HIStalk Practice Interviews Ken Comée, CEO, CareCloud

Ken Comée is CEO of CareCloud.

Tell me about yourself and the company.
My focus over the past 20 years has been on working with high-growth tech companies, particularly those who are at an inflection point, helping them scale their operations and evolve into market leaders. I’ve been working with CareCloud for the past three years now, and have had a front-row seat to the unique opportunities we have ahead of us. My role as CEO is centered on bringing my experience in these situations to help accelerate our potential.

How do you and Albert Santalo plan on working together? What will next steps be for the company with this new leadership structure?
I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Albert over the past few years. Albert will continue being the entrepreneurial visionary he’s always been, and he remains the chairman and founder. He and his team have accomplished so much in such a short amount of time. For me, I’m really impressed with the opportunities emerging in healthcare. It’s an exciting time, and I look forward to continuing to work with Albert as we drive the industry forward through a cloud-based and open platform.

Can you give us specifics about what the new investment of $15 million will go towards?
We plan to enhance our product offerings and to continue providing a world-class customer experience. We’re laser-focused on helping healthcare organizations successfully navigate the myriad regulatory and business challenges they face. CareCloud is, and always has been, committed to building the premier platform in healthcare.

HIStalk Practice readers have expressed skepticism about CareCloud’s operational performance given the change in leadership and history of investments. How would you counter that skepticism?
It’s not uncommon for a company that is scaling as fast as we are to experience some growing pains. I’ve seen this storyline play out a few times and it’s almost expected given the circumstances and where we are today as a company. Regarding the recent investment, the current funding climate favors companies in CareCloud’s enviable position. We’re doing really well, and if the first quarter of 2015 is any indication, we’re poised to see incredible momentum throughout the year, especially as we help more and more large medical groups move onto the cloud.

What healthcare IT tools do you see as essential to the success of physician practices? How is CareCloud making a play in this space?
The suite of solutions physicians need to excel at clinical, financial, and administrative operations continues to expand. What we’re seeing is customers increasingly asking for flexibility and freedom of choice. CareCloud has always believed that too many vendor options are overly restrictive – essentially forcing medical groups to agree to an entire package up front and adopt all of their services. We don’t believe this all-or-nothing approach is the right solution; rather, we want to offer our customers an ecosystem of options that extends our core product suite. The cloud is really the only way to make that seamless integration experience a reality.

How do you foresee the partnership with Marshfield Clinic Information Services progressing?
We’re really excited about the tremendous potential of this partnership. It just makes sense to us on so many levels. MCIS brings its incredible clinical solutions, including its physician-designed EHR, patient portal, and population health management tools. CareCloud contributes our core strengths surrounding workflow and operational efficiencies.

Have you had any provider feedback related to the scaled back Meaningful Use criteria, particularly pertaining to the lowered patient engagement threshold?
We have not heard strong reactions either way, and we still believe patient engagement remains essential.

Where do you foresee taking CareCloud in the next five years?
We see our largest customers dealing with a whole host of challenges & opportunities. Our goal is to help them meet and exceed their business and operational needs by leveraging the premier cloud-based platform for healthcare.

Do you have any final thoughts?
It’s amazing what CareCloud has managed to accomplish in such a short amount of time. I’m honored and elated to take the helm of this young growth company, one that Albert and his team have built and positioned so well. The mission of the company remains to deliver beautiful software that is easy to use and powerful rather than burdensome and complex. My charge going forward is to make CareCloud operationally excellent, accelerate our growth, and continue to drive us toward future innovations as yet unseen in the industry.

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Contacts

Jennifer,  Mr. H, Lorre, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Gregg, Lt. Dan

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