Greetings!
November is the time of year when our annual campaign for membership kicks off. Our philosophy to grow our membership through retaining our current members and attracting new members is guided by the principle that our growth should be measured by the value that the association brings to the lives of our members and our community. Over the years, InSight growth has been achieved by continuing to attract talented, enthusiastic and skilled individuals dedicated to improving the quality of health care delivery to our patients.
Similarly, our strategic partner, McKesson Provider Technologies, continues to grow based on a similar philosophy of bringing to their family of products and services solutions that will improve the delivery of health care. In the past several weeks, there have been many articles about two recent McKesson acquisitions, RelayHealth and Per-Se Technologies, Inc.
In June of 2006, RelayHealth, a leader of online physician-patient communication services, was purchased by McKesson. RelayHealth is known for its ability to operate a system that permits effective collaboration amongst physicians and patients thus reducing time and costs associated with managing large volumes of requests at the same time. According to the RelayHealth web site they represent a network of over 18,000 health professionals spanning over 600,000 patients and includes multiple reimbursement health plans.
Then just last week, McKesson announced the acquisition of Per-Se Technologies, Inc. Per-Se specializes in providing financial and administrative health care solutions for hospitals, physicians and retail pharmacies. Per-Se Technologies has a customer base of over 100,000 small-practice physicians, 17,000 hospital-affiliated physicians, 3,000 hospitals, and 50,000 retail pharmacies, all dedicated to creating efficiencies around the transaction process from pharmacist to the payor.
The addition of these two new companies to the McKesson organization provides a phenomenal opportunity for InSight to grow our membership by attracting health care professionals equally dedicated to improving the quality of health care through collaboration, education, networking, and problem solving. Just imagine the impact our organization will have on raising the standard of health care delivery in our industry in the coming years as we bring together in one user group thousands of health professionals from different disciplines all dedicated to the same cause.
Over the course of the next few months, I urge each InSight member to think to the future and speak of our growing family when recruiting new members and encouraging current members to renew for the coming year. Further, I encourage each member and future member to strongly consider taking advantage of the benefits of membership and volunteer for a committee; run for a leadership position within your special interest group; contribute to a discussion forum; participate in the Strategic Product Change Model (formally known as the Enhancement Process); or answer the call for speakers for the 2007 Annual InSight Conference.
Thank you for your anticipated support and efforts in our 2007 membership drive!
Deborah Gash
InSight President
Vice President Chief Information Officer
Saint Luke's Health System