On Jan. 9, the Atlanta-based Surgical Information Systems (SIS) announced the promotion of Kermit Randa, who had been senior vice president for sales and marketing, to the post of chief operating officer. The company, which specializes in software solutions in the perioperative arena, has enjoyed strong growth and increased interest on the part of leaders in patient care organizations, partly based on the need to meet meaningful use- and healthcare reform-related goals.
Randa spoke with HCI on the occasion of his promotion, offering some perspectives on the ongoing evolution of the perioperative/operating room information systems market. “The OR is such a driver of revenue and expense; and we are having more conversations than ever,” he said. “Just yesterday, I was meeting with a multi-billion-dollar health system, and we were talking all about driving costs out of the OR.”
Kermit Randa
What’s more, Randa said, some areas, particularly the anesthesia IS market, have been evolving forward rapidly. “When I came here five years ago, anesthesia information systems had really just begun to take off, and meaningful use hadn’t happened yet. But now that we’re fully into the subject of ACOs [accountable care organizations] and healthcare reform and value-based purchasing, as well as implementing MU elements, it’s a very exciting time for us,” particularly because of the rapidly growing demand for systems that offer analytics capabilities for OR and anesthesia management.
Most importantly, Randa said, the imperatives around cost-effectiveness will only inevitably continue to spur forward interest in perioperative information systems. “When you combine the market demand right now to have better control of your expenses and to figure out where you can get more margin so that you can fund all these other projects, what’s happening is that executives are really thinking about how they can dramatically change their cost profiles so that they can move forward. And the OR sometimes isn’t a ‘sexy’ place, but the bread-and-butter issues are in the operating room.”
