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Health-record startup gains key backing

SANTA ROSA’S I2I SYSTEMS SECURES 33 NEW CLINICS UNDER STATEWIDE INITIATIVE

SANTA ROSA – As a consortium of health care organizations launches a statewide effort to map and manage chronic disease patients in California, Santa Rosa’s i2i Systems stands to more than double its revenues and grow its staff.

The provider of the premier disease-tracking solution in the U.S. is the consortium’s system of choice, so a first round of $4.5 million in grants to public health clinics won i2i 33 new clinics overnight.

“Once the second round of funding is complete, our i2iTracks will be in use by most of the public health clinics in California,” said co-founder, President and CEO Janice Nicholson.

There are 180 clinics with about 600 sites in the state. Fifty are already customers for i2i’s solution, which tracks the treatment of chronic disease patients.

The i2i system integrates data from vendors such as electronic health record companies, pharmacies and medical testing laboratories so that an ongoing record of past treatment and future needs is developed for each patient.

The i2i systems cost approximately $40,000 to $70,000, depending on the number of users, with an 18 percent annual maintenance fee.

With diabetes, asthma, tuberculosis and cardiovascular disease soaring among the poor and uninsured, the California HealthCare Foundation spearheaded a drive to build a registry of chronic disease sufferers. Blue Shield, Kaiser Permanente, the California Endowment and the Community Clinics Initiative joined the CHCF to fund the project.

Kathy Lim Ko, program director for the Tides Foundation, the group that administered the granting process, said about $50,000 to $80,000 was awarded to each of the 33 clinics selected.

That money will flow directly into i2i’s coffers, since the company is the only one with a solution that’s been proven to be enormously effective in improving the care for about 33 million people in California alone.

“When we put out the RFP, we got calls from other vendors. But none came close to providing the solution i2i has, and none came back,” said Ms. Ko. “You have to admire i2i’s foresight in developing such a unique product.”

Ms. Nicholson expects demand for the i2iTrack to grow as clinics and physicians discover that the Electronic Health Record initiative, mandated by President Bush to be in place for all Americans by 2014, is insufficient to deal with population management.

“EHR is intended to improve patient care. But it doesn’t improve population care, and population management is vital to treat chronic disease,” she said.

By 2010 more than half the U.S. population will suffer from a chronic illness, she added.

Ms. Nicholson recently moved herself and her 10-employee staff into new 3,158-square-foot headquarters on North Laughlin Road. She’ll be adding staff immediately to support i2i’s expanded customer base, now more than 370 clinic sites nationally and expected to grow to close to 500 within the next 15 months.

“Fortunately, we built the system so carefully, along with a very efficient support portal, that we can keep support staff down. Only 1 percent of the calls we receive report bugs. The rest are requests for guidance that we can easily satisfy without personal contact,” she said.

According to Ms. Ko, the California consortium that’s funding the project, labeled Tools for Quality, will assess its success during 2009 and may well decide to launch a new round of grants.