Health

20 HEALTH • Summer 2018 Marlborough company launches health IT arm \\ By Grant Welker W ith two decades of information-technol- ogy experience, the Marlborough com- pany Versatile took a look at the grow- ing IT field in health care and made a confident bet. With its expertise and name recognition in IT, Versatile launched a new health information technology services arm in March, and it doesn't expect a slow start. Versatile officials said they expect to double its healthcare IT business in 18 to 24 months. HEALTH GOING DIGITAL "We cover a unique niche in the market," said David Christianson, Versatile's senior vice president. "We're on an aggressive growth ramp." Versatile had experience with health records and information-tech- nology infrastructure in the health field, but with Versatile Healthcare Solutions, the move is now official, and the company's healthcare portfo- lio has grown by about 60 percent. Versatile launched Versatile Healthcare Solutions with the help of acquisitions in the past year that gave it a chance to formally enter the field working with medical prac- tices and ambulatory care, two areas where Versatile found an unrealized market. Technology has only recently advanced to the point where doctors are able to use it in a way that helps patients, said John Barker, the company's CEO and co-founder. Doctors in the field have also seen the potential. "To say the revolution has occurred is not correct," Dr. Craig Lilly, a critical care physician and pulmonologist who also con- ducts research at the UMass Medical School. "The revolution is just start- ing to occur." Overcoming unique challenges A delay in broader adaption of IT in health is a matter of waiting for doctors and patients to be comfort- able with bringing computers into an exam room, doctors said. Patient con- fidentiality is one factor that slowed use in doctors' offices compared to, say, Airbnb or Uber, where people can go online to rent a place to stay or a driver to get around. A survey last year by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology found that 10 percent of patients still withhold giving some information to health care providers because of privacy or security con- cerns. Likewise, 74 percent said they were confident that safeguards are in place to protect their medical records from unauthorized viewing. "It's an exciting time for IT because health care is just starting to catch up with the rest of the world," Lilly said. It was only last fall, for example, that UMass Memorial Health Care John Barker: Technology has advanced to where it can now help treat patients D R E A M S T I M E . C O M

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