Medical Information Technology Inc.

International Directory of Company Histories, Volume 64 (1993) by Paul Greenland

Medical Information Technology Inc.

MEDITECH Circle Westwood, Massachusetts 02090-1542 U.S.A. Telephone: (781) 821-3000 Fax: (781) 821-2199 Web site: http://www.meditech.com

Private Company Incorporated: 1969 Employees: 2,000 Sales: $271 million (2003) NAIC: 511210 Software Publishers; 541511 Custom Computer Programming Services

Headquartered in Westwood, Massachusetts, Medical Information Technology Inc. (MEDITECH) is a leading developer of healthcare information system (HCIS) software. Serving more than 1,800 healthcare organizations worldwide from five company-owned facilities in Massachusetts, MEDITECH's principal geographic markets include the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and South Africa. In addition to its primary market of acute care hospitals, MEDITECH also serves home healthcare agencies, large healthcare systems, physician offices, and clinics. MEDITECH's HCIS is available on two platforms: a client/server-based Microsoft Windows setup, or the company's proprietary MAGIC operating system. Striving to address virtually every portion of the healthcare spectrum, the company's HCIS modules help clients handle such functions as billing, payroll, decision support, materials management, and staffing and scheduling. On the clinical side, MEDITECH's system manages health information in such patient care areas as registration, radiology, ambulatory, pharmacy, laboratory, emergency, operating room, medical records, and physician practice management. The MEDITECH HCIS also includes information technology management functions related to patient and staff Internet access, as well as data archiving and integrated communications. In making its software systems available to clients, MEDITECH maintains partnerships with IBM, Dell, Patient Care Technologies Inc., and LSS Data Systems, among others. MEDITECH also offers flexible lease financing options to its customers via Captech Funding Corporation.

Making MUMPS: 1966–69

MEDITECH's origins are rooted in a programming language called MUMPS, which is short for Massachusetts General Hospital Utility Multi-Programming System. Later known as M, the language was developed in 1966 at Massachusetts General Hospital's Lab of Computer Science (LCS). The LCS was established by Guy Octo Barnett, a Harvard-trained cardiologist hired to oversee Massachusetts General's Hospital Computer Project.

The Hospital Computer Project involved an early PDP1 computer with one of the very first time-sharing systems. Instead of monitor screens, the computer initially output data onto paper via a KSR teletype. According to Dr. Robert A. Greenes, in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Assocation, "Octo headed a very dynamic laboratory in those days of the late 1960s, with new projects underway to automate much of the hospital's activities, including ADT, the clinical laboratory, pharmacy, radiology, and other functions." Greenes further explained, "The design and programming of this system represents one of the first comprehensive hospital information systems using modular definition as the specification paradigm."

The development of MUMPS was funded through a contract with the National Institute of Health, and by a grant from the National Center for Health Services Research and Development. With Barnett serving as the principal investigator, Greenes contributed some of the programming language. However, the lion's share of the code was developed by two project engineers: A. Neil Pappalardo and Curtis Marble. When MUMPS became commercially available in 1969, Greenes established Automated Health Systems and Pappalardo founded MEDITECH in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Pioneering Medical Informatics: 1969–89

On the company's web site Pappalardo later summarized the manner in which his new enterprise blazed a trail into the emerging world of healthcare informatics, remarking: "In the beginning, we had no great and far reaching plan. Each event, every decision, a success here, a mistake there, would take us another step forward."

Early developments at MEDITECH included the company's first customer, the Hyannis, Massachusetts-based Cape Cod Hospital, as well as the MEDITECH Interpretive Information System Language (MIIS), which was introduced in 1970. Although they were closed a few years later, in 1972 the company opened two regional offices in the western United States and one in the Midwest. The following year, MEDITECH developed an information system for the New York City Criminal Justice Department.

During the early 1970s, MEDITECH assembled what would later prove one of the industry's most stable management teams, in terms of permanence and longevity. The company's very first employee, Larry Polimeno, eventually became vice-chairman. Other early employees included eventual Senior Sales and Marketing Vice-President Ed Pisinski; Howard Messing, who rose to the position of president and chief operating officer; and one-day CFO Barbara Manzolillo. Roberta Grigg, who later served as senior vice-president of MEDITECH's international operations before retiring in 2001, was another staffer who joined the company at this time.