This is the transcript of my HIMSS interview with Glen Tullman, the CEO of Allscripts. it includes some comments from Jim Morrow, an MD from Georgia who is HIMSS doc of the year too. The original audio podcast is here.
Matthew Holt: …It’s Matthew Holt with The Health Care Blog. It’s another of my HIMMS podcasts, and this one’s really exciting. I have not only Glen Tullman, who is the CEO of Allscripts, which is one of the dominant players in the EMR market for ambulatory care, and moving to other areas, but I also have Jim Morrow who is a doc from…Where in Georgia, Jim?
Jim Morrow: From Cumming Georgia, North Fulton Family Medicine.
Matthew: Ah. From a medium‑sized practice, a family medicine practice in Georgia. He is an Allscripts user. Jim isn’t going to be prepared for this, but we brought him here anyway. Anyway. Good morning, Glen.
Glen Tullman: Good morning. It’s good to be here.
Matthew: We do this thing‑‑as my listeners are now familiar with‑‑with the mike, so it will fade in and out because it’s not very professional. [laughs]. Anyway, first off Glen, you’ve been CEO of Allscripts since what? 1997, 1998, something like that?
Glen: I’ve been with Allscripts for nine years now.
Matthew: Right, so ’98. And you had the joy of being the head of a public company, which went from a stock price of what, seventy‑eight or seventy‑nine in 2000, to two, or three, or something in 2002? And yet, you’re still there. I can’t think of any other health care CEO who’s gone through that experience. Luckily the stock has been at more than two these days. So how did it feel in those dark days…
Glen: Well, we’ve been…I’m fortunate, this is the third public company that I’ve run, two in health care, one in the property and casualty insurance business. We were the beneficiaries of the Internet "craze", if you will and the stock price ran up. I continued to tell our people that we hadn’t accomplished our mission, but the market put a high valuation on us and the stock ran up to $89. Then it actually came down.Our investors were fortunate that someone called us "the last man standing." It came down slower than most Internet stocks that collapsed; because we had a real business and a real vision. And I think, today we’ve continued over the years to execute on the vision, to build the infrastructure that you see working today. The stock market seems to be rewarding us for it.
Matthew: Well, you guys made what, nine million bucks last year in profit? What are you scheduled for this year?
Glen: Well, I’d like to talk about what we’re accomplishing. I think the accomplishment is that the product is working for physicians. We have over 30, 000 physicians today, over 400 hospitals. When you do things right, when you deliver for your customers, the end result is profitability. So we’re seeing a nice growth in our profitability. The analysts have put a number of different numbers on what we’ll look like next year.I think another key point I’d make is: We are actually reinvesting in software development, and other processes, more money than anyone else in the ambulatory sector. So we’re able to provide a great return on products that are well priced. And also invest in the market. Things like the NEPSI initiative, which is a 30 million dollar investment for us over five years.
Matthew: Let’s move on to NEPSI.
Continue reading…