Emergence, a software investment company backed by The Pritzker Organization, has acquired Clinect Healthcare, a Charlotte, North Carolina company that makes software for patient intake, patient-reported outcomes and online reputation management. The deal was announced on October 8, 2026.
Terms were not disclosed.
The announcement, which quoted founder and chief executive Brian Schmitz, did not say whether management roles would change. Under its new owner, Clinect plans to spend more on data science, AI and connections to other healthcare systems, add practice-management and electronic health record (EHR) integrations, and speed up product development for health systems and specialty practices across the US.
What Clinect built
Clinect sells what it calls an Outcomes Intelligence Platform. It collects questionnaires from patients before, during and after care, scores them, and alerts care teams when results cross set thresholds. It covers more than 600 validated outcome measures, including PROMIS, HOOS, KOOS and VAS, which clinics use to track things like pain and joint function over time.
The software works inside the systems that practices already use. The press release gives the number of practice-management and EHR integrations as 20-plus in one place and 50-plus in another. A product sheet hosted by EHR vendor NextGen Healthcare says patients can answer by text, email, in-office tablet or on their own phone without downloading an app or registering.
Clinect also offers patient experience surveys and reputation tools, so providers can see how patients feel about their care as well as how their health changes.
In the 2021 HIStalk interview, Schmitz described the aim as helping providers collect, monitor, measure and act on what patients experience across the whole cycle of care, with a mobile-first, automated approach to intake, outcomes and experience surveys. The company says it serves health systems and specialty practices nationwide.
“Payer expectations, regulatory requirements and the reimbursement landscape have changed. Healthcare organizations increasingly need to demonstrate the results of care, without adding another burden on providers and staff.”
Why Emergence is buying
Medical practices are under pressure to show the results of the care they provide. Payers and new reimbursement models increasingly expect evidence of outcomes, and quality-reporting rules are getting stricter. Clinect's pitch is that it collects that evidence automatically, without adding work for clinicians and front-desk staff.
David Henriksen, an operating partner at Emergence, said Clinect captures what patients experience and how their outcomes change over time, and that Emergence would provide the investment and operating resources to expand its reach.
Schmitz said payer expectations, regulation and reimbursement had all changed, and that Emergence's backing would let Clinect expand its capabilities faster.
Emergence said it sees a significant opportunity to build on the platform Clinect has developed. The acquisition announcement framed the next phase around AI-driven patient experience and outcomes intelligence, with more data science work and wider integrations rather than a change of product direction.
The founder and the company
Clinect was founded in 2012 and is based in Charlotte. In a 2021 interview with HIStalk, Schmitz said he had about 20 years of experience in healthcare IT. The company is small: Built In Charlotte lists seven employees.
No outside funding rounds or investors have been reported for Clinect, and the company did not disclose revenue or the number of practices it serves.
A long-term buyer of healthcare software
Emergence describes itself as a permanent-capital enterprise. Instead of buying companies and selling them a few years later, in the traditional hold-and-exit model, it says it invests for the long term and provides operating support to software and technology-enabled businesses. Its chief executive is Henry T. Zhang.
Clinect joins a growing set of healthcare technology holdings at Emergence. In November 2025 the firm acquired MedEvolve, which uses AI to automate and analyse revenue-cycle work for healthcare providers. Patient-reported outcomes add a clinical data stream to a portfolio that already handles the financial side of medical practices, and both companies say they want to help healthcare organisations measure financial and clinical performance.
