H.I.S.-tory by Vince Ciotti

Episode #86: Meditech Part 4

© 2012 by H.I.S. Professionals, LLC, all rights reserved.

Amazing growth: from zero to 2-3K!

From a former “Med-techie”• Got this fascinating email after last week’s episode from John

Perez (john.f.perez@comcast.net) an early Meditech veteran:“Have enjoyed the trips down memory lane you have presented on HISTalk over the last while. I was there back in the early 70’s working with Neil, Kurt and Larry and went from there to a long stint at Compucare. I thought it interesting how many companies got launched by people I worked with at Meditech in those days:– Terry Ragon = Intersystems– Paul Egerman = IDX– Leon Paddel = Legal Data Systems – not an employee, but used

the legal billing system Meditech developed for their law firm – Terry Weismann, my boss at Meditech left to start a company

doing MIIS and application training for Meditech customers (forgot the name).” Any readers remember the firm’s name?

More From John Perez• “I joined Ron Aprahamian at Compucare in 1974 (Shelly Dorenfest

was still CEO then) working behind Georgetown University Hospital in a Quonset hut. We recruited Nick Johnson, former Meditech programming manager and built, using MIIS, one of their first complete HIS products. Kristin Johnson who replaced Nick Johnson at Meditech left to co-found a library systems company (forgot the name – God I’m getting old) using MIIS.

• George Timson (whose ‘version 0’ of Fileman was invented at Meditech – I know I took over his apps when he left) went on to found the underground project at VA we now know as Vista and marketed commercially by MedSphere. I am sure there are other companies I am not aware of that got started by ex-Meditech employees. I remember it as a very exciting place to work…you felt like anything was possible and you were encouraged to be creative.”

Credit to MIT• Fascinating factoids! I responded to John that

Meditech’s predilection for hiring recent college grads might have led to it, as theylooked around in their green naiveté and thought “I can do this!”

• John replied: “I think a lot of the credit goes to MIT where we got most of our employees…MIT for sure breeds entrepreneurs. I wish I had pictures from those days…I can tell you our hair was a LOT longer then and Neal had just gotten an earring to celebrate his 30th.”

I think John is on to something: remember how in my original Meditech episode (#16 at hispros.com) I postulated that’s where Neal got the company’s official name: Medical Information Technology. My guess is they were wary of using the official MIT acronym, so they dreamed up Med-I-Tech!

Amazing GrowthThis chart illustrates Meditech’s amazing growth over the past 40 years:

How Did They Do It?• So just how did Meditech ride to the top in

number of HIS clients? To help answer that question, we’re going back 20 years ago to when we first evaluated Meditech in a system selection process at a 200-bed hospital in NY.

• The story will not only explain why so many hospitals bought Meditech, but also shed light on system selection techniques that many hospitals could benefit from today as they go to market to replace legacy EMRs...

• It will also give us a fascinating overview of the HIS industry 20 years ago: who Meditech competed with back in the late 80s and 90s when their HIS first started to take off, and show how this Boston upstart was able to beat the HIS vendor giants of the time.

Brooks Memorial Hospital• Not only was this hospital daring in choosing

Meditech over giants like SMS and HBO, they were also daring (nuts?) in picking a consultant!

• Brooks CFO was Ralph Webdale, easily one of the nicest, smartest and funniest hospital execs I ever worked with in my 40+ years in HIT! Ralph heard about us from a neighboring hospital where we didn’t screw up too badly and the rest as they say is HIS-tory…

• In 1993, Brooks was on the “SAINT” system from SAI, that had been bought several times (AMEX/FDC) and upgraded first to “Saint Plus” then “Saint Express.” Ironically, this is the same system that 5 years later HBOC announced they were re-writing into a true “Client/Server” architecture that would be known as Paragon (if they ever finished it…)

Who Were the HIS Leaders in 1993?• The first step in our system selection process was to issue an RFI

(Request For Information) to leading vendors asking for data that will help narrow the search down to a handful of contenders:– Company financial reports, NY offices, # of clients & FTEs, etc.– Ball-park price quote for affordable capital & operating costs– A list of client hospitals that meet several important criteria:• 2-3 of our size (for Brooks’ ≈200, from 100-300 beds)• 2-3 in our state for support (NY has tough state regs!)• 2-3 on our product (e.g., for SMS, on MS4, not Invision)• 3-5 with our key apps (Nursing, OR, RR, Lab, RX, PA & GA)• 1-2 with interfaces to key ancillary systems (eg: T & A)• Lastly, 1-2 hospitals converted from SAI (and still open!)

• The “usual suspects” we sent the RFI to, and their responses were those vendors with a strong presence in Brook’s mid-range size:

Leading HIS Vendors 20 Years Ago• Odd how quickly we’ve forgotten some of these early vendors:– CHC – Community Health Computing, a solid LIS/HIS from TX.– Compucare – Shelly Dorenfest & Ron Apprahamian’s firm– First Data Corp. – who bought out Jack Weil’s SAI from Amex.– GTE – IBM-mini-based monster who bought IHC’s MedSeries– HBO – their story will take many episodes to tell their lineage!– HCS – Hospital Computer Systems from Wall, NJ, on IBM minis– IBAX – a triple acquisition monster: JS Data, DCC & PCS/ADS– Keane – Just finished their HIStory; today they’re “NTT Data”– Meditech – a major LIS player, but relative upstart in HIS…– SMS – had just announced Invision; Allegra = their mini HIS– SDS – Source Data Systems, later bought by Ray Paris’ Keane

• Stay tuned to see their responses to Brooks’ RFI next week. I wonder who will remember today’s HIS/EMR leaders in 2033?