In an industry populated with some sizable vendors – and one seeing considerable consolidation – Medical Informatics Engineering (MIE) has carved out a niche for itself as a strong regional player in health IT, with a robust presence in Northeast Indiana.
Now its new CEO, Bruce Lisanti, whose appointment was announced on Monday, is ready to take the company to the next level.
"MIE has already demonstrated an impressive ability to promote the broad adoption of this technology on a regional scale," says Lisanti. "The MIE Health Information Exchange is currently utilized by over 90 percent of the physicians in Northeast Indiana with 55 percent of these doctors using our WebChart EHR system. Our goal is to take this model nationally, positioning MIE as a leader in healthcare IT."
Lisanti, who previously worked as an executive with companies such as GE and Electronic Data Systems, aims to bring his experience with marketing, channel development, M&A and strategic planning to MIE – which was founded in 1995 and specializes in Web-based EHRs that offer a "painless way to transition to EHR and personal health records," says Lisanti, giving "smaller and mid-sized clinics an inexpensive, quick path to meet meaningful use."
One of the keys to such widespread use in Indiana is that adoption of MIE products is "driven by the users rather than by the big hospitals," Lisanti tells Healthcare IT News. "MIE has been very successful cultivating the physicians here over the years and getting them to use the information exchange on a regional basis and also their EHR systems. If they want to participate, the physicians ante up a small amount and they're on the network."
Now, with meaningful use criteria finalized, MIE sees "unprecedented opportunity for growth and expansion," says Lisanti. "As one of the only fully integrated, web-based EHR systems available today, MIE has an enormous opportunity to become a leader in this space."
Of course, "there is a lot of competition," Lisanti admits. "This is a tight space. One of the things I think will happen is there will certainly be some consolidation, and we expect to be in that mix. I've done a lot of M&A work over the years, and one of the things I'll be focused on is helping evolve the company so their technology is recognized for its strengths."
One of the advantages the company seeks to leverage is "a really good business in enterprise health," says Lisanti. "We work with Fortune 500 guys to help them build their in-house clinics and communicate with their patient base. Google is a great client. Their employee records are run on MIE software – we're the underpinning of their system, and they use our sotware to communicate out to the personal health records of their employees."
That work on the enterprise side "is a significant business for us that's growing pretty rapidly," says Lisanti.
Lisanti takes the reigns as CEO effective immediately, with MIE's founder, Doug Horner, remaining with the company as chief technology officer and chairman of the board.
"I could not be more pleased that Bruce has joined our team as CEO and I look forward to concentrating on further product innovation," said Horner in a statement. "For the past 15 years, I have been stretched between the development of our technology and building the company. Bruce is the ideal person to drive the company for growth."
