Q & A with Hoda Sayed-Friel
and Brian Doyle
What does the full merger
of PtCT into MEDITECH mean to our customers? We sat
down with two key players—Vice President of
Marketing Hoda Sayed-Friel and Director of Home Care
Sales Brian Doyle—to dig deeper into the future
of our home care products and to learn more about
"Care Without Walls."
1) What does this merger mean for our current Home
Care customers?
BRIAN: The merger benefits our customers in the many
ways that Larry Polimeno detailed in his letter. The financial resources and time-tested
infrastructure and methodologies of MEDITECH will
continue to lead to improvements across Service,
Implementation, and Development. More importantly,
our customers are now fully joined with MEDITECH's
global vision of health care.
HODA: Customers should be excited about the new Home
Care web portal on www.meditech.com, which will
replace both www.ptct.com and The Conductor e-newsletter.
One of my biggest goals is to improve communication
channels with our existing customers, and get updated
information into their hands in a more real-time
manner. I want customers to know and understand how
important we feel Home Care will become in the years
ahead. Please don't hesitate to give us your Feedback as to how we can best serve your
communication needs.
2) How about current MEDITECH customers? What do
our Home Care applications—and the company's
"Care Without Walls" initiative—mean
for them?
HODA: Fully merging Home Care products into our
company is a natural extension of our mission. We
want all of our customers—both current and
future—to move beyond viewing Home Care, Hospice,
and Telehealth as "other things" to
consider. I believe that, in the very near-term,
health care decision makers will begin to
automatically include these areas in their approach
to information systems, just as naturally as they
would include the Laboratory and Pharmacy departments.
We call this concept "Care Without Walls."
MEDITECH systems are designed for you to share
information among medical practices, clinics,
Emergency Departments, nursing floors, rehab
facilities, patient homes, and pharmacies. Our
customers are uniquely positioned for community-based
care and population health management.
3) What tangible benefits has MEDITECH brought to
the table since April 2007 (when the company first
announced a majority ownership stake in PtCT)?
BRIAN: You can't overstate the impact MEDITECH has
had in stabilizing all aspects of our operations.
First and foremost, we returned to profitability,
which is the key to overall success in any business.
MEDITECH's deliberate and methodical practices have
helped us to realign our vision of home care software.
I could list several specific achievements which have
occurred across Service, Implementation, and
Development over the past 30 months, but I think the
clearest evidence of all of the improvements is the
fact that in April 2007, we did not have a customer
LIVE with "Maestro" (now MEDITECH's Home
Health and Hospice applications) and today we have 25
customers LIVE.
4)
Let's get into some details. Can you tell us about
the new organizational structure?
HODA: John Youngblood will remain in charge of
Service for our Home Care applications, and will
report to Janice Burns, MEDITECH Director of Service.
Janice has been with us for 23 years, and is
currently responsible for the Administrative, Billing/AR,
and Clinical Continuing Care applications which serve
our Long Term Care and Behavioral Health customers (as
well as the General Financials for all customers).
Beth Hellriegel will remain in charge of
Implementation for our Home Care applications, and
will report to Cathy Turner, MEDITECH Director of
Implementation. Cathy has been with us for 18 years,
and is currently responsible for our Nursing, Order
Entry, and EMR products. Many of you likely know
Cathy from her work as director of our Nurse
Informatics Program and leader of our Nurse Web Portal.
Daily operations will be consistent for our customers.
The on-line customer service system will function in
the same way, and for the early part of 2010,
customers will be able to access it in the same
manner they are familiar with—they'll
automatically be re-routed to www.meditech.com
without any extra steps. Eventually, our customer
service system for Home Care will be re-tooled to
function in the same manner as the MEDITECH system
for other products.
BRIAN: Steve Miller will remain in a leadership role
as part of MEDITECH's Development team, reporting to
Robert Gale, Senior Vice President of Product
Development. I'll continue reporting to Stu Lefthes,
Vice President of Sales for MEDITECH, and I will
continue to work closely with Hoda to expand our
market.
5) And former "PtCT" staff will
still continue to work out of Atlanta?
BRIAN: Yes. We're pretty excited about the fact that
our Atlanta facility will be "MEDITECH-ized"
in the year ahead—exteriors, interiors, networks,
infrastructure, etc.
HODA: This building and infrastructure work will be
done by our same wonderful staff who worked on our
award-winning Massachusetts buildings in recent years.
The facility will be known internally as "MEDITECH
Atlanta" in the same manner we currently refer
to "MEDITECH Canton" and so forth.
6) MEDITECH has always been known for
integration. How does Home Care integrate with the
acute care HCIS?
HODA: Currently, our HCIS is receiving vital signs,
visit notes, care plan notes, 485s, and financial
transactions from our home care applications. The new
version also shares allergy and medication
information, which lays the foundation for true
medication reconciliation, which I am very excited
about.
BRIAN: Likewise, we are sharing demographic
information and referral information collected in the
acute care setting with our Home Care applications.
Lastly, and probably most importantly, our system
shares medication and allergy information across the
continuum, which as we all know is an area of great
emphasis in today's delivery of care.
7) Is there any connection between Meaningful
Use and Home Care?
HODA: While the Meaningful Use Criteria for 2011,
2013, and 2015 are of course still being finalized by
HHS, it is apparent there will be several ways that
our Home Care products will offer benefits in
demonstrating these requirements. The biggest
specific area is probably "reconciling
medications at each care stage," which I
described above. In addition, the 2013 requirements
specifically reference "patients have access to
self-management tools," an "implemented
ability to incorporate data uploaded from home
monitoring devices," and "access to
comprehensive patient data from all available sources."
BRIAN: I also believe our Telehealth offering will
play a key role in satisfying requirements for "engaging
patient and families."
8) What's in store for the future?
HODA: Big things! As I mentioned, a huge part of the
future for all of MEDITECH is "Care Without
Walls." We are uniquely positioned to offer a
proven, integrated solution that truly extends care
across the continuum. People who have heard me give
speeches and presentations know that I am passionate
about using technology to facilitate chronic disease
management. So many of the "Top 20" chronic
conditions, which represent 80% of today's health
care dollars, are well-suited to being treated and
monitored in the home—diabetes, CHF, etc. The
MEDITECH HCIS already collects and shares more
information about chronic diseases than any other
system. But down the road, MEDITECH is positioned to
go even further, to use technology as part of a
groundbreaking new model where we are actually
facilitating the coordination of care for the
prevention and treatment of chronic diseases. That's
where I see us heading.
BRIAN: As we've detailed throughout this interview,
it's easy to see the critical role home care will
play in the future not only of Health Care
Information Systems, but care delivery itself. I'm
excited about the potential for an HCIS which also
incorporates Home Health, Hospice, and Telehealth
applications. I believe my current and future
customers will be drawn to our offerings not only for
the clinical benefits, but for the strong business
case I can make for our integrated solution. And this
business case extends to Home Care itself, as an
industry. As our population continues to age, I
believe the role of home care will grow in popularity
among consumers (patients), and the combination of
greater demand and lower cost will propel home care
to the forefront of our health care system.