The S&P Healthcare Services Index has increased by 4.6% over the three-month period of July to September 2014, thus outperforming the S&P 500, according to the October 2014 Healthcare Sector Update from Duff & Phelps. The best performing sectors were acute care hospitals (up 20.8%), contract research organizations (up 10.7%), and home care/hospice (up 10.6%). The worst performing sectors were care management/TPA (down 18.2%), diagnostic imaging (down 15.4%), and consumer-directed health and wellness (down 11.1%), says the report.

Latest multiples: The current median LTM revenue and LTM EBITDA multiples for the healthcare services industry overall are 1.51x and 10.9x, respectively. The sectors with the highest valuation multiples include consumer-directed health and wellness (4.11x LTM revenue, 25.3x LTM EBITDA); other services (1.79x LTM revenue, 21.3x LTM EBITDA); and HCIT (3.35x LTM revenue, 19.1x LTM EBITDA).

The report also provides data on the pharmaceutical/medical devices/life sciences sectors.