Health care transformation boosts IT firms

On an 800-acre spread in Verona,Wis., is the headquarters of one of the largest health care-specific information technology firms in the nation. Living up to its eponymous name, Madison-founded Epic Systems Corp. serves 42 percent of the U.S. population with 270 clients, employs 5,400 people and generated a record $1.2 billion in revenue last year.

Health care information technology, or HIT for short, has grown as an economic sector by exponential proportions in recent years. Far from a cottage enterprise, the software and network systems companies have become a well-established industry in high demand.

In its white paper, “Healthcare IT Insights and Opportunities,” Downers Grove, Ill.-based CompTIA reports that three-fourths of health care providers expected to increase their technology spending, which in 2010 stood at about $50 billion.

Medical providers are in the midst of a technological insurgence, ramping up efforts to reduce operational and overhead costs, increase staff productivity, improve workflow efficiency and increase patient satisfaction in a growing and increasingly complex environment.

Add to that the nation’s aging population, the increased affordability and accessibility of technology services, and the overall modernization of the country’s health care systems and it’s clear why health care IT providers are seeing a boost in business.

Diversified IT firms looking to get in on the action have turned their attention to the health care vertical, while niche firms such as Epic have watched revenues climb.

Brookfield-based IT firm, SysLogic Inc. has seen its health care IT services grow to about 15 percent of its business, according to executive vice president, Thomas Windsor, who expects that number to swell in coming years.

“Our focus – it has really grown,” Windsor said. “We have all these systems with all of this data. (Medical providers) don’t understand IT. They say, ‘We’re in health care.’ It’s an opportunity for us. We’re definitely making an investment.”

SysLogic currently serves small and mid-sized businesses in the health care vertical, Windsor said.

Privately-held Epic declined to be interviewed for this story, but according to Russ Hinz, director of EHR Clinical Adoption and Transformation at Milwaukee-based Aurora Health Care, the state’s largest health care system is in a two-year-long transition to Epic’s IT and Electronic Health Records (EHR) system.

San Jose, Calif.-based Global Industry Analysts Inc. pegged the EHR market in North America at $5 billion, a number that could spawn a hiring spree of the estimated 50,000 IT professionals needed to effectively implement EHR transitions in the United States.

Costing Aurora upwards of $200 million (“It’s the equivalent of building a smaller hospital,” Hinz says), Epic’s IT and EHR system is expected to better integrate patient records system-wide and improve WiFi accessibility, allowing physicians and staff to seamlessly utilize advanced technological tools such as laptops, convertibles, tablets and smart phones.

Medical providers’ steady adoption of new technologies has helped fuel the HIT sector, but CompTIA, an IT trade group that tracks HIT trends, says electronic medical records continue to create the lion’s share of profits.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (“Obamacare”) added an extra push when it dangled a carrot in the form of federal subsidies to medical providers who made the switch to EHR.

Aurora is among those who took advantage of the subsidies, Hinz said.

“Aurora (uses) evidence-based practiced medicine,” said Hinz. “With EHR, a patient will have one record – it can go from one hospital to another. We can track information, track patients who are with us, see better outcomes and (provide) better care.”

Similar to other state systems, Aurora also houses electronic records accessible by the patient. Their program is called MyChart, which allows patients to re-order prescriptions, view test results, and schedule appointments, in addition to other tasks.

Engaging patients is a priority for health care systems adopting new technologies and for doctors going digital. In addition to offering comprehensive electronic medical records, medical providers are launching various interactive websites, communicating regularly via social media and are developing custom mobile sites and apps for smart phones and tablets.

Tablets are taking on significant importance as more physicians discover their unique mobility and accessibility features. In the northwest part of the state, Marshfield Clinic manages more than 3,800 tablets system-wide. According to Mary Schalow, Marshfield Clinic director of information and support, doctors use the tablets for “everything.”

“That is their only device,” Schalow said. “They use it for patient care, viewing patient records, billing data, visit information, diagnoses, macros to build their notes, email and internal communications. It’s provided a work-life balance.”

Historically, medical systems have been paper-based, said CompTIA vice president of research, Tim Herbert. It was timely and expensive to fill out dozens of forms, search for and pull records for a patient.

“The health care sector has been a bit laggard in adopting new technology,” Herbert said. “Doctors now recognize the efficiency, the aging population, growing costs – technology is seen as part of the solution. It’s providing new ways to analyze data on a macro level.”

“It’s all about data,” said Windsor, who believes medical providers will eventually use data the same way that companies’ marketing departments use analytics to track consumer habits.