The Quantum Group (NYSE Amex: QGP), a healthcare services organization (HSO) that provides business process solutions, service chain management, strategic consulting and leading-edge health information technology, has developed and deployed PWeR™ (www.myPWeR.com) — a patent-pending healthcare technology system designed to bridge the gaps of communication and exchange of patient information throughout the healthcare industry.
Their arrival on the healthcare technology scene couldn’t be timelier. President Obama’s recent economic stimulus package has allocated $19 billion to technologically drive reform of the healthcare industry, specifically to lower the cost of services, improve the quality of patient care and protect consumer choice. Under the new law, doctors and offices that adopt and use electronic medical records (EMRs) will receive incentive payments. Quantum, already aligned with IBM on a number of projects, is part of this movement towards digitized records. Quantum believes the President’s programs will help continue to drive the Company’s growth and that its comprehensive, web-based technology platform, which facilitates communication between physicians, patients, facilities, hospitals and payers, will be the fastest path to reaching profitability in 2010. The Company is already making inroads to that end and recently reported its tenth consecutive quarter of revenue growth.
For the period ended April 30, 2009, Quantum reported an increase in revenue of approximately 220% to $8.3 million, compared to $3.8 million for the same quarter of fiscal year 2008. On a sequential basis compared to first quarter 2009, revenue attributed to its subsidiary, Renaissance Health Systems, increased 13% from $7.4 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2009 to $8.3 in the second quarter of fiscal 2009.
With today’s advances in Web technology, electronic medical records are an idea whose time has come. According to Emdeon Business Services, a health-care management company based in Nashville, Tennessee, it is estimated that $11 billion dollars could be saved if all medical payment transactions were handled electronically rather than by printing and mailing checks. Currently, only 40% of healthcare providers check the status of medical claims online, which suggests that hospitals and doctor’s offices are wasting a lot of staff time and money.
Cost savings are just one advantage of EMRs: Improving communication to facilitate better healthcare is another. Consider this finding from research by the Institute of Medicine (IOM): Each year an estimated 7,000 people die and 1.5 million are injured in the United States due to poor handwriting on prescription slips. One solution that IOM recommends is for the industry to make “greater use of information technology” to help reduce prescription errors. In addition to improving doctor-patient communication, EMRs also have the potential to add to our medical knowledge by allowing patterns to emerge and creating a database of information that can lead to breakthroughs in medicine. Pete Martinez, Quantum’s Senior Vice President and Chief Technology & Innovations Officer, commented in the June 23rd press release:
“Healthcare reform, specifically the push for adoption of electronic medical records, is a top political, social and economic agenda item. We believe the industry-wide adoption of technology is a great opportunity for the services and products offered by Quantum. We are already delivering on President Obama’s vision to have electronic medical records act as a catalyst for cost reduction and promote wellness. In turn, the data gathered by PWeR creates a powerful knowledge base that we believe will significantly enrich the science of healthcare.”
With its innovative healthcare technology system, Quantum is well-positioned to capitalize on the need to reform our nation’s largest industry.