Practice Fusion Partners With Salesforce - But Is Cloud Computing Suitable For Healthcare?
One year ago we reviewed a new health app called Practice Fusion, a free, web-based EMR (electronic medical record) system for physicians. This week Practice Fusion announced an investment, amount not disclosed, by salesforce.com. They also announced the upcoming launch of their patient health record (PHR) application on Force.com, salesforce.com's cloud computing platform. With these announcements, now seems an appropriate time for a check-up of Practice Fusion. How is its own health and what are the implications of partnering with salesforce.com?
One year after our initial review, the company is still going strong. The product was being promoted in August 2008 as a 'Google Apps for doctors', providing patient management, scheduling, secure email and more. However, as we pointed out in our article last year, Practice Fusion is not a competitor to Google Health. Practice Fusion is a physician-centered tool, whereas Google Health and the other bigco services are patient-centered.
Practice Fusion currently has "over 18,000 users," which would appear to be a big increase on the 1,300 medical professionals they had one year ago. The product originally launched in November of 2007, so it's nearly two years old now.
Is Cloud Computing Suitable for Healthcare?
A post on the Practice Fusion blog today asks the question: is "cloud computing" right for health IT? We reported earlier this week that cloud computing is infiltrating virtually every corner of technology right now, but it still has dangers. We noted the recent hacking of Google Docs to steal internal Twitter documents, as one recent high profile example (high profile because the stolen documents were subsequently emailed to some news outlets, some of whom published the 'hot' docs).
However despite these risks Practice Fusion claims that the cost benefits of cloud computing in healthcare are significant, particularly in its EMR niche:
"Cost and poor usability have been cited as the biggest obstacles to adoption of health IT - especially Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems - and has resulted in problematically-low EHR adoption rates. Eliminating this cost, and the IT maintenance burdens that are often beyond the reach of small medical practices, clearly removes these significant roadblocks to EHR adoption."
Security and safety is of course the big potentially negative issue with cloud computing. But Practice Fusion points to several use cases where it says that cloud computing has advantages over desktop apps: disaster-recovery, hacks (because "SaaS providers are able to devote resources to solving security issues that many customers cannot afford"), and privacy. All of those points come down to the premise that a cloud computing / SaaS specialist, such as Practice Fusion, has more expertise, more resources, and is generally better able to deliver those safety and security requirements.
That all sounds great in theory, however every case like the Twitter stolen documents one serves to undermine that argument. And there are just too many such cases right now.
Nevertheless, we're sure that over time cloud computing will become ever more secure. It's clear that Practice Fusion is a young company that is growing well. With Salesforce.com on its side too now, the future looks secure for them.
Facebook
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteWeb posts
Salesforce seems to be everywhere nowadays. A thumb in every pie. Now their brand name is in ReadWriteWeb's headlines too.
To me, it suggests a lack of focus. Kind of like a cloud.
I hesitate to add I was underwhelmed with my (albeit brief) personal experience with Salesforce. They talk a good game, but they seem a bit like the cloud itself, nebulous, everywhere, but not particularly solid.
Sounds like a promising new app. http://AppUseful.com
I basically agree with your assessment. The Cloud is too risky right now to overwhelm the cost associated with 24/7 server/system redundancy. However, the Cloud will be the future.
jaluzi:thanks for information
Issues of data security and patient confidentiality are central to the entire family of EHRs, whether they be client-server based legacy systems or newer, cloud-based EHRs like the one offered by Practice Fusion.
As providers in New Orleans discovered to their dismay following Katrina, client-server based EHRs are subject to data loss associated with disasters from hurricanes to floods and fires. In addition, on-site servers can be stolen, damaged or hacked into, as can laptops and thumb drives associated with such systems--which often store data locally, including patient confidential information.
With cloud-based EHRs, all patient data is stored in multiple, distributed, extremely secure off-site locations, which eliminates the above risk. The above situations by the way, are by far the most common form of security breach in health care and other industries.
With Practice Fusion and salesforce.com, physicians are getting access to $100 million worth of infrastructure (and associated security features) for free.
That degree of security and comfort had heretofore been available to only the largest of health care providers ...and at considerable cost, to say the least.
Glenn Laffel MD, PhD; Sr. VP Clinical Affairs; Practice Fusion; Free Web-based EHR.
Way to go Glenn. I get so tired of all the hand wringing everytime a revolutionary solution comes to a much needed application. This whole security conversation is so full of holes anyway. Why don't we all just live in lead houses?
Skip Rodenbush
Founder and CEO
Interactive Multimedia Artists
I have recently launched a web-based primary care medical house calls practice using Practice Fusion as my EHR/ PM, but at the time I had to purchase portal services which provided me the ability to have online forms, bill pay, secure messaging and email consults. As my overhead costs come down I can render more affordable services. Right now I'm the most cost effective practice in NYC.
I have to spend more on advertising than my entire operating budget.
The practice is called Metro Medical Direct.