The 2012 National Users Conference has come to a close and on behalf of all of us at eClinicalWorks, I would like to extend my sincere appreciation to all of you that took time from your busy schedules to join us in Washington, D.C.  Given the timing of Hurricane Sandy, we hope your travels were uneventful.  The time you spent with us at the conference fuels our enthusiasm for innovation.  We pay close attention to your ideas and your experiences in a continual effort to improve the eClinicalWorks experience.  I am proud to be a part of this dedicated community as we seek ways to not only impact healthcare, but to improve healthcare together.

This year, we were honored to have two eClinicalWorks’ users speak during our Keynote Address — Regina M. Benjamin, MD, MBA, Surgeon General of the United States, and Farzad Mostashari, MD, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.  Both gave moving testimonials on how electronic health records have influenced their lives and the lives of their patients.  Dr. Benjamin spoke about the national prevention strategy geared towards helping America become healthy. She recalled how, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, her practices’ paper records were destroyed.  She recalled how her practice could not afford an EMR at that time.  But after another flood and fire, she realized how essential and electronic medical records system is; her practice could not afford not to have one.  She reminisced about how the granddaughter of a patient gave her an envelope with $7 in it with a note that said the donation was to help rebuild the practice.

Dr. Mostashari then congratulated the healthcare industry for its successful two-year journey of transformation – for taking the industry to heights it has never reached before.  He shared an “ah-ha” moment when a patient was admitted to the hospital after suffering a stroke and, standing on the side of the road, he tried to recall the medication dosage and other aspects of care that could easily have been accessed using technology.  Their experiences bring home why we are in the field we are in today.

Next, with butterflies in my stomach, I gave my address.  I was up until 2:30 a.m. that morning completing the final touches to make sure it was as close to perfect as possible for all of you. I took the opportunity to give an update on the company progress and give a sneak peek at what is to come.  Today, more than 70,000 physicians, and 410,000 medical professionals are using the eClinicalWorks comprehensive EHR system.  The billionth encounter was documented using eClinicalWorks’ EHR earlier this year.  As of this month 146 million patients have their records in eClinicalWorks.  More than one-third of the US population has their electronic medical record stored in eClinicalWorks EMR.  This is simply astounding!

However, past success does not satisfy us and we are positioned to continue to be an industry leader for the next decade and beyond.  Our path to continued leadership in this industry is via ‘Innovation.’  At precisely the time when the industry is pulling back from spending heavily in R&D and Support, we are doubling down.  I committed to improving our Support services, and we delivered.  Today with a 93% customer satisfaction rating and 99% SLA for service response, I am confident that the service we now provide our customers is the best in the industry. Here is what one customer posted on the eCWUsers Web site:

Today, eClinicalWorks has the largest EHR Cloud in the industry.  We have invested significantly in datacenters in nine cities (including Boston, NYC, DC, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas and San Jose) across the country.  And with Nimbus, our down time procedure application, we provide our customers with the best performance and up-time in the industry.

This investment was very evident when Hurricane Sandy caused a week long power outage in NYC.  All datacenters were turned over to generator power and when the flooding blew out the diesel pumps and eClinicalWorks datacenter lost power for 10 hours, Nimbus allowed our customers to access vital patient information, schedules, and medical summaries via the Chicago datacenter.  Fortunately for our clients, power was restored to the datacenter much sooner than it was to area medical or Wall Street facilities.

In addition to the Support and Cloud investments, we showcased our Product Innovation portfolio on stage.  Our focus over the next year will be in the following three areas: Provider, Community and Patient.

Provider-side product innovations we showcased during my keynote included:V10: Our next version of the flagship V9 Comprehensive EHR/PM.

eClinicalTouch, our iPAD based EHR compatible with V9, and optimized for wireless 3G/4G networks with data compression and wide area optimizations.

eClinicalWorks Scribe our structured speech based EHR module for documenting progress notes, and the

Product HUB our on-demand activation module.

On the Community side we showcased our eClinicalWorks CCMR product that allows customers to develop ACOs and act on PCMH initiatives.  CCMR is an OPEN platform, EHR agnostic, and Direct compatible.  CCMR capabilities include care planning, risk management, population analytics, and patient surveys.  And I discussed the merits of our “Join The Network” initiative that allows our providers to develop closed loop referral networks.We showcased several new patient engagement initiatives – the new features of the Patient Portal and Messenger.  The Patient Portal is deployed by over 6,500 customers; 6 million online accounts have been created in the last year; and every single day 15,000 new patients are creating an online account to obtain access to their health information. Messenger has been the fastest growth product for us, successfully sending millions of voice and text reminders to patients.

We also announced Revenue Cycle Management for 2.9%, which includes a free EHR, and showcased a new patient App that gives patients access to their health information on a smart phone.  The App will be available in Q1 2013.

The breakout sessions, exhibits and theater sessions were packed with enthusiastic learners.  I especially enjoyed the EHR roundtable discussion I had with about a 100+ power users.  This session gave us tremendous insight into those features that are important to our customer base, many of which will be added to our product development road map for 2013.

As at every User Conference, we closed with a big party on Saturday night.  The Alive-and-in-Motion Celebration Event had a variety of entertainment.  We enjoyed a fabulous dinner and ended the evening with a lot of dancing.  We had a great time and hope everyone who attended had a good time as well.

As a company, we have proven that eClinicalWorks is proactive, operating at a daily pace that is so rapid that a year seems to pass in the blink of an eye.  Our shared vision for the company and the product direction becomes clearer each day and extends well into the next decade.  We have invested heavily in our products, our people and our product development, and we make decisions based on long-term successes.  We are successfully connecting the consumers of healthcare (Patients) with the suppliers of care (Provider), a vision we see as core to our values and our future success.

Your participation and input at this conference influences us not only as a company, but also as a community of individuals collectively dedicated to the care of patients.  I am invested in the future of eClinicalWorks, and I am proud to say that I work side-by-side with clients and employees that are dedicated, that are driven and that are innovative. Thank you for the time you’ve spent with us here this week, and we look forward to having you join us in 2013 in San Antonio.