Shouting through our face masks at HIMSS, I had dozens of fun conversations with old and new friends today. This question came up every time, so for the sake of my own rehearsal here’s the answer:
Over the last two decades, IMO quietly achieved two things:
- They made EHRs more physician-friendly
- They improved clinical data quality at the same time
I joined IMO with the hope of helping the company expand its influence in those two noble areas.
Precision healthcare starts with a precise understanding of the patient’s problems, and that data journey starts with the problem list in today’s EHRs. Said otherwise, healthcare’s understanding of a patient’s condition is no better than the clinical quality and precision of the data that’s captured in the problem list. Problem list data alone is not enough, but that’s where healthcare precision, including billing, begins or ends. Labs, meds, imaging, procedures, clinical outcomes, clinical trials recruitment – all of those data streams originate from the problem list.
IMO has several great products, but from day one has been passionately loyal to the problem list space. From there IMO can climb higher, choosing from several different routes. It is installed in 4,500 hospitals and clinics in 17 different countries. It is used every day by over 500,000 physicians, quietly making the problem list more clinically friendly, relevant, and patient-precise. And get ready for it… at 25+ years old, IMO has been profitable from nearly day one.
IMO is in a very unique, under the radar position to play a bigger role in the data quality problems we have in US healthcare while also improving the physician EHR experience. I joined to help realize that potential. Time will tell if I do or don’t.
