So what is Extormity, and where are you based? I don't believe I saw your booth on the HIMSS10 show floor.
What is Extormity? This healthcare IT mega-corporation was started as a limited liability parody – a good natured attempt to shed satirical light on the underlying reasons for the ridiculously low adoption of electronic health records, personal health records, e-prescribing systems and other HCIT solutions. The overwhelming response from tens of thousands of visitors to Extormity.com and sister site SEEDIE.org, the thousands signed up for email alerts, and the hundreds of fan comments have made it clear this exercise in fun resides amazingly close to the truth.
Our corporate headquarters is in Aspen, and can be described in three words: glass, wood and arrogance. We maintain a lean headquarters staff who can appreciate cultivated opulence, and we embrace virtual operations – with luxury outposts in Switzerland, the Caymans, Sardinia, Bahrain and Hong Kong. This enables our executives to work with clear heads, tan bodies, and easy access to abundant recreational opportunities. Our operating units, by contrast, are dispersed in hovel-like facilities around the globe where our developers and implementation staff daydream about one day working for a Chinese circuit board manufacturer.
As for HIMSS10, we were there but adhered to our “exhibits are for chumps” philosophy. We spent lavishly, sparing no expense to ensure that our clients and prospects realized the value of partnering with a powerful healthcare IT vendor. While we are reluctant to share the details of this successful relationship management strategy, suffice it to say the private hangars of Atlanta airports were busy servicing our jets, local spirit distributors had to replenish their depleted champagne inventories, and there were no luxury penthouse suites sitting empty while the little people attended an educational track focused on the trivial details of meaningful use.
You advertise your product with the pithy tagline "expensive, exasperating, exhausting." Describe some of the selling points of the Extormity EHR Software Suite.
You demean our corporate positioning statement when you describe it as a pithy tagline, and fail to recognize that we invested seven figures with a management consulting firm to identify and memorialize these Extormity Operating Pillars – an investment we pass along to our clients. These pillars are more than mere selling points, and they guide our corporate strategy.
Talk a little about your customer base: any notable implementations, lately?
Our clients generally prefer to keep a low profile, partly out of shame, and partly out of a desire to avoid regulatory scrutiny. Rest assured, there is an Extormity installation near you. New implementations are plentiful, and are fed by a never ending stream of “flavor of the week” innovations that permeate the healthcare landscape. Our current favorite is the so-called Accountable Care Organization. Thanks to a few peer-reviewed journal articles, a talk or two at HIMSS, and some government funded pilot projects, every health system is scrambling to become an ACO, whatever that means. We know that for Extormity, it means business, as we are promoting our expensive healthcare IT solution as the vehicle for ACO success. Now that we have convinced several large clients to cut P.O.’s, we intend to figure out what an ACO is and have some offshore programmers develop a module for our software suite.
Customer satisfaction is generally high, I presume? Any complaints?
We focus not on customer satisfaction, but retention. Without revealing the details of our strategy, the approach is straightforward: after spending ridiculous sums on our software and support, and realizing few if any benefits, no hospital CIO would dare complain or admit to making a multi-million dollar mistake. We soften the lack of value with over-the-top entertainment, travel to resort locations to attend customer advisory council meetings, and plenty of golf. In our experience, customers are reluctant to bite the well-manicured hand that feeds them.
"If we are to retain trust and make the most of the potential of data then handling it ethically needs to become normal practice, just like medical ethics."
Peter Wells, ODI
You're competitively priced, I hear.
You heard wrong. Extormity is expensive. Pay through the nose expensive. We make no apologies for our pricing, and ensure that the only sorry party is on the receiving end of our products, services and invoices.
Mike Miliard is executive editor of Healthcare IT News
Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS publication.
