Net Health, a Strip District developer of electronic health record systems for specialty outpatient clinics, is growing rapidly.
The company is planning to expand its office space 65 percent and expects to nearly double its workforce of 110 by the middle of next year, CEO Anthony Sanzo said.
Its recent success might not have been easily predicted a dozen years ago when Net Health, like many technology startups, was fresh off the collapse of Internet stocks, out of money and struggling for direction.
Sanzo, who became chairman of Net Health’s board of directors in 2001, tasked two executives with figuring out how to proceed. At the time, Sanzo was running TeleTracking Technologies, a Downtown company that makes software for hospitals. He became CEO of Net Health in 2011.
Sanzo’s executives came back with the recommendation that they target their practice-management software to the burgeoning medical specialty of wound-care clinics.
“It turned out to be a brilliant decision,” Sanzo said during a recent interview in Net Health’s offices on the fifth floor of the Crane Building on 24th Street.
There were about 350 clinics in the United States in 2001. Today, there are more than 2,000, and Net Health’s software is used in about half of them, he said.
Net Health is looking to expand beyond software for wound-care centers to other types of specialty outpatient centers, said Patrick Colletti, president and one of the two executives tapped by Sanzo to lead Net Health’s turnaround. The other was Chief Technology Officer Christopher Hayes.
The company in May acquired Integritas Inc., a California-based provider of software for urgent-care centers with its operations center in Altoona.
Urgent care is a fast-growing area of the health-care industry, with about 9,000 centers across the country, Colletti said.
“The urgent-care market in many ways just represents a tremendous amount of opportunity,” he said.
With full implementation of the Affordable Care Act starting next year, about 30 million uninsured Americans will get coverage for the first time. Many of those people could end up in urgent-care centers when they are sick, Colletti said. The industry is adding about 400 urgent-care centers a year.
Net Health views many small software companies that make systems for just one specialty as possible acquisition targets, Sanzo said.
“There are eight or nine areas we continue to monitor,” he said, noting that Net Health is in talks with several companies that are looking to be purchased.
The company has benefited from the government’s push for all health-care providers to go digital. In May, the Department of Health and Human Services reported that half the nation’s doctors and 80 percent of its hospitals have made the switch to electronic medical records.
The adoption has been spurred with $14 billion in incentives from the 2009 stimulus and promises to increase patient safety and reduce costs.
Sanzo declined to release revenue figures for Net Health but said the company has doubled sales in the last 18 months and is profitable.
Recruiting talented software engineers can be difficult for many small tech companies in Pittsburgh, but Colletti said Net Health has done well finding employees.
The company has a fun, casual atmosphere, he said. It holds a quarterly formal Friday event, a twist on casual Fridays at most companies. Once every three months, everyone dresses in tuxedos and other formal wear.
But Net Health is serious about expanding the business.
“There is no denying that we are here to grow,” he said.
