entire contents © 2015 by Crain Communications Inc.
SPECIAL SECTION:
THE MEDIA REVOLUTION (Pages 16-21)
STAYING RELEVANT IN A CHANGING INDUSTRY FROM THE PUBLISHER
By CHUCK SODER csoder@crain.com
hat’s it feel like to be in the media business in 2015? W It’s like standing — or trying to stand, at least — in that six-foot, noman’s-land between two speeding locomotives, one going one way, one going the other. It’s loud, terrifying and thrilling — all at the same time. On one train, you have information itself. In many ways, this is the golden age of content. There is more information — words, photos, videos, etc. — being generated and consumed than at any time in history. Some of it is actually good. On the other track, heading in the opposite direction, toward the washed-out bridge, is the traditional media business model. Anyone still aboard that train (and there aren’t
JOHN CAMPANELLI
See MEDIA, page 23