Westborough Firm Strikes Gold With Electronic Records
eClinicalWorks predicts 25 percent revenue in next 12 months
By Taryn Plumb
But that, notes Girish Kumar Navani, is exactly why the Westborough-based medical records software company eClinicalWorks is so successful: It's the result of consistent, conservative day-to-day execution, rather than harried, sporadic bursts of inspiration.
"The company focuses on longevity, being around for 10 years, instead of focusing on hitting home runs - even though it's been hitting home runs for the last eight years," said Navani, eClinicalWorks CEO.
Indeed, since its inception in 1999, eClinicalWorks has experienced 32 profitable quarters and has accumulated 3,000 customers with its medical records software, which assists outpatient doctors offices of all sizes with scheduling, billing, prescription writing and patient record keeping.
Similarly, revenue has grown by roughly 600 percent in the past three years, from $6,495,422 in 2004 to $38,214,865 last year. It's that growth that placed the company at No. 2 on the WBJ's Top Growth list of private companies. The company's number of employees has also nearly tripled, from 200 in 2005 to 550 this year.
Facing Competition
With those strides, the software development company recently sealed a $20 million contract to introduce its medical records program into indigent hospitals run by the New York City Health and Hospital Corp. It will also soon embark on a pilot program with Blue Cross Blue Shield to automate 200 physician practices in Newburyport, North Adams and Brockton.
Marc R. Holland, research director with Health Industry Insights, a health care market research firm owned by IDC in Framingham, said eClinicalWorks' success ultimately comes down to the product. It's "rich in function, and facile in use," as well as competitively priced, he said.
He called the medical records software market "crowded," and said it will continue to grow at a rate of roughly 7 percent a year for the next several years.
Despite that competitive arena, though, eClinicalWorks has been able to establish itself in a relatively short period of time among large companies such as GE and ExGen.
Product aside, Navani says that success results from retaining a private status and small-company feel.
By staying private, the company has kept its autonomy and flexibility without the hassle of the "quarterly numbers games," Navani said. "We focus on long-term - the next 10 years rather than the next 10 weeks."
Similarly, eClinicalWorks thinks with a small-company brain. Frugality is the biggest component to that: managers don't spend money on things that won't make a difference - including luxuries such as first class tickets - even though they can afford them.
"Things you wouldn't do when you were a 10-person company, you shouldn't do when you're a $60 million company," said Navani. "You have to keep the company innovative, entrepreneurial, in spite of it being larger than what it was."
And what it was in 1999 was rather simple: eClinicalWorks had five core leaders - what Navani called the "five fingers of a palm" - and no investor assistance. From the beginning, Navani said, they focused diligently on the customer. The company tailored its software to customers' needs and wants.
To keep with that practice today, they regularly hold roundtables and send out hundreds of surveys.
They also continually streamline the product. Recently, they integrated a patient portal that enables people to update their own records at the doctor's office or from home. In coming years, Navani would like to incorporate components that help manage disease and chronic care, too.
The future is "quality of care, not just documentation of visits."
In coming years, eClinicalWorks is poised for continued growth: Navani expects roughly 15 percent more employees and 25 percent more revenue in just the next 12 months.
To prepare, the company recently added more than 100 people to its support and service departments and extended its support hotline to 24 hours a day. It also opened an office in New York City.
"It's not common for software companies to grow at this exponential rate," said Navani. "We continue to get better everyday."
Taryn Plumb is a freelance writer based in Worcester.
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