National Research acquires OCS through stock purchase agreement

National Research Corporation (NASDAQ:NRCI) today announced it has acquired, via stock purchase agreement, Outcome Concept Systems, Inc. (OCS), a privately-held healthcare informatics firm, in an all-cash transaction.

“OCS is the leader in the home care and hospice markets which complements and expands NRC product offerings across the continuum of care. Under health reform, where the silos of care delivery will merge, having thought leadership in all care settings is a clear competitive advantage for NRC.”

OCS is a leading provider of clinical, financial and operational benchmarks and analytics to home care and hospice providers. OCS works with over 2,000 care providers throughout the United States and is based in Seattle, Washington. OCS delivers what it believes to be, the most robust benchmarking database available to the home care and hospice marketplace, complete with web-based tools, analytics, and knowledge resources to support improvement in organizational performance through evidence-based practice.

Commenting on the acquisition, Michael D. Hays, president and chief executive officer of National Research Corporation, said, "OCS is the leader in the home care and hospice markets which complements and expands NRC product offerings across the continuum of care. Under health reform, where the silos of care delivery will merge, having thought leadership in all care settings is a clear competitive advantage for NRC."

Amanda Twiss, president, chief executive officer and co-founder of OCS, said, "This relationship offers OCS clients a tremendous opportunity to rapidly enhance our products for home care and hospice clients. Our focus is on leveraging proprietary data assets and best of breed technology to give clients a clear strategic advantage in the evolving healthcare market. In addition, the OCS product portfolio leveraged across NRC clients, most notably the 7,000 long-term care providers, creates an exciting new market for OCS benchmarking products."

Pat Beans, chief financial officer of National Research Corporation, added, "We expect this acquisition to be immediately accretive to NRC's 2010 earnings. The estimated 2010 total contract value at closing for OCS is $7.4 million."