Free Healthcare IT Newsletter Want to receive the latest news on EMR, Meaningful Use, ARRA and Healthcare IT sent straight to your email? Get all the latest Health IT updates from Neil Versel for FREE!

CEO, COO leaving is ‘exciting’ for MModal?

Did you catch the news this week about the shakeup in the executive suite of transcription and clinical documentation service provider MModal?

The Franklin, Tenn.-based company, formerly known as MedQuist, announced Tuesday that CEO Vern Davenport has “chosen to leave the company,” as has COO Amy Amick. In their place, MModal named Duncan W. James, formerly of QuadraMed, as the new CEO and promoted CFO Ron Scarboro to COO. Finance VP David Woodworth takes over as acting CFO. In addition, MModal brought in Graham O. King, ex-head of both Shared Medical Systems — now part of Siemens — and  HBO & Co. — cleaning up a scandal at the latter company prior to its 1999 takeover by McKesson — to fill the newly established position of chairman of the board.

In a statement, Greg Belinfanti of MModal owner One Equity Partners said, “This is a very exciting, positive period for MModal as it continues to grow and increase its presence in the healthcare industry’s important clinical documentation segment.” Say what? You just lost two of your top three executives for reasons you aren’t disclosing and it’s an “exciting, positive period” for the company?

The only thing I can guess is that Davenport and Amick might be working on a new venture together. The two were both executives at Misys Healthcare Systems — Davenport as CEO — in 2008 when that vendor merged with Allscripts. For what it’s worth, at least two other top Misys people, namely Paul Edge and Michael Raymer, remain at MModal, as far as I can tell from their LinkedIn profiles and from MModal’s current list of executives. Stay tuned.

June 7, 2013 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.

Hey Salu, where are you?

In rifling through my paper files (hey, I’m a journalist, not a doctor, and I don’t type quickly enough to take my notes on the computer), I came across a company called Salu, a physician specialty hub from early this decade. The company, at one point headed by Jim Steeb, hosted sites called Dermdex for dermatologists and plastic surgeons, and NeuroHub for neurologists.

I have a report that said in January 2002, the company built research panels from among the various sites’ membership to study physician attitudes. My undated notes from a phone interview with Steeb said that Salu also offered secure online messaging, Web sites for practices within each hub’s specialty and a prescription writer that worked on either PocketPC (now Windows Mobile) or Palm platforms. (It was not true e-prescribing because back in the pre-RxHub and SureScripts era, it didn’t transmit information to pharmacies.

Also, from what I could gather from searching the Internet, Salu had partnerships with Healthwise, Payerpath (now part of Misys Healthcare Systems) and a few others.

But what ever happened to Salu and its brands? If the company went out of business, did someone else take over the sites? I found no sign that either Dermdex or NeuroHub was still active. Help, please!

May 18, 2007 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.