MercuryMD, a healthcare-focused software company located in Durham NC, is devoted to helping providers--hospitals, physicians and clinicians--improve clinical workflow and operational efficiencies. Its mission is to facilitate access to health data--any time and any where. In doing so, providers can take more immediate action on the data, thereby improving healthcare responsiveness, healthcare outcomes, and capturing an accurate history of all services provided to patients.

Alan Ying and William Lawson--two doctors challenged by the first-hand experience of having to deal with inaccurate patient data and the manual gathering of information--founded MercuryMD back in 2001. The result of their collaboration was mobile healthcare solution MData.

MData integrates hospital data from existing information systems and securely delivers patient information, such as census lists, demographics, laboratory results, diagnostic reports, medication lists, consults, and other transcribed reports, directly to clinicians' mobile devices. The company is now expanding its mobile clinical data paradigm to include mobile charge capture. MData Charge Capture is preparing for a full launch to the market.

We conducted an interview with Alan Ying, MercuryMD's CEO, to learn more about the mobile healthcare market, the daily work challenges faced by providers, and how the MData suite is addressing this sector's needs. Prior to founding MercuryMD, Alan practiced as a general surgeon at Duke University.

Gantry: What business conditions have driven providers to be interested in mobile charge capture?

Ying: There are two types of charge capture, inpatient and outpatient. Physicians cross both worlds; bridging both is a challenge. Charge capture has been around since 1996, but there's been little evolution. While the desire and demand by providers was there to increase reimbursement and revenue, it never really went anywhere. Everyone was wishing healthcare business process automation would be a success.

However, most providers were still waiting in anticipation of a payback. Of primary importance is the clinical data that physicians must have access to in order to get their work done. Mobile access to comprehensive clinical data was the critical prerequisite to mobile charge capture being accepted. Mobile clinical data gained market traction in late 2003. Now, as this market expands and matures, mobile charge capture has piqued the interest of providers.