The home healthcare market is just one of the heads of the bureaucratic healthcare monster that all Americans are familiar with, and entrepreneurs like Ken Pereira, president and founder of HealthCare Automation, Inc. in Providence, are playing a key role in bringing it to heel through software solutions.
Founded in 1988, HAI has grown from two employees to 55, and will post earnings of $5.5 million for 1995. In 1994, HAI was recognized by INC. magazine as one of America's 500 fastest-growing private companies for its trailblazing work in providing automation for the home infusion and home nursing services industry.
Pereira has forged ahead in a field that has only five such companies in the entire country through the unique combination of state-of-the-art software technology and in-depth experience in the home infusion therapy business. The end product of this melding of expertise is HAI's groundbreaking product, the IV Solution. He employs a dedicated development staff that includes specialists in software development, pharmacology, home infusion reimbursements issues, and several registered nurses.
Home infusion involves the intravenous delivery of drugs in the home. An infusion therapy that might cost $1,000 a day in a hospital can be administered for $400 a day at home. Several major industry trends Ñ the call for universal healthcare, increased competition, mounting pressure to contain costs while maintaining current standards of care, the increased use of technology to manage healthcare companies, and the need to improve efficiency and track outcomes Ñ are combining to propel worldwide demand for products such as IV Solution, which is the most widely used software package in the home infusion market.
"As the healthcare industry assumes a greater role in reducing and controlling escalating medical costs, home healthcare providers are seeking sophisticated information processing systems that provide them with strategic competitive advances," said Pereira.
More than ever, infusion therapy providers will be able to track the success or failure rates associated with therapies, making it possible to consider which therapies should be used for home administration, and which should not.
Pereira notes that insurance companies are increasingly demanding more information to justify the cost and effectiveness of home healthcare practices. Automation through software, he maintains, is the only effective way such outcomes data can be collected, managed, and analyzed for effective use by both providers and payers.
From its inception, HAI has enjoyed growth of 75 percent a year, and now has 130 customers, including healthcare chains such as Caremark in Chicago, Hoffman La-Rouche in New Jersey, and Deaconess Hospital in Boston. some of his customers are visiting nurses services. HAI's clientele includes customers in 37 states, and is the only homecare software company with international operations Ñ in such places as Germany, Holland, the United Kingdom, Canada, and France.
HAI's cutting edge success is based on meeting the critical needs of the healthcare industry, which requires keeping costs down while maintaining quality. Pereira provides a service that allows for quality patient care, higher patient satisfaction, lower cost, less liability by the healthcare providers, and the freeing up of more hospital beds.
HAI has made its name by offering solutions needed to manage and administer the components of the growing home healthcare market. Widely regarded as one of the key ingredients in reducing the national's healthcare costs, which are approaching 14 percent of Gross National Product, or $1 trillion, home health care is the fastest-growing segment of the healthcare market.
According to industry analysts, home healthcare now represents more than $20 billion annually. This market is expected to grow from 2 percent of total healthcare costs to 10 percent in the next six years, and HAI is well positioned to continue its leading role in filling this chronic need.
The key to HAI's effectiveness in the healthcare e field lies in the "one-stop shopping" approach Pereira employs, combining infusion therapy, nursing care, and durable medical equipment. Previously these services were segmented, but managed care organizations are now looking for a complete package when they award contracts. IV Solution personifies this comprehensive approach: the package tracks receivables, prices invoices, tracks durable medical equipment, provides summary reports of cash flow, costs and revenue sources, as well as to print labels.
The HAI system operates from a single, unified database, meaning that information entered into it is available to all the different components of the IV Solution Ñ reimbursement, services delivery, purchasing, and outcome analysis. This not only provides for streamlined management and entry of patient, pharmacological, inventory, and billing information, it also enables customers to do complex analysis of their business in a way the previously was inconceivable.
Pereira noted that HAI gives companies an edge in competing in the health care market and operating more efficiently.
"Most of our customers are able to increase their business with existing resources and thus achieve greater success. We intend to maintain our focus on providing world-class software solutions to the home infusion market and expanding our solutions to encompass other segments of the home healthcare market," he says.
Pereira notes that in the future, HAI will continue to expand its growth in the homecare market, as well as to move into related outpatient markets, and to continue to utilize client-server tools critical to maintaining its strong technological advantage it has always enjoyed in the field.
"Home healthcare providers are looking for companies that can solve as many of their problems as possible. We intend to be that company," said Pereira.