This week I had the opportunity to attend Perceptive Software’s Inspire 2013 meeting in Phoenix, Ariz.  For those not familiar with Perceptive Software (http://www.perceptivesoftware.com/), they recently acquired Acuo Technologies (http://www.acuotech.com/) earlier this year.  Perceptive itself was acquired by Lexmark (http://www1.lexmark.com/en_US/) in 2010, as part of Lexmark’s push to remake itself from a printer company into a document management company.

In a prior blog, I commented on the acquisition of Acuo as a strategic move to meld document and image management into a common environment for healthcare.  Perceptive’s Inspire annual conference is a multi-industry affair and an opportunity to get an update on Perceptive’s products and services.  The meeting consisted of several keynote speaker sessions for all participants, and then industry-specific breakout tracks spanning three days.

I was intrigued to learn more about Perceptive’s broader product offerings, as well as to see how they would address the Acuo Technologies acquisition.  Given the short amount of time since the acquisition to prepare for Inspire, Perceptive readily admitted that they did not have time to incorporate significant content on imaging.  That being said, I think they did a great job in positioning the acquisition of Acuo, and what it means for the future.

From the initial keynote introductions, it is apparent that Perceptive both gets it, and has the vision for integrated content management.  The keynote highlighted Perceptive’s key product areas of Capture, Content, Process, and Search.  New advancements in Capture address intelligent data capture, with the ability to extract data from paper forms into electronic forms.  Content management highlighted the intelligent management of all content from documents to images to video (through another Perceptive acquisition of Twistage, Inc. (http://twistage.com/).  Process applications emphasized Perceptive’s tools for managing work flow, and Search emphasized Perceptive’s ability to address content-specific searches.

As I listened to the keynote discussion and subsequent Healthcare breakout sessions, it all congealed for me that here is a company that really has a grasp on content management!  They are quite new to clinical applications, but given time, there is great potential for the application of their technology within clinical healthcare.  For example, their process tool encompasses an ability to model in real time the work flow process and identify the bottlenecks.  I could see this very easily being applied to clinical operations improvement. 

Their ability to manage document, image, and video content holds promise for integrated clinical content management, from consent forms to diagnostic images, to sleep lab video – all with a common infrastructure.  And potentially, their Search tools might enhance the productivity of finding clinical content more productively. 

There are many companies today that have the potential to address clinical content management, but few so far have assembled as many elements to provide a comprehensive clinical content management solution.  I look forward to Inspire 2014 to see just how effective Perceptive is in delivering on the vision!  In addition, I look forward to seeing other companies evolve similar strategies.  I think healthcare IT management needs to pay attention to this developing area, as it represents an opportunity for further economies of scale and productivity improvement that can be leveraged in the age of accountable care.