Tom Langan, Practice Fusion’s acting CEO since founder and former chief executive Ryan Howard bounced up to the chairman’s job in August, got an early Christmas present.
He was named as the San Francisco electronic medical records’ company’s permanent CEO, after about three months in an interim role.
In a brief statement issued Thursday morning, Langan called Practice Fusion “a transformational force for modernizing health care over the past 10 years.”
The company was an early mover in the EMR space for small medical practices, providing free electronic medical record services to physicians and other clinicians, with revenue generated through ads and sponsorships.
Langan joined the aging startup in July 2014 as chief commercial officer.
In a brief telephone interview late Thursday, Langan told me his goal is “really realizing a vision we’ve always had,” while seeking new opportunities “and commercializing the business.”
Some new initiatives may be given a go-ahead as soon as two to three weeks from now, he added, but it’s too early to say more at this time.
Practice Fusion in recent years has talked the IPO talk, but never taken the final step, and in the current climate that may not be a feasible option, with many unicorns taking hits from Wall Street giants like Fidelity for not living up to grandiose expectations.
In Practice Fusion’s case, it says its EMR platform is actively used by 112,000 health care professionals who manage more than 100 million patient records. But those numbers have been stagnant for some time, and the earlier buzz about the 10-year-old company seems to have dissipated.
It’s garnered nearly $150 million in venture funding since its 2005 launch, but investors haven’t seen a payoff.
As recently as early August, former CEO Howard told me by email that Practice Fusion “is hiring aggressively to prepare for an IPO. The recent hires are integral in our steps toward having an IPO viable company.”
Date: November 12, 2015