Friday, October 7, 2011

Exclusive: Capsule names new president, plans more hires, space

By Lori Valigra, Mass High Tech correspondent

Capsule Tech Inc., a medical device connectivity system maker, has appointed a new president amid a growth spurt that will have it increasing employee count by 20 percent this year and more than doubling its office space in Andover.

Stuart Long was appointed president, North America, replacing John Douglass, who left at the end of the July. Long previously headed North American sales at the company, and moved into the new slot about 60 days ago. He has 20 years of experience in the clinical and business aspects of healthcare and information technology, having held positions at Philips Healthcare, Agfa and Fuji Medical. The company has yet to formally announce his appointment.

Long told Mass High Tech that Capsule is in the midst of a business boom, sparked by government high tech initiatives in medical areas such as patient charting and the advent of medical system standards. He said the company will increase its head count by more than 20 percent this year to 60 employees, and then another 50 percent in 2012 to 90 workers. The overall company employee number, adding the North American and Paris headquarters operations, is 120, with most R&D done in Paris and the U.S. running service, sales, marketing and product management.

“We just closed on more space here in Andover that will double our size,” he said. The company is expanding its current 5,000 square feet to 11,000 square feet, which it will move into in November. “We’re having record growth.”

The company – which sells a mobile portable computer and other hardware, software and a networking system to bring together data from devices such as heart rate pumps so it can be entered electronically into a patient chart or documentation system – has grown from 450 customers when Long joined the Capsule two-and-a-half years ago to 800 customers now. The system also includes security features.

The trend in healthcare has been from one or a couple black boxes in an intensive care unit or hospital to being able to collect data from each bed in the hospital from upwards of 15 devices per bed.

The system also results in fewer errors and quicker data entry into a chart, Long said. “There’s a strong need for the automation of data from manual to automatic formats,” he said. “Upwards of 30 percent of errors are from manual data entry from just walking from a patient’s room down the hall. These systems offer a tremendous gain in nursing efficiency, which means more time for the patient.” The systems cost from $100,000 to several million, depending on the size of the hospital.

The business spurt has allowed the company to fund itself on top of the private investment from its board members in Paris. “We want to be self-funding here by 2015,” Long said.