Athenahealth will never get the marketshare that so desperately wants in order to be relevant but not because they have the wrong business model.
Their cloud based and pricing MO made them appealing to my healthsystem few years back but now that the system sold to a bigger one, Athena made the mistake of allowing rookies to manage their product. They like all the other IT companies out there need to decide who their ultimate customer is: the patient, the doctor, the shareholder or the government or insurance companies that foot the bill?!
JB's boisterourous personality is an eye catcher but the company would survive without him because they have other leaders like Ed Park who is the IT genious behind Athenanet and whose unassuming, common sense and down to earth approach coupled with a deep understanding of where healtcare is, where it needs to go and the obstacles we have in getting there will be all that Athena needs to survive.
I have high regard for Athena's CMIO who I have known for 15+ years.
It's my perception that the company is focusing on physician employing and operated entities and only incidentally on hospitals and IDNs. The CEO's public persona is a major part of the company's marketing and I think physicians are less critical of his antics than are hospital executives and the vendors/consultants/policy wonks/financiers who hang out with them and who tend towards the very conservative/critical view of anyone's rambunctious behaviors.
Athenahealth will never get the marketshare that so desperately wants in order to be relevant but not because they have the wrong business model.
Their cloud based and pricing MO made them appealing to my healthsystem few years back but now that the system sold to a bigger one, Athena made the mistake of allowing rookies to manage their product. They like all the other IT companies out there need to decide who their ultimate customer is: the patient, the doctor, the shareholder or the government or insurance companies that foot the bill?!
JB's boisterourous personality is an eye catcher but the company would survive without him because they have other leaders like Ed Park who is the IT genious behind Athenanet and whose unassuming, common sense and down to earth approach coupled with a deep understanding of where healtcare is, where it needs to go and the obstacles we have in getting there will be all that Athena needs to survive.
I have high regard for Athena's CMIO who I have known for 15+ years.
It's my perception that the company is focusing on physician employing and operated entities and only incidentally on hospitals and IDNs. The CEO's public persona is a major part of the company's marketing and I think physicians are less critical of his antics than are hospital executives and the vendors/consultants/policy wonks/financiers who hang out with them and who tend towards the very conservative/critical view of anyone's rambunctious behaviors.