Meditech

Medical Information Technology, Inc.

Type	Private company
Industry	Health informatics
Founded	1969
Headquarters	Westwood, Massachusetts
Key people	Neil Pappalardo, Chairman Larry Polimeno, Vice-Chairman Howard Messing, President and CEO[1]
Products	Software
Revenue	$476 million (2015)[2]
Website	www.meditech.com

Medical Information Technology, Incorporated (Meditech), is a Massachusetts-based software and service company selling information systems for health care organizations. The privately-held company was founded around 1969 by A. Neil Pappalardo.^[3]

History

In 1969, Antonio Neil Pappalardo began development of the programming language MIIS. This was one of several proprietary implementations of MUMPS, a programming language which at the time had not been standardized. MIIS users and developers later influenced efforts toward MUMPS standardization during the early 1970s; the MUMPS standard was complete by 1974 and approved by 1977. Between 1971 and 1979, Pappalardo developed various other systems, but those associated with integrated health care information remained his primary focus.^[4]

In 1982, Meditech adopted the then-new MAGIC programming language for its health care information systems. In 1994, the company adopted client/server, a second software platform. While client/server utilized the same programming language, MAGIC runs all code on a central server, and clients are in effect dumb terminals. Client/server executes the code on a user's PC, although all code remained centralized. Client-server supports only Microsoft Windows-based operating systems. Meditech announced its version 6.0 in 2006.^[5] In 2003, Howard Messing was named president, and in 2010 also became chief executive officer.^[1] After peaking in 2012 at almost $580 million, revenues fell to about $476 million by 2015.^[2]

Markets

With over 2,200 customers,^[6] Meditech expanded from the United States and Canada into the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, and several other communities, including the Spanish-speaking world.^[7]

Meditech supplies Sheehan Medical in Ireland in their two hospitals, the Galway Clinic and Blackrock Clinic. For the Cork Medical Centre as third clinic was made a deal^[8] to supply, but that clinic did not go completely into operation and closed. HMC in Lucan, Ireland (west of Dublin) and Beacon Hospital in South Dublin also had Meditech magic and C/S ITS since 2006.

Products and services

Meditech offers software for health care organizations of various types and sizes. Some of the software modules include: health information management, revenue cycle, scanning and archiving, scheduling and referral management, emergency department management, cost accounting, data repository, general accounting, human resource planning, supply chain management, operating room management, patient discharge instructions, long term care, behavioral health, and home health.

Some other developments include:

• Working with partners and other companies to provide new technology in the areas of business continuance, identity management, and RFID
• Incorporating evidence-based medicine into practice through integration with Zynx Health, Inc.
• The development of an oncology product to manage the needs of oncology departments
• Expanding medication management capabilities to include e-prescribing and medication reconciliation from DrFirst, Inc.
• Offering standard interoperability suites to help customers transition to electronic health record standards

Partnerships

Meditech has one wholly owned subsidiary, LSS Data Systems, acquired in Spring 2011. At that time, Joanne Wood, Meditech took on the additional titles of president and chief operating officer (COO) of LSS Data Systems, overseeing all operations of the company. Meditech South Africa, founded in 1982, provides software and services to the health care industry in Africa and the Middle East. Other companies such as BridgeHead Software produce software designed to be used with Meditech software. On June 6, 2012, Meditech announced its partnership with Intelligent Medical Objects to provide mapping of clinician-friendly diagnosis and procedure terminologies to billing codes and medical concepts.^[9]

Locations

Meditech owns eight facilities in eastern Massachusetts located in Westwood (two offices, three buildings), Norwood, Canton, Framingham, Fall River, Foxboro and Waltham, in the former Adobe office building. Meditech also has a facility in Atlanta, Georgia that was formerly Patient Care Technologies (PtCT).^[10] It is chiefly responsible for the company's Home Care line of clinical and billing software.^[11] Meditech also owns a building in Minnetonka, Minnesota.

References