67. keane 5 pat com
TRANSCRIPT
H.I.S.-tory by Vince Ciotti
Episode #67:
Keane Part 5:PHS’ PatCom
© 2011 by H.I.S. Professionals, LLC, all rights reserved.
Keane’s Acquired Products• This week we continue the story of Keane, looking at the next HIS
vendors besides Ferranti & INFOSTAT they acquired, while building their own “Threshold” UNIX-based product. This week we cover an amazingly long-lived revenue cycle system they acquired from:– Professional Hospital Systems – the IT division of hospital chain
American Medical International (AMI), who built PatCom.• Many thanks several old friend from SMS & AMI for the inside details!
• The 6th & final episode on Keane (don’t blame me, blame Ray Paris who bought all these vendors!) will cover:– First Coast – Charlie Gibb’s firm from Florida, whose “APaCS”
HIS offered a full financial/clinical suite on IBM AS/400s.• No word on where Charlie is, nor any other FC veterans - please write!
– Source Data Systems - (SDS), from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, based on NCR’s “Mednet” HIS, that ran at over 150 hospitals in the 90s…• Another vanished HIS vendor –anyone know the inside details?
The AMI/PHS/PatCom Story• Credit for the inside story of PatCom goes to 2 old
friends from the glory days of SMS in the 1970s: • Arnie Caplan, a New “Yohkah” transplanted to LA
where he started as an ID for SMS (the 39th!) then as an ID Manager before joining PHS in 1981:– Arnie’s still working today at a Kaiser hospital
in Pasadena: [email protected] – Here he is at SMS’ 40th reunion in KOP in 2009:
• Art Harris, who joined SMS from the Central Bank Computer Bureau (aka “CB2”) one of 4 shared systems in the 1970s that were merged into the Information Services Division (ISD), the IT arm of American Hospital Supply, later bought by SMS.– Art’s still working on PatCom for Keane and
can be reached at: 310.417.3120
AMI’s Looooong roots• AMI was the first investor-owned hospital company
in the world, being founded in 1956 by (are you ready?) Uranus J. Appel. No, that’s not a typo and I’m not trying to plug Cupertino! Here’s his portrait:
• Uranus was a bacteriologist who formed “MedLabs” first as a reference laboratory for LA-area hospitals.
• In the 60s, a small hospital client was closing its doors, MedLabs bought it, and then changed both its name (and mission) to AMI.
• AMI began gobbling up hospitals around the US, as well as many overseas (AMI!)
• Around 1976, AMI formed Professional Hospital Services (PHS) to develop a modern DG mini-based HIS for its US hospitals, and in 1978, began selling these systems to non-AMI hospitals as well.
PHS’ Board & Executive Team• PHS was formed by several HIS veterans,
pictured on right, the most prominent:– Ritchy Haynes – President, who, like
Art Harris, started his HIS career at one of ISD’s 4 shared systems, Ritchy’s being the Michigan BC/BS shared system, also home to several other HIS-tory heroes from past episodes:- Gerry Mathis – who became president of Sentry Data, featured
in Episode 21 (see our web site: hispros.com for a re-visit!), and later a VP at Sheldon I. Dorenfest & Associates (SIDA).
- Frank Cavanaugh – who went initially to SMS like Ritchy & Gerry, then left to join Coopers & Lybrand where he became national director of their enormous HIS consulting arm in the 80s & 90s.• Amazing that an unknown shared system could spawn these three!
Platform & Early Adopters• PHS picked the Data General line of “MV”
minicomputers for its hardware platform.• One of their early (and large!) clients was
Alexian Brothers, a hospital chain in the Midwest, whose “computer room” (no “data centers” back then) is pictured on the right:
• Pictured at left is Bruce Fisher, CFO at Alexian Brothers, who was joined by several other notable healthcare organizations in picking PHS to replace shared/mainframe systems, including:• Massachusetts General Hospital• Baylor Health Care System• Johns Hopkins Health
• Whew, that’s an impressive client list!
Hot 1987 Ad• Like so many mini-
based HIS vendors, PHS started with primarily financial apps (patient & general accounting), than gradually added “Clinical” systems, which in those days, was a euphemism for mainly Order Entry & Results Reporting.
• Note how this ad brags about PPS – DRGs were a big deal back in the 1980s!
Big Sale in KOP’s Backyard• Arnie saves almost as much stuff as I do!
He was kind enough to send these pics of a T-Shirt PHS had printed up for the
implementation of a huge client they signed within a stone’s throw of SMS’ King of Prussia HQ near Philadelphia:
– Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP), where, incidentally, a leader of HUP’s of the IT gurus was another former SMS-er: Tony Mirigliani! Anyone know where he is these days? One of SMS/HIS’ all time best!!
– Maybe PHS really stands for “Previously Hired by SMS” as Arnie also remembers another SMS’ super-star, Ron Dixon (VP of Sales for the West), who joined PHS about this time too.
Ownership Complexity• You HIS trivia nuts will love these details:
– “AMI owned all of the stock in PHS through its wholly owned subsidiary, AMI Information Systems Group, Inc. (AMI Systems). AMI formed Professional Healthcare Systems Holding Corporation (PHS Holding), a Delaware corporation, so that PHS Holding could acquire PHS Services from AMI Systems. To accomplish that acquisition, PHS Services was first acquired by a wholly owned subsidiary of PHS Holding, PHS Acquisition Corporation. The name of PHS Services was then changed to Professional Healthcare Systems, Inc. (PHS), and PHS Acquisition was merged into PHS. PHS is a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in Los Angeles County.”
• Arnie illustrates thru these old plaques he photographed (check out his reflection!):
Multiple New Owners…• As part of these late 80’s restructuring deals,
PHS was owned in part by its management & employees (48.3%), several VC investors (26.3%) and a number of its major clients (12.7%), viz:– Stanford University Hospital– Massachusetts General Hospital– Alexian Brothers Health System– United Hospitals Inc. (PA)– Women & Infants Hospital (RI)
• Venture Capital firms included:– Hambrecht & Quist– The Hillman company– Crimson Capital Corporation
• Got that? Good, because it’s all gonna change…
Ever Keen to Acquire…• In 1993, Keane’s set its acquisition
sights further West than Ferranti in Maryland or SDS in Iowa, when they acquired PHS’ superb PatCom HIS and these many prestigious clients.– At that time, PHS was doing ≈$20
million in annual revenue…• Keane next converted PatCom to
UNIX, gaining independence from the DG MV platform, then renamed it “EZ Access” per its far more “open” UFOS data base architecture.
• Today, PatCom is the revenue cycle core of Keane’s “Optimum” product, along with their “iMed” clinicals.
Next Week: Keane’s Final Buys• Amazing this one vendor bought so many systems it’s taken 5
episodes to get this far, but next week the saga ends with their 2 final acquisitions: – Source Data Systems - NCR-based HIS out of Cedar Rapids Iowa– First Coast - AS/400-based system out of Jacksonville, Florida
• Anybody got any info on these two old stalwarts they’d like to share, please call (505/466-4958) or write ([email protected])
• And in case you missed any prior episodes of our HIS-tory series (or are bored to tears studying the Stage 1 versus 2 MU regs some afternoon…), just hop on over to our web site and enjoy any past episode: HISPros.com