Medsphere Systems Marks 10 Years of Better Patient Care Through Affordable Healthcare Technology

A decade after company founding, interest in OpenVista EHR remains strong; open source solution rapidly delivers federal Meaningful Use funds to expanding customer base

Carlsbad, Calif.—Medsphere Systems Corporation, the leading provider of open source electronic health record (EHR) solutions and services, this year marks 10 years in health information technology with clear indicators of growth and success. The company currently provides implementation, training, development and support services for hospitals, as well as full life-cycle development and help-desk support for many EHR applications used by over 300 Indian Health Service (IHS) hospitals and health stations.

Medsphere’s OpenVista® electronic health record (EHR) has thus far enabled over 70 percent of the company’s eligible customer base to achieve Stage One Meaningful Use, with the rest expected to qualify for federal reimbursement within the fiscal year. According to analysis by Wells Fargo Securities, no proprietary vendor has qualified more than 45 percent of their customer base for Meaningful Use funds.

Medsphere’s record of enabling customer hospitals to achieve Meaningful Use is enhanced by the affordability of the company’s OpenVista platform and services; fully 100 percent of customers achieving Meaningful Use have received federal funds sufficient to cover the initial five-year costs for OpenVista.

“Looking at Medsphere’s progress at the 10-year mark, we are pleased with our growth trajectory and really excited about the opportunities we see in the next few years,” said Medsphere President and CEO Irv Lichtenwald. “Our revenue grew by 32 percent over the past year and we are projecting more than 30 percent growth again over the next twelve months. Overall, the focus on reducing healthcare costs and achieving true interoperability, while improving patient care, positions Medsphere extremely well as healthcare IT matures.”

Evaluating key milestones in company evolution, Lichtenwald specifically mentioned Midland Memorial Hospital’s 2009 recognition as one of the first nine HIMSS Analytics Stage 6 hospitals. The flexibility and adoptability of OpenVista with regard to Stage 6 also served Midland Memorial well when it came time for Meaningful Use certification.

“Midland Memorial takes great pride in being an early adopter of EMR technology. Our physicians and staff have evolved from using paper-based patient care processes to collaborating in the development of OpenVista features that make it even better for patient safety, coordination of care and compliance,” explained Steve Bowerman, chief financial officer at Midland Memorial Hospital. “Without their embrace of OpenVista, the HIMSS Analytics evaluation and Meaningful Use qualification would not have occurred.

“Our team’s enthusiasm is matched by that of our partner, Medsphere. For Meaningful Use Stages 2 and 3, we’ve already begun collaborating on platform enhancements that will enable federal funds and further improve our efficiency and patient safety. We feel like this is our system and Medsphere is helping us make it better.”

Beyond the life of the Meaningful Use program, the flexibility and affordability of the OpenVista EHR enables hospitals to develop uniquely customized workflow and EHR development projects. OpenVista dramatically reduces hospital expenditures related to proprietary vendor enhancements, freeing up funds for clinical improvements.

“Since we implemented OpenVista, we have control over the changes we make to our EHR and when they are made,” said Steve Art, CIO and SVP at Brooklyn’s Lutheran Medical Center. “I can work collaboratively with Medsphere in a development project, or I can make improvements myself in house. With the traditional vendor IT model, I’d have to file a request, wait for approval, pay a lot and hope that it worked. That out-of-date process simply didn’t work for us.”

In addition to being affordable and flexible, OpenVista can also be rapidly implemented and is highly adoptable. Medsphere’s typical implementation runs from 9 to 12 months, and the company has installed the Computerized Provider Order Entry (CPOE) module in as few as 4 months to rapidly provide customers with patient safety benefits.

Medsphere continues to develop OpenVista, derived from the proven VistA EHR system developed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, for non-federal hospitals. In addition to creating a crucial interface suite for communication with third-party solutions and a Multi-disciplinary Treatment Plan module for behavioral health hospitals, Medsphere has worked with customers to develop Clinical Flowsheet, Surgery Scheduling and Emergency Department Tracking Board applications, as well as a new graphical interface for the Pharmacy application. The company is also a leader in open source development of VistA through the federal government’s Open Source Electronic Health Record Agent (OSEHRA) project.

About Medsphere and OpenVista

Founded in 2002 and based in Carlsbad, Calif., Medsphere Systems Corporation is an award-winning organization of clinical and technology professionals working to make quality health IT solutions accessible to organizations of virtually any size, shape or budget. Medsphere’s OpenVista® is a portfolio of clinical support products and professional services that leverages an electronic health record (EHR) system developed by the Department of Veterans Affairs. This VistA EHR is widely credited with helping transform the VA into the nation's most efficient and clinically effective healthcare organization. OpenVista, the most fully commercialized VistA offspring, is a responsible reapplication of the VA’s $8.5 billion investment, which recent studies show have yielded $3.09 billion in benefits, primarily from the near elimination of medication administration issues and duplicate testing.  

Medsphere’s subscription-based pricing model enables hospital, clinic and integrated delivery network customers to pay for OpenVista from their operating budget with no upfront costs or back-end balloon payments. Expert implementation and other services facilitate fluid and rapid transition to a paperless clinical environment focusing on best practices and evidence-based medicine in six to nine months. Medsphere also actively nurtures the Healthcare Open Source Ecosystem, a global community of customers, partners, developers and other online collaborators who drive OpenVista innovation, and provide a parallel development and support structure.