There is a new vendor in the enterprise hospital electronic health records market boasting more than 20 hospitals in the implementation phase since going live in late January with its cloud-based product.
With offices in San Francisco and Fort Lauderdale, iCare launched after receiving Stage 2 meaningful use complete inpatient certification, says James Brooks, chief revenue officer. Accompanying ambulatory practice management and electronic health records software—also cloud-based—is on track for Stage 2 certification later this year. The inpatient and ambulatory systems also include self-developed data warehouse and analytics software.
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The vendor is targeting acute care and specialty hospitals of 100 or more beds with a big focus on facilities using Meditech systems earlier than version 6.0, McKesson Star or Horizon systems and not migrating to Paragon, Siemens and CPSI, now newly renamed as Evident. Of the hospitals signed, it has one hospital below 50 beds and half of the rest over 200 beds including a 500-bed facility. Further, Brooks says, iCare is talking to two organizations “far north” of 500 beds.
The company is not yet at liberty to identify organizations that have signed to implement the software; some of the facilities want to go live first, Brooks says. The first five to seven sites should be live by early fall. In the early stages, specialty hospitals are signing up at considerably faster rates than acute care; seven of the first contracts were for acute care facilities. Specialty hospitals, exempted from the meaningful use program, are feeling pressure to adopt electronic health records.
Hospitals will access their EHRs via a web browser and the system will run on any Windows, Macintosh, Android or iOS device. The cost is based on the per-user-per-month model and implementation fees are dependent on hospital size and type. Based on early indications, hospitals may experience a 50 percent reduction in total cost of ownership over seven years, Brooks says.
iCare is privately funded through Riley Ventures, led by co-founder and CEO Jim Riley who was founder of Learn.com, which is now part of Oracle. Additional information is available here.
