Specialty EMR Company Lands $14M to Take on New Markets

Originally published on MedCityNews.com.

A fast-growing health IT company has scored a $14 million investment to bring its tailored, touch-based electronic medical record products to gastroenterologists, ear nose and throat specialists, and rheumatologists.

Originally published on MedCityNews.com.

A fast-growing health IT company has scored a $14 million investment to bring its tailored, touch-based electronic medical record products to gastroenterologists, ear nose and throat specialists, and rheumatologists.

The investment in Boca Raton, Florida-based Modernizing Medicine came from global growth equity investor Summit Partners, an investor that’s also backed health IT company COMS Interactive.

Co-founded by Dan Cane, one of the founders of Blackboard Inc., and dermatologist Dr. Michael Sherling, the company developed what it calls the Electronic Medical Assistant, a visual-oriented EMR that’s designed to fit into a physician’s workflow and save time and money. To do that, it adapts to a healthcare provider’s style of practice and automates certain processes like writing prescriptions, filling out lab request forms, coding, dictating notes and billing.

Already the three-year-old company has released tailored, iPad-based products for the dermatology, ophthalmology, optometry, orthopedics and plastic surgery markets. With the new financing, it will launch products in the GI, ENT and rheumatology markets.

It’s not one of the most frequently used EMR products on the market, but EMA isn’t designed for mass use. “Our competition is saying, ’how can we get the biggest markets the fastest’ and looking at Meaningful Use,” Sherling told me in an interview last October. “We’re doing the exact opposite of what our competition is doing. We’d rather own the majority of a small market than a smaller portion of the large market.”

Modernizing Medicine started up in 2010 with $3 million in seed money from customers, then raised an undisclosed Series A in 2011 and a $12 million Series B Alast year. This year it was ranked #47 on Forbes’ list of America’s Most Promising Companies.

[Image credit: Modernizing Medicine]