One Entrepreneur On the Start: Ryan Howard of Practice Fusion

This is part of a series called "The Entrepreneurs On The Start."  This interview is with Ryan Howard, CEO of Practice Fusion.

What was your first business venture?

In 2005, I left a lucrative career in technology and venture capital to found Practice Fusion. I wanted to use my background in SaaS, health IT and business to do something I really cared about; to create an Electronic Health Record vastly different from anything else on the market and with the potential to fundamentally improve US healthcare.

It wasn’t easy in the beginning.  To support Practice Fusion in the early days, I sold my house in San Francisco and then my BMW. I then built a team of experts who understood a larger vision for health IT.

What made you want to go into business for yourself?

Early on, I knew that I wanted to do something that mattered. Having witnessed the challenges of connecting the medical providers during my time at Brown & Toland Medical Group in San Francisco, I saw the potential of combining my technology background with my healthcare knowledge. Doctors had to go digital, and it wasn’t feasible for them to pay $50,000 or more for a client-server system. Practice Fusion, the free, web-based Electronic Health Record was created as a response. I see the widespread use of EHRs reducing medical costs and improving the quality of medical care, benefiting doctors, patients, practices and the economy at large.

Would you go into business, if you had it to do over again?  Why or why not?

A 24/7 work week is a major challenge of running my own company. Making your own schedule is typically considered a career luxury, but in a start-up environment the intensity of work that needs to be accomplished in a limited timeframe requires relentless and unfettered focus. The last few years have been all about this determination.  Moreover, raising venture capital was the hardest thing I've ever done. If you're a first-time entrepreneur, you just won't get venture funding unless you have a product or customers.

What advice would you have for others considering going into business for themselves?

Build a strong network – I brought together a stellar advisory board early with Practice Fusion. Consulting with hand-picked leaders in the industry are critical to a company’s success. Every introduction or idea matters when you’re getting started.

Know your market  – Unlike many healthcare companies that offer nebulous “healthcare solutions”, we identified a specific need in the healthcare market and built Practice Fusion according to these needs. The cloud-based model is currently the only viable solution to provide a cost-effective Electronic Health Record (EHR)  for physicians. The system is uniquely designed to serve the requirements of America’s doctors, a very specialized market.

Be relevant - The old approach to health information is unsustainable and dangerous. There are 200,000 preventable medical errors that harm patients each year in the US.  Doctors face mountains of paperwork, faxes and thin margins in their practices. My objective when starting Practice Fusion was to make healthcare safer and more efficient.  

Any final thoughts on starting a business?

It’s an exciting time to be in healthcare. With $19 billion in stimulus incentives available for innovation in health IT, job growth is thriving in the sector, new academic programs are being funded to train students in health IT and disruptive new business models are changing the game. As I mentioned earlier, identify a need in the market place and implement your strategy accordingly.

Practice Fusion provides a free, web-based Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system to physicians. With charting, scheduling, e-prescribing, billing, lab integrations, unlimited support and a Personal Health Record for patients, Practice Fusion's EMR addresses the complex needs of today's healthcare providers and disrupts the health IT status quo. Practice Fusion is the fastest growing EMR community in the country with more than 38,000 users. Salesforce.com and Morgenthaler Ventures each own a minority interest in Practice Fusion. For more information on Practice Fusion, please visit practicefusion.com.