ManagementPlus
Applications
Ophthalmology and eye-care specific electronic health records and practice management software
Formats Tools Used
Delphi
InterBase
Challenges
- Regulatory requirements for healthcare technology certification
- End user resistance to change
- Growing customer demand for user-friendly solutions
Results
- 20% reduction in development time
- Can now use a single platform for iOS, Android and Windows development
- Strengthened in-house development capabilities
Salt Lake City-based ManagementPlus has been developing electronic health record (EHR) and practice management software solutions for eye-care professionals since 1995. Its customer base includes ophthalmologists, optometrists, optical shops, and other eye-related professionals across the country.
ManagementPlus’ products and services accommodate the full spectrum of eye-care practices, from solo practitioners to multi-provider and multilocation networks. Throughout its history, ManagementPlus has used Embarcadero Technologies’ Delphi application development platform in conjunction with InterBase, Embarcadero’s relational database, to support all its product development, including its more recent work in expanding mobile capabilities across multiple platforms.
“We have one of the best electronic health record offerings in the industry. We believe Delphi and InterBase have played a big part in helping us achieve that.”
– Christine Archibald, President and CEO
Challenges
ManagementPlus has consistently experienced 15% year over year growth since its inception. The company has a fourperson development team that includes a quality assurance (QA) specialist and three full-time senior level developers.
According to Christine Archibald, President and CEO of ManagementPlus, a cornerstone of the company’s success is its customer-centric approach. Keeping pace is not always easy in an industry that is going through significant technology and legislative changes, she notes. “A great deal of IT influence is being brought into the healthcare sector to improve quality of care and reduce costs. But acceptance has been a challenge for the industry. However, as professionals are now starting to see the opportunities brought about by change, they are embracing it more. Many vendors for their part are having to figure out how they can help practitioners adapt by providing efficient, easy-to-use products.”
A key challenge in more recent times has been keeping pace with the growing list of legislative requirements. As such, any healthcare-related technology must meet feature sets relating to specifications, security and encryption to achieve certification.
A critical component in its development work is agility, says Bryan Thorell, CIO. “We have built our reputation on being able to make changes and run through tests very, very quickly.”
Solution
For ManagementPlus, Delphi and InterBase from Embarcadero Technologies have played an integral role in managing the company’s growth since the beginning. Delphi is a rapid app development solution for software developers building true native apps for Windows, OS X, iOS and Android. InterBase is a multi-platform relational database for developers.
“Delphi and InterBase have done a great job in helping us develop products that are affordable, stable and easy to maintain,” says Thorell. “One of the things that we’re really excited about in the latest release of Delphi is that we are able to target mobile apps using a single platform for iOS, Android and Windows.”
Having a single platform makes the developers’ job easier, Thorell says. “With Delphi we don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time.”
Another handy feature is support for QuickBooks™ integration. “Delphi now has a tool that makes it a lot easier. That’s just one of many component sets that we can take advantage of.”
Thorell continues to be impressed by the performance of InterBase as well. “Every release gets faster and faster. It’s so feature rich, we can create the extensive database functions we need. Delphi and InterBase have allowed us to do pretty much everything we want with a small team.”
The Results
With the latest release of Delphi, ManagementPlus can now bring its mobile app development in-house. “We’ve had several mobile apps for a while but most have been developed by third parties. This year we can start taking care of it ourselves,” Thorell reports.
“We can provide clients with what they need better than if we use a third party vendor,” Archibald says. “We don’t have to rely on the vendor’s schedule or explain priorities. Doing it ourselves puts the control in our hands.”
Not only does the move reduce development costs, the latest version of Delphi also provides very tight integration with ManagementPlus software. As a result, the team is about 20% faster than it was in previous years from a development standpoint, Thorell estimates.
“If we get a bug or have a feature request from a user conference, we can turn things around in a matter of days.”
Now that mobile app functions are moving in-house, the plan is to rewrite all patient registration content to enable iPad registration. Since mobile tethering is currently written in Java, this will reduce double entry requirements on the part of end users, Thorell explains.
He particularly likes the fact that FinalBuilder (an integrated tool for carrying out software builds on the Windows platform) and the TestComplete automated testing platform are both written in Delphi. “This helps immensely with consistency and speed of release.”
Embarcadero support has also been a key driver for the team’s development success, Thorell says. “With Delphi and InterBase, Embarcadero is always ahead of the curve in terms of what’s coming in our industry. They stay on top of what all the major players are doing in order to offer competitive solutions that allow us to create and add new features to our applications.”
Thorell makes a point of keeping up to date on the latest version releases of Delphi. “We like to take advantage of all the new features being added. In fact, we recently decided to have quarterly meetings with Embarcadero so they can keep us up to date on what’s new.”
“From a technology and support standpoint, Embarcadero has consistently supported us by meeting our vision and our business needs,” Archibald says. “We have one of the best electronic health record (EHR) offerings in the industry. We believe Delphi and InterBase have played a big part in helping us achieve that.”
“With Delphi and InterBase, Embarcadero is always ahead of the curve in terms of what’s coming in our industry.”
– Bryan Thorell, CIO