A look back to March, 1989 to see what was “new” in HIT with lessons for today:
1989 HIS Prices: A market review by William F. Andrews, an infamous consultant turned salesmen who hated his six-inch thick RFPs. Bill gave typical prices for HIS systems back then:
Turnkey Mini Systems: from vendors like Dynamic Control, Gerber-Alley or HBO, which were priced at about $1 million for software, a half-million dollars for installation, with software maintenance averaging 1 percent of license fees per month.
Inhouse Mainframes: from IBM, Technicon or Mediflex, were priced at $2 to $3 million for software, $1 million-plus for installation, also with maintenance at “1 percent a month with an upward trend.” The trend Bill reported has sure grown in our era: only a handful of vendors are still at 1 percent of license fees per month; most have passed 2 percent and some are at 3 percent. However, just look at the more bug-free code, far better customer support and “no extra charge” we get now.
LIS Review: Wonder about the leading vendors in the Laboratory Information Systems market in 1989, and their final fate?
Advanced Laboratory Systems (ALS) - from Eugene, Ore., a red-hot, PC-based system bought by HBOC in the '90s (along with 20 or more other HIS firms!) and subsumed into one of their numerous LIS offerings today.
Antrim Corporation - the leader in the reference lab market, eventually bought by Cerner.
Cerner Corporation - an upstart little LIS firm from Kansas City whose revenue in 1989 was a paltry $49 million, so small one wondered if they could ever make it. They talked about adding RX, Radiology and some day even order entry …
Compucare - a turnkey mini vendor with a mumps-based LIS as a part of their DG-based HIS, bought by QuadraMed in the '90s. QuadraMed bought an Australian LIS called Détente a few years back, but have since swapped it out for the “QCPR” Lab module (formerly UltiCare).
Datacare - a pioneering IBM mainframe HIS that competed unsuccessfully along with Technicon for high-end (read “bucks”) clinical systems. Defunct along with their arch-rival Nadacom.
HBO & Company - Huff, Barrington and Owens left McAuto to chase their mini-dream, becoming the $2 billion behemoth of McKesson today. Their LIS was part of “Star Clinicals,” a DG-based minicomputer system known as just Star today, still running in hundreds of hospitals.
IDX - originally Interpretive Data Systems or IDS, they dominated MD billing, but never gave up their HIS dreams, acquiring Phamis' LastWord. It was renamed CareCast and acquired by GE, who renamed it Centricity. A rose by any other name …
Lab Force - a LIS specialty firm that concentrated in the high-end market, but didn't quite make it, although we know of one hospital still running it today.
Medical Information Technology - big name for a little Mumps-based firm from Boston, hopelessly under-capitalized and dreaming of building a total HIS. Their LIS was solid, but not very likely they would ever finish the job.
Sunquest - a side job of Dr. Sidney Goldblatt, the pathologist at Connemagh Hospital in Johnston, Pa., who had the sense to base it to much warmer Tucson, Ariz. before selling to Misys.
