Some of the most successful and valued consulting firms got their start by providing services for a specific software or technical niche. That’s the case with Renaissance Resource Associates of University Place, WA, initially founded to deliver deep expertise to customers of the GE Centricity Enterprise (formerly Phamis Lastword/IDX CareCast) product line. While RRA has since expanded its consulting business to include products from Epic Systems and Picis, it continues to be the recognized expert in technical and application services for Centricity Enterprise customers. The company also offers meaningful consulting careers to experienced experts who value the opportunity to use their knowledge and professionalism in a satisfying entrepreneurial environment. We spoke with Cheryl Iseberg, chief operating officer of RRA.
The last frontier of healthcare information technology may be the power of the network — the increased value and decreased cost that can be realized only when providers, payers, and patients are electronically interconnected. RelayHealth, a business of Fortune 18 McKesson Corporation, operates like a nimble start-up, parlaying strategic acquisitions and solid execution to create what it calls healthcare’s “intelligent network.” Whether it’s used to process claims, manage prescription data, provide revenue cycle management services, or link providers to consumers, RelayHealth’s open network is moving healthcare data invisibly and surely, giving the company a tremendous footprint on which to build financial, clinical, and consumer services. We spoke with Jim Bodenbender, RelayHealth’s senior vice president and general manager.
Hospitals usually aren’t staffed for the surge of experts needed to bring a big project live. They also aren’t very good at winding down resources as projects are completed. That’s at odds with what it takes for CIO job security: amassing exceptional and experienced talent, assembling a push of resources to get projects over the hump so they can start generating the expected ROI, and transitioning knowledge to staff for ongoing maintenance and enhancement. The ideal consulting firm offers experienced consultants who are well cared for by their employer; good value to fit the budget of the average non-profit hospital trying to beef up internal IT resources, and executives who care about clients after the contract is signed. We spoke to Bruce Cerullo, CEO of Vitalize Consulting Solutions, Inc.
Hospitals can succeed in unfavorable economic conditions if they make it easy for physician and patient customers to do business with them. They also need to be scrupulous about managing the revenue cycle, starting in advance of the patient’s arrival to actively manage high-deductible plans and self-pay patients. In these conditions, subscriptions-priced services are more attractive to hospitals with constrained capital budgets since they match accrued benefits to cash outlays rather than requiring a huge upfront payment. SCI Solutions was an early healthcare pioneer in Software-as-a-Service, (SaaS) forming the company around that concept in 1999. We spoke to John Holton, president and CEO of SCI Solutions.
The May 2008 acquisition of eScription by Nuance Communications brought two formidable companies together, both with a strong healthcare presence. The eScription platform, named Best in KLAS in December 2008 for the fifth year in a row, provides computer aided medical transcription using background speech recognition. Nuance is the world’s leading speech solution vendor. The eScription solution turns clinician dictations into formatted draft documents, requiring only a quick transcriptionist review and edit. The product has been proven to work in large enterprise deployments, reducing transcription costs, turning dictation into EMR-ready data, and improving report turnaround time to ensure efficient patient management. We spoke with John Shagoury, co-president of Nuance’s healthcare division.
