Health-Care VARs Win With Electronic Medical Records Solutions

Doctors are also under pressure from health-care insurers to reduce expenses. "Clinics are trying to cut costs because the insurance companies are reducing reimbursements," Higgins said. By reducing clerical errors, EMR systems can improve cash flow by speeding up insurance reimbursements. They can even increase clinic-related revenue because some health insurers won't pay for tests or procedures unless properly documented.

But perhaps the biggest drivers are coming from within the medical profession itself. Physicians, solution providers say, want to deliver higher quality care and spend less time on time-consuming administrative paperwork. "I've had doctors tell me they can cut an hour out of their day using electronic records," Ontolchik said. "That may not seem like much, but for physicians looking to increase the number of patients they can see, devote more time to patients or just reduce the amount of time they spend at work, it can be a major gain."

And while older doctors can be notoriously technophobic when it comes to computers, EMR vendors and solution providers say a new generation of doctors who grew up with computers and were trained to use EMR systems in medical school is changing that demographic as they join group practices or start their own.

Different Paths

Solution provider execs have followed different paths into the EMR market. Pisutha, who worked at Microsoft VAR Quilogy Inc., St. Charles, Mo., in 2004, co-founded Curas after a conversation with a physician friend who complained about all the paper forms he had to deal with during his residency. "It sort of planted the seed in my mind," he said.

Wesley Gipe was mulling the idea of applying to medical school in 1999 when he founded Agilit, a Troy, Ohio-based solution provider, as a way to earn money to pay for it. "The more I learned about the state of IT systems in health care, the more I recognized the opportunities there," he said. He never did get to med school.

All of which raises the question of how much medical expertise a solution provider needs to succeed in this market. Surprisingly, the answer is not much. Some say expertise with business processes and workflows is more important than specific medical industry knowledge.

Before starting Computer Zone, Higgins was the manager of a physician office where he oversaw the implementation of an EMR system. He also managed IT for a credit union. "Since I saw both sides of IT, it just became a real good niche for our company," he said. Maritec employs two people with physician office expertise. "You really, really have to develop an understanding of how a medical office operates," Ontolchik says.

Pisutha said that when starting Curas he and his partner spent the better part of a year just talking to physicians—including family friends—and sitting in their offices to study their work processes. Curas employs people with experience working in physician offices and people with workflow implementation skills.

The combination is needed, for example, when installing EMR for ordering lab tests and following up with the patient with the results, scheduling treatments and medical procedures, and issuing prescriptions. But Pisutha said finding people with the right mix of skills can be tough, and it can take a year before they are familiar with the EMR technology.

"We want to fulfill the role of technology adviser," Pisutha said. Once the trust of a physician is gained, "the rest of it becomes pretty easy."

Big Challenges

That's not to say selling EMR systems to physicians is a cinch. Adopting such technology, which one VAR described as "mini ERP [enterprise resource planning] systems for doctors," is often a big leap for many physician practices. "It's often an education issue," Gipe said. "It's a long sales cycle in health care, longer than the cycle in other verticals we've been exposed to."

Ontolchik agrees. "The biggest challenge is getting these guys to understand what these programs can do for them," he said.