10th Anniversary of eClinicalWorks
by Girish Kumar Navani
This month marks an exciting time for all of us at eClinicalWorks as we celebrate our 10th year of business. It seems like only yesterday when four engineers and a physician came together to start a company that in a decade would transform the landscape of the ambulatory EMR market. As the saying goes "time flies when you are having fun" and it has been fun indeed to see eClinicalWorks grow from a small company to a market leader in terms of product base, product portfolio, and an ever-growing employee count. All of this as our long-term goal continues to be met -- "Provide a top- of-the-line EMR and PM solution at a very affordable price point."
In a recent report by KLAS, titled "The Rise of eClinicalWorks," it was noted that 93% of customers stated that the EMR functionality met or exceeded their expectations, and 97% stated that the overall cost of adoption met expectations. This is a wonderful validation of our goal.
Company Expansion
Our business continues to be strong, and even in these tough economic times we expect to grow aggressively in 2009 and beyond. In a recent visit to eCW Headquarters in Westborough by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, we stated that eClinicalWorks plans to hire 500+ employees during the next two years. We will also open a new office in California this summer.
eClinicalWorks continued to hire and expand our customer-facing departments during 2008. At 750 employees strong, eClinicalWorks dedicates 45% of its staff to support product services - one of the highest employee/customer ratios in the industry. Despite the expansion and the addition of complimentary solutions, we continue to focus on one core product and one strategy.
eCW has invested a tremendous amount of resources to ensure optimal performance for customers using our Software as a Service (SaaS) model by increasing the number of data centers we run to six, with two more opening in the first half of 2009.
Product Releases
This past year saw the busiest product release calendar in eCW history. In 2008, we issued the highly anticipated release of eClinicalWorks Version 8.0. Based on the collected product feedback from customers nationwide, including the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYCDOHMH), this was the most ambitious version yet.
The Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) features included in that version for developing clinical measures as well as new ways for improving chronic and preventative care are some of the most advanced tools in the industry. With the CDSS features in Version 8.0, eCW has elevated the role of the EMR from passively collecting data to actively aiding providers in providing better quality of care.
Enterprise Business Optimizer (eBO) improves our financial and clinical reporting with the use of web-based dashboards and business intelligence technology. eBO allows for custom report writing based on metadata, serving as a valuable tool for our entire client base.
eClinicalMobile brings our EMR/PM system anywhere you want to go by using a mobile-browser so providers can access the solution anywhere. eClinicalMessenger is a messaging service that utilizes Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) to enable physician practices to send messages, in batches or singularly, to patients for aspects of care including appointment reminders, lab results, diagnostic imaging and statements.
In 2009, we will release the eClinicalMobile and eClinicalMessenger solutions to all of our customers. eClinicalMobile will be provided free of charge for the first year as long as users join our National Hub (more details to come soon!).
Interfaces
Today, eCW interfaces with most of the nation's reference labs. In the AAFP survey, eCW received special mention for providing the largest number of interfaces, even for our solo and small practices. Quest Labs also names us as a certified GOLD partner, the only EMR vendor as of March to achieve this level of use.
Service
With our growth it is still important that we continue to maintain our commitment to service. Service has always been our priority and even today we continue to invest heavily in it. Today, more than 250 eCW employees work in supporting our EMR and PM solution. We have expanded our service hours to include 24-hour support at no additional cost to our clients.
Implementation Services
In a market where competitors take months or years to implement their products, eClinicalWorks' turn-around time is often a matter of weeks. We have no back-log in our implementation. In fact, 1,000 physicians that are a part of the NYCDOHMH were deployed within one year.
How are we doing this? Nine years ago, we specifically designed eClinicalWorks EMR/PM for fast implementation and quick deployment. This way, our customers are able to take advantage of their system and see returns faster than with most systems in this market.
Customer base
eCW is known to dominate the small provider practice. Over the last 10 years we have streamlined our product for faster deployment and inserted services to allow you to implement our solutions at an affordable price point. Since 2005, eCW has been making significant inroads in the large and very large practices, as well as community EMR deployments. Today over 15,000+ providers in 5,000+ small practices use eCW EMR and PM and more than 12,000+ providers use eCW EMR/PM in large practice with 30 to 500 providers.
eCW now has 5,000 practices as customers across all 50 states, comprised of all types of groups: large hospital systems; large and small health systems; large, medium, small, and solo provider practices, and FQHCs and community health centers - all currently have deployed our solution successfully. Even with a significant footprint we have achieved in the enterprise-size market, we continue to dominate the small physician market. We saw our market position solidified in all 50 states as we continue our commitment to do all things for all customers.
Awards and Recognitions
eCW once again received the Ambulatory EMR CCHIT certification for its v8.0 EMR system in 2008, obtaining the certification each year that it has been available. As a testament to our corporate strength, eCW was named to the Inc. 500 and Healthcare Informatics 100 for the second consecutive year. In addition, IDC's Health Industry Insights ranked us highly in its August 2008 report on the ambulatory EMR market. Previous year recognitions included Frost & Sullivan, KLAS, TEPR, American Academy of Neurology, and the American College of Rheumatology.
Our customers also received accolades for the success they have achieved using eClinicalWorks. White River Rural Health Center and the New York Children's Health Project were both recipients of the 2008 HIMSS Nicholas E. Davies Award and we hope this is just the beginning of many awards for our customers. It is gratifying to see our customers receive these for the success they have achieved using eClinicalWorks.
Looking Forward
eClinicalWorks is well positioned to have a great 2009; our private, profitable, and investor-free corporate structure allows us to be agile and to focus on long-term goals and relationships versus Wall Street-driven quarterly goals. Our growth has established eCW as the strongest company in the ambulatory space with the technology and experience for deploying large customers, yet we maintain the focus and flexibility to deploy our solutions to small physician practices. At the end of the day, eCW is only as strong as its customers and we will spend this year helping you improve your practices.
And so, for the 10th year in a row, we successfully expanded eClinicalWorks while making it stronger and smarter along the way. President Obama is ushering in a new era and has pledged his commitment to bring electronic health records to all practices nationwide. Other government groups are looking at ways this technology can make practices more efficient while improving patient outcomes. As we celebrate our 10-year anniversary, this is an exciting time.
We want to be the catalyst for better health care for patients at lower costs.
You can fully expect us to look beyond the horizon to transform the company and the industry. None of our success would have been possible without your continued support and trust. eCW remains the right solution for customers of all sizes.
Every day, more than 750 employees of eClinicalWorks take on the new task of making our products and services better. On behalf of my fellow co-workers, I want to thank you for putting your trust in eClinicalWorks and we look forward to serving you in the future.
I will always remember -- if I don't enjoy the journey, I will be disappointed when I get to the destination.
Best wishes for a safe and prosperous year,
Girish Kumar Navani
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