This document summarizes the history of the PatCom hospital information system, originally developed by Professional Hospital Systems (PHS) which was later acquired by Keane. PHS was formed in 1976 by American Medical International (AMI) to develop a computerized system for its hospitals. PatCom ran on Data General minicomputers and was adopted by major hospitals. In 1993, Keane acquired PHS and PatCom, converting it to run on UNIX. The document provides background on the owners and leaders of PHS over time.

1. H.I.S.-tory
by Vince Ciotti
Episode #67:
KeanePart 5:
PHS’ PatCom
© 2011 by H.I.S. Professionals, LLC, all rights reserved.

2. Keane’s Acquired Products
• This week we continue the story of Keane, looking at the next HIS
vendors besides Ferranti & INFOSTAT they acquired, while building
their own “Threshold” UNIX-based product. This week we cover an
amazingly long-lived revenue cycle system they acquired from:
– Professional Hospital Systems – the IT division of hospital chain
American Medical International (AMI), who built PatCom.
• Many thanks several old friend from SMS & AMI for the inside details!
• The 6th
& final episode on Keane (don’t blame me, blame
Ray Paris who bought all these vendors!) will cover:
– First Coast – Charlie Gibb’s firm from Florida, whose “APaCS”
HIS offered a full financial/clinical suite on IBM AS/400s.
• No word on where Charlie is, nor any other FC veterans - please write!
– Source Data Systems - (SDS), from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, based
on NCR’s “Mednet” HIS, that ran at over 150 hospitals in the
90s…

3. The AMI/PHS/PatCom Story
• Credit for the inside story of PatCom goes to 2 old
friends from the glory days of SMS in the 1970s:
• Arnie Caplan, a New “Yohkah” transplanted to LA
where he started as an ID for SMS (the 39th
!) then
as an ID Manager before joining PHS in 1981:
– Arnie’s still working today at a Kaiser hospital
in Pasadena: Arnold.N.Caplan@kp.org
– Here he is at SMS’ 40th
reunion in KOP in 2009:
• Art Harris, who joined SMS from the Central Bank
Computer Bureau (aka “CB2”) one of 4 shared
systems in the 1970s that were merged into the
Information Services Division (ISD), the IT arm of
American Hospital Supply, later bought by SMS.
– Art’s still working on PatCom for Keane and
can be reached at: 310.417.3120

4. AMI’s Looooong roots
• AMI was the first investor-owned hospital company
in the world, being founded in 1956 by (are you
ready?) Uranus J. Appel. No, that’s not a typo and
I’m not trying to plug Cupertino! Here’s his portrait:
• Uranus was a bacteriologist who formed “MedLabs”
first as a reference laboratory for LA-area hospitals.
• In the 60s, a small hospital client was closing its doors, MedLabs
bought it, and then changed both its name (and mission) to AMI.
• AMI began gobbling up hospitals around
the US, as well as many overseas (AMI!)
• Around 1976, AMI formed Professional
Hospital Services (PHS) to develop a
modern DG mini-based HIS for its US
hospitals, and in 1978, began selling these
systems to non-AMI hospitals as well.

5. PHS’ Board & Executive Team
• PHS was formed by several HIS veterans,
pictured on right, the most prominent:
– Ritchy Haynes – President, who, like
Art Harris, started his HIS career at one
of ISD’s 4 shared systems, Ritchy’s
being the Michigan BC/BS shared
system, also home to several other
HIS-tory heroes from past episodes:
- Gerry Mathis – who became president of Sentry Data, featured
in Episode 21 (see our web site: hispros.com for a re-visit!),
and later a VP at Sheldon I. Dorenfest & Associates (SIDA).
- Frank Cavanaugh – who went initially to SMS like Ritchy &
Gerry, then left to join Coopers & Lybrand where he became
national director of their enormous HIS consulting arm in the
80s & 90s.• Amazing that an unknown shared system could spawn these three!

6. Platform & Early Adopters
• PHS picked the Data General line of “MV”
minicomputers for its hardware platform.
• One of their early (and large!) clients was
Alexian Brothers, a hospital chain in the
Midwest, whose “computer room” (no “data
centers” back then) is pictured on the right:
• Pictured at left is Bruce Fisher, CFO at
Alexian Brothers, who was joined by
several other notable healthcare
organizations in picking PHS to replace
shared/mainframe systems, including:
• Massachusetts General Hospital
• Baylor Health Care System
• Johns Hopkins Health
• Whew, that’s an impressive client list!

7. Hot 1987 Ad
• Like so many mini-
based HIS vendors,
PHS started with
primarily financial
apps (patient &
general accounting),
than gradually added
“Clinical” systems,
which in those days,
was a euphemism for
mainly Order Entry &
Results Reporting.
• Note how this ad
brags about PPS –
DRGs were a big deal
back in the 1980s!

8. Big Sale in KOP’s Backyard
• Arnie saves almost as much stuff as I do!
He was kind enough to send these pics
of a T-Shirt PHS had printed up for the
implementation of a huge client they
signed within a stone’s throw of SMS’
King of Prussia HQ near Philadelphia:
– Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
(HUP), where, incidentally, a leader of HUP’s
of the IT gurus was another former SMS-er:
Tony Mirigliani! Anyone know where he is
these days? One of SMS/HIS’ all time best!!
– Maybe PHS really stands for “Previously Hired
by SMS” as Arnie also remembers another
SMS’ super-star, Ron Dixon (VP of Sales for
the West), who joined PHS about this time

9. Ownership Complexity
• You HIS trivia nuts will love these details:
– “AMI owned all of the stock in PHS through its
wholly owned subsidiary, AMI Information
Systems Group, Inc. (AMI Systems). AMI
formed Professional Healthcare Systems
Holding Corporation (PHS Holding), a Delaware
corporation, so that PHS Holding could acquire
PHS Services from AMI Systems. To accomplish
that acquisition, PHS Services was first
acquired by a wholly owned subsidiary of PHS
Holding, PHS Acquisition Corporation. The
name of PHS Services was then changed to
Professional Healthcare Systems, Inc. (PHS),
and PHS Acquisition was merged into PHS. PHS
is a Delaware corporation with its principal
place of business in Los Angeles County.”
• Arnie illustrates thru these old plaques he
photographed (check out his reflection!):

10. Multiple New Owners…
• As part of these late 80’s restructuring deals,
PHS was owned in part by its management &
employees (48.3%), several VC investors (26.3%)
and a number of its major clients (12.7%), viz:
– Stanford University Hospital
– Massachusetts General Hospital
– Alexian Brothers Health System
– United Hospitals Inc. (PA)
– Women & Infants Hospital (RI)
• Venture Capital firms included:
– Hambrecht & Quist
– The Hillman company
– Crimson Capital Corporation
• Got that? Good, because it’s all gonna change…

11. Ever Keen to Acquire…
• In 1993, Keane’s set its acquisition
sights further West than Ferranti in
Maryland or SDS in Iowa, when they
acquired PHS’ superb PatCom HIS
and these many prestigious clients.
– At that time, PHS was doing ≈$20
million in annual revenue…
• Keane next converted PatCom to
UNIX, gaining independence from
the DG MV platform, then renamed
it “EZ Access” per its far more
“open” UFOS data base
architecture.
• Today, PatCom is the revenue cycle
core of Keane’s “Optimum”

12. Next Week: Keane’s Final Buys
• Amazing this one vendor bought so many systems it’s taken 5
episodes to get this far, but next week the saga ends with their 2
final acquisitions:
– Source Data Systems - NCR-based HIS out of Cedar Rapids Iowa
– First Coast - AS/400-based system out of Jacksonville, Florida
• Anybody got any info on these two old stalwarts they’d like to share,
please call (505/466-4958) or write (vciotti@hispros.com)
• And in case you missed any prior
episodes of our HIS-tory series
(or are bored to tears studying
the Stage 1 versus 2 MU regs
some afternoon…), just hop on
over to our web site and enjoy
any past episode: HISPros.com