MedCPU product captures a full clinical picture of a patient

January 30, 2012
By Joan Tupponce

Eyal Ephrat and Sonia Ben-Yehuda saw an opportunity to develop a technology that reads and analyzes notes written by physicians in electronic medical records.

As a result, they founded MedCPU Inc. in 2008 to sell the computerized clinical decision-making tool to hospitals.

"They recognized that over half of the data, which is often the most meaningful, is unstructured data (narrative notes) from clinicians about the patient, and they wanted to capture that unstructured data," said Dan Neuwirth, president and CEO of MedCPU Americas, the company's U.S. operating unit that is based in Henrico County.

The company's MedCPU Advisor is a user interface visible on top of electronic medical records in hospitals.

The Advisor reads structured electronic medical record entries and unstructured notes. It compares the information against knowledge-based protocols and guidelines to advise physicians of any deviations from clinical best practices.

"We can capture a full clinical picture of the patient," Neuwirth said. "If you only use the structured fields, you can't do that."

The tool ensures the highest level of clinical care.

"It also streamlines the workflow of a clinician," Neuwirth said.

"From a technology perspective, they have a real innovation," said Michael Pirron, CEO and founder of Impact Makers, a Richmond-based information technology and management consulting company focused on health care.

"They can pull data from free text in electronic medical records and use the data to improve clinical outcomes. That is exciting to see," Pirron said.

MedCPU's founders started the company in New York but moved the corporate offices to Henrico last year when Neuwirth joined the firm.

This year, MedCPU will move its offices to the Turning Basin building in downtown Richmond, where several biotech companies are located.

"We want to be part of that community," Neuwirth said.

Before joining MedCPU, Neuwirth had worked for GE Healthcare's Performance Solutions business after its 2008 acquisition of Henrico-based Agility Healthcare Solutions, which he co-founded and served as its chief operating officer. Before that, he had worked for pharmaceutical distribution and health care technology firm McKesson.

MedCPU targets hospitals and hospital systems across the country as well as a larger delivery network that includes hospitals and ambulatory locations. The company has clients nationwide but none currently in Virginia.

"There is a lot of energy here already," Neuwirth said. "Our clients tend to be leading academic medical institutions and larger hospital systems, partly because they are further evolved in (electronic medical records) implementations."

Revenue increased 800 percent from 2010 to 2011. The company hopes to increase sales as health care providers begin to comply with the "meaningful use" of the health care technology section of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

"Our product is certified by the government to support the meaningful use requirements," Neuwirth said.

Health-care providers using systems of certified technology are qualified to receive federal stimulus money upon demonstrating meaningful use of the technology. The meaningful use criteria will be staged in three steps through 2015.

Impact Makers' Pirron has worked with MedCPU's offices in Henrico and in Israel and has enjoyed being involved with the company.

"They have been wonderful," he said. "It's a great culture to work with. It's moving and growing at one thousand miles a minute."

MedCPU opened its research and development office in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 2008. The company took the first two years to develop the product.

"We have clinicians in Israel that are software developers, which gives us a competitive advantage," Neuwirth said.

Tonya Signa, president of Signature Marketing Services, the Phoenix-based marketing company that has worked with MedCPU, finds MedCPU to be very collaborative.

"MedCPU has made strategic investments," she said. "They are thinking about the future and developing technology that will lower the cost of health care."

Copyright Richmond Times-Dispatch. Used by permission.

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