Friday, August 22, 2008

Premise holds promise of savings for hospitals

By Stephen DeSantis

The wedding of technology with the modern health-care system is turning into a marriage made in heaven, as cash-strapped hospitals desperately search for ways to cut costs. That is working out well for health-IT software maker Premise Corp., which has been on a contract spree this year, landing large deals with hospitals like UMass Memorial Health Care and Duke University Health System.

Farmington, Conn.-based Premise helps hospitals maximize patient flow. Its web-based tools can save hospitals time by managing bed usage, tracking patients and applying attributes to each patient to make smarter placement decisions in real time, officials said. For example, the software system can be used to send alerts — often wirelessly — to staff that a bed needs to be cleaned or that it is vacant and can be turned over efficiently. It can even give a heads-up to valet parking.

“These are little victories in minutes and hours, but mean quite a lot. We often make the analogy that our solution platform is much like an air traffic control tower, but for hospitals,” said Eric Rosow, co-founder and CEO.

The firm bootstrapped its way up from a health-care consulting firm in 1993 until 2003, when it received its first capital infusion: a few hundred thousands dollars in friends and family funding.

In June, it raised $2 million in an extension tranche on an earlier Series B financing, through backers Aetna Ventures LLC, Milestone Venture Partners LP, Inflection Point Ventures LP and Connecticut Innovations. Premise, which has a staff of about 60 people, closed the initial $6.3 million of the Series B round back in May 2007.

Hospitals are struggling with patient demand. That can lead to poor patient management, treatment delays and medical mistakes. Wait time is also a big factor. If hospitals are businesses, then patients are valued customers.

“Mass General is both blessed and challenged by a patient demand that exceeds our physical capacity. We are a 907-bed hospital, so one of the most important things for us is to improve throughput,” said George Reardon,  director of patient care service and systems improvement at Massachusetts General Hospital and a Premise customer.

Reardon said during any given day, the hospital is matching up patient bed demand with anticipated discharge times, a situation that changes rapidly.

Premise’s recent wins add to large clients like the Cleveland Clinic and MD Anderson Cancer Center, along with MGH. This year the company signed its first international client, with the 1,600 -bed Singapore General Hospital.

Rosow said he was particularly excited about the success, given that necessity has led to a number of competitors. Larger players such as Cerner Corp., Siemens Medical and McKesson Corp. are looking at the patient flow market too, he said.

“We are definitely seeing activity in the market. It’s a challenge. But it pushes the technology and really validates the need out there,” said Rosow.