August 1st, 2008
Ryan Howard answers Practice Fusion's critics
Yesterday I wrote about Practice Fusion, and suggested CEO Ryan Howard (right) might be by shortly to answer your questions about its free electronic medical record (EMR) service.
He called right after I returned home from celebrating the end of my son’s summer vacation with a chocolate martini, so my apologies for any mistakes in the notes which follow.
First, Howard knocked down all those rumors that, because his is described as a “Google-like” business model, he is in league with the Googleplex.
He’s not, and this may have stemmed from a misunderstanding.
Practice Fusion did use Google’s AdSense to deliver some ads during its start-up phase, but quickly switched to a system which can deliver the higher CP/Ms its audience of doctors earn, and which it needs to survive.
“We used them for backfill,” is the way Howard put it.
As to the other side of the equation, Google’s personal health record (PHR), marketed as Google Health, Howard might integrate it when customers demand it, but he is in no hurry.
“We might integrate with their PHR at some point. The hard part is EMR, not PHR. Building a PHR is super simple,” just a system to download and store someone else’s EMR. “Unless they promote me what value do they provide?”
As to Practice Fusion itself. So far, 1,300 doctors have signed up, and over 300,000 patient records have been input.
It’s completely web-based, with live phone support, and yes, it’s free. “You can be up and running in a couple of minutes.”
The big objection to Practice Fusion is what do you do about the old records, Howard said. He calls his answer Live in Five. (To the left, the service’s diabetes dashboard.)
“Use it now. Scanning in all the old records is just not pragmatic, not cost effective. If I have 2,000 patients and 10 sheets on each, that’s 20,000 sheets. We support that, but who’s going to do that.
“They might pull their active patients, and they might pull in ongoing diagnoses. But what they usually do is after a visit or two they know what they need to know, they archive and they’re done.”
Another big objection is usually standards or interoperability. Again, Howard doesn’t worry about it.
“Our entire platform is web service based, supporting HL7 and EDI. The market is moving slowly there.
“Interoperability is where standards get important, and we’ll be there before the rest of the market. We can share patient records, between doctors, right now. The technology model and our business model work very well together. There will be true continuity of care, without integration. We don’t need standards for that. But can we do standards? Sure.”
The difference between Howard’s approach, which is sometimes called SaaS (Software as a Service), and an integrated solution is what happens when those standards become necessary.
Practice Fusion will meet the standards transparently. With a solution that lives in your office, “you rip and replace.”
Another area where Practice Fusion is different lies in the area of marketing. They don’t do much of it.
“It’s very guerrilla, it’s grassroots. It’s tactics, it’s PR.” Look, Practice Fusion has a blog. But don’t call for an ad if you’re doing business the old-fashioned way.
(I’m sorry, I thought he meant gorilla marketing. That’s the late Willie B, the great silverback of ZooAtlanta, to the right. Blame the chocolate martini.)
“I got an email from a large medical organization this week. They want $25,000 to join. What that buys is space on a partner page with 10 large vendors. I don’t plan on any major alliances with the status quo guys.”
He means to rip and replace the status quo guys. If you are running a small medical practice and tiring of the five-figure pitches from computing system vendors, I make no guarantee. But Practice Fusion’s price looks right.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist since 1978, and has covered technology since 1982. He launched the Interactive Age Daily, the first daily coverage of the Internet to launch with a magazine, in September 1994. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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