A Stable Company with a Flexible System
For five years, the lab manager’s diligence in seeking the best LIS brought her through various stops and starts.
There were a few experiences that made her skeptical and cautious. “I trusted someone, thinking they would make things happen for us. Then, their company went bankrupt.” As she renewed her search for a system, her
initial criteria had to include assurance that the vendor would be around after the system was installed.
“Comp Pro Med’s 25-year track record meant a lot to me,” stated the lab manager. When she spoke with her
CEO about the final vendor candidates, she spelled out the pros and cons. “I wasn’t sure at the time on what
side of the balance sheet to place their small size. But for us, their small size has turned out to be a big
asset. Comp Pro Med is a vendor that takes my needs to heart,” she said. “And they have proven
business longevity. I had to know my new vendor would be here to support me down the road.”
But she also found their product, the Polytech Clinical Laboratory Information System, to be easy to use,
flexible and feature rich. She appreciated the fact that she and her staff could perform 95 percent of their
work on a single screen for patient entry, test orders, standing orders and results review.
The lab manager was impressed by the fact that Comp Pro Med’s software engineers had written hundreds of
interfaces for lab analyzers, EMR systems, hospital information systems (HIS) and practice management
systems (PMS), as well as billing and accounting systems – and they had written them entirely in house.
“I liked the fact that, when I call for support, the person who wrote the software is the one who answers
the phone,” she observed.
She was reassured by the fact that Polytech has multiple redundant databases so that her data wouldn’t
be lost, there would be no down time and maintenance of her LIS would be simplified. Data mining and
automatic QC trending, outlier processing and reporting, analysis and flagging per expected values were also important to her. “I like the fact that their background is from the laboratory too,” she said. “Comp Pro
Med was born out of reality. Their CEO, Jeff Fisher was a laboratorian. He saw the need for this and it
grew from there.”
Tangible Evidence
The lab manager had to see a tangible product before committing to any vendor. She was determined to be
cautious and was supported by her CEO to perform optimal due diligence. “I wanted to look back and know I’d
given everything very careful consideration.”
In making her purchase decision, she encountered vendors that would claim they could do something
the way she wanted but were unable to give a tangible example. “They assured me they could do what I
asked but I kept hearing ‘the programmers will take care of that as a part of your set-up’ and that wasn’t
good enough. Because of my learning process during the past five years, I’m not as gullible as I used to
be!” she stated with a laugh. “I want to see it. I want to have my hands on your example before we cut
you a check.”
Comp Pro Med offered tangible evidence and they impressed her with their rapid response. “I shot my
questions off and said ‘this is what I’m after.’ Then Jeff Fisher shot back answers and a trial within two
hours! I was astonished. I realized that if he could do that, then they must truly have a system that was
flexible.”
Toward the EMR
Since the lab manager would be interfacing with an EMR within a few years, a large part of her working criteria
included interfaces for that system. Her LIS had to be adaptable and flexible, as did the company she
bought it from. “I wanted a system that allowed me to go in and change something, a system I could
tweak,” she stated. “When I asked other companies, ‘what if I need something changed?’ the answer I got
was, ‘Well, if it’s a little change, we’ll ask the engineers and we’ll see. Otherwise, you’ll have to pay each
time you ask for a change.’ So basically what we would get from most vendors was a hard, fast product
with no versatility in it. It’s canned. You don’t have any input. You can’t say, ‘You know, what if you did
this ... or how about if you did this?’”
“Comp Pro Med is not that way. Regular, free upgrades are a part of their service agreement and it’s
proven out. They’ve tweaked my system and made upgrades at my request. I’ll come up with something
and they work to figure out how to make it work for us.” Versatility of the reporting was also key. “It wasn’t
everything but I knew I was going to have this two-to-three-year gap before we were plugging it into an
EMR,” she continued. “I had to factor in a migration but also duplicate what we were currently doing to a
certain degree. “You know labs are all different and the flow’s different in each one, and the way this
system is set up, there are so many different ways to do things that it’s going to be practically customized
to our particular lab.” Among the many applications she values is the unlimited user definable rules and
the thousands of configuration items or switches that are automatically available in the system.
She points to one example of how they helped her hook into the previous manual system to it really
works well for our physicians. It actually keeps chart size down as they build an accumulative record over
time. It was just very important to our providers to keep that formatting – and it was very important to me
to satisfy their needs.”
She observed physician response to the single sheet reports sent with patients who had been hospitalized
or treated in other locations. “Our providers didn’t like these. They were just used to this shingle-style,
colored-coded system. With a printed-out accumulative, they would have to change out reports in
the chart. They don’t want to do that because they can miss something and this impacts the quality of
care they’re committed to providing.” Comp Pro Med fulfilled this request and, at the very outset, provided
her with mock-ups of the shingle-style format so that, once again, she would have her tangible evidence
of a promise fulfilled.
The Value of Staying Small
“The willingness on Comp Pro Med’s end has just been fantastic,” she declared, “and their support has
been incredible.” She observes many companies who are focused on a constant new business search.
“Maybe the reason they stay small is this: What they care about more than anything is taking care of the
customers they have.”
As a small company, Comp Pro Med’s size and service ethic became an advantage for the Clinic. “They are
willing to do what you ask them to do. They have a connection with you,” stated the manager. She saw vivid
contrast to this connection when she worked with larger companies. “The frustration of trying to get in touch with
a particular person and get the attention you need was exasperating. “To me it was a matter of our needing to
address an issue sooner rather than later because so many other critical steps were depending on that one step
in the sequence. Well it sometimes took two days to get a response.” She believes the level of service at Comp
Pro Med is what sets them apart. “I would say it’s one of several things that set them apart.” From Comp Pro
Med’s perspective, this collaborative partnership owes a lot to the lab manager. “She is the ideal customer,”
stated Fisher. “I would say she’s in he top five percent of the hundreds of clients we work with throughout the
U.S. She’s an educated, intelligent user and a true partner. We’ve found her to be very resourceful with ideas for
new applications and new ways to solve a problem. We value her insights and we’re particularly pleased that
our work together has solved her problem, improved her operations and answered her needs.” |
