1. H.I.S.-tory
by Vince Ciotti
Episode #62: Keane
From to to
© 2011 by H.I.S. Professionals, LLC, all rights reserved.

2. 3rd of Today’s Leading Vendors
• Thanks to founder Ray Paris and a host of
other HIS-tory heroes, this week we begin the
3rd episode on today’s HIS vendors: Keane
- $3.2B = McKesson, née HBOC = Walt Huff, Bruce Barrington, & David Owens
- $2.2B = Cerner, still run by Neal Patterson, co-founded with Cliff Illig
- $1.7B (est) = Siemens, née SMS: Jim Macaleer, Harvey Wilson & Clyde Hyde
- $1.4B = Allscripts, née Eclipsys, also founded by Harvey Wilson of SMS.
- $1.2B = Epic. Gee, I have to wonder, just who was it who founded them?
- $900M (est) - GE Healthcare, née IDX/PHAMIS: created by Malcolm Gleser
- $545M = Meditech, still run after all these years by Antonino Papallardo
- $353M = NextGen: new Opus & old Sphere financials by Florian Weiland
- $174M = CPSI (Computer Products & Services Inc), founded by David Dye
- $170M = QuadraMed, née Compucare, founded by Sheldon Dorenfest
- $160M = Keane, parent giant by John Keane, but HIS div. built by Ray Paris
- $110M = HMS (Healthcare Management Systems), Tom Givens & John Doss
- $70M (est) = Healthland, formerly Dairyland, founded by Steve Klick

3. Actually Many Stories…
• The story of Keane and its products is one of the most complicated
tales in the HIS industry, with the probable exception of McKesson.
• It only starts with John Keane’s parent and Ray Paris’ HSD division,
but then also covers a host of diverse HIS vendors & products:
• Professional Hospital Systems - source of
“PatCom,” the premier revenue cycle system
created by hospital chain AMI in California.
• Source Data Systems (SDS), from Cedar Rapids,
Iowa, based on NCR’s “Mednet” HIS.
• Infostat – from Dallas, TX, a UNIX-based HIS that
ran on AT&T minicomputers.
• First Coast – Charlie Gibb’s firm from FLA, whose
“APaCS” system ran on IBM AS/400s.
• Ferranti from Italy, who bought Pentamation
out of Maryland, who had an HIS as well as an
industry-leading Long Term Care system.
• LabFusion – a leading LIS niche player…

4. Keane, Inc.
• Our story starts way back in December, 1965, when
John F. Keane formed the firm in a small office above
Nichols Donut Shoppe in Hingham, Massachusetts,
offering software services to businesses in this
• As a formerera.
mainframe programmer at IBM, John knew how so many DP shops
stumbled self-developing software, and he wisely sold professional
assistance with design, programming, consulting, etc. Keane’s
software assistance sold well, and the firm went public in 1970.
• As a sign of his creativity, when his own programmers ran into a
major project cost overrun in 1971, Keane created a new approach
to project management called “Productivity Management.”
• Sound familiar? “Productivity” became one
of the hot buzz words in management
consulting over the next 10+ years.
• You may remember it was VP Bill Corum’s
focus at McAuto in the late 70s (Episode 4)

5. Keen Management
• Keane suffered the usual ups & downs
of any IT organization (remember
Allscripts “meltdown” last month?), but
the way a firm learns from them really
separates the ladies from the girls.
• After steady growth for 20 years, a bad quarter in 1986 followed
Keane’s entry into selling packaged software. Keane dropped the
software line and went back to its custom-programming knitting.
• Over the years, Keane pioneered many programming techniques:
- In 1987, an alliance with Boston University resulted in Keane's
intensive Accelerated Software Development Program (ASDP).
- In 1988 Keane developed its Application Management
Methodology (AMM) basis of the company's FM (outsourcing)
• Keane’s biggest corporate client was IBM, with whom Keane did
about 1/4th of its annual revenues, which were ≈$93M in 1990.

6. Healthy Vertical Market Target
• Healthcare caught John Keane’s eye in the 70s as easily one of
the hottest vertical markets with so many (poor) self-developers.
• By the 70s, shared systems had taken off
for small and mid-sized hospitals, but many
large hospital DP shops still struggled with
self-developing software, starting with
“simple” financial systems, with the
eventual goal of building nursing, order
entry & results reporting from scratch!?
• Having forayed into outsourcing with his AAM project
management approach, John Keane wisely searched around for an
HIS guru to head up his foray into the burgeoning field of hospital
systems.
• H thene acquired Ray Kern’s leading FM (Facilities Management)
firm, Innovations in Technology, John was quite impressed with
the background of their sales executive, Ray Paris, who had years

7. The Rest is H.I.S.-tory
• We’ll pick up our story next week with Ray Paris’ tale of his early
HIS days that included some fascinating tales from the crypt:
– Interviewing at McAuto with Walter Huff when it was still based
in Peoria, IL (not in St. Louis yet!), accepting a job offer from
him in 1971, then showing up a month later to find Walt had
left…
– Battling it out with Dick Davis, SMS” superstar salesman in NYC:
• Dick calling him one day and threatening to “eat his lunch,”
• Then interviewing with Jim Macaleer and Harvey Wilson!
– Beating Davis & SMS out at Hackensack Medical Center in NJ.
– And heading up sales at Ray Kern’s Innovations in Technology.
• After Keane bought IIT, Ray led
Keane’s HSD through an amazing
evolution of hardware platforms,
product lines and other HIS
vendor & product acquisitions…

8. Help for the Next Weeks!?
• Indeed, Keane’s acquisition-itis was so vast, we’ll cover a half-
dozen other HIS firms in telling their tale, so if any of you know
any stories or veterans from these firms, please help me with:
– Professional Hospital Systems – from AMI in California – you
out there Arnie Caplan? And Steve Harris - still with Keane!?
– Source Data Systems (SDS), from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, anyone
know the history of this firm??
– Infostat – from Dallas, TX, need to hear from John Indrigo!
– First Coast – Charlie Gibbs and his wife from Florida...
– Ferranti - from Italy, who bought Pentamation out of
Maryland; Gary Pollock from Clark Memorial Hospital’s
Pharmacy department has already promised help!
– LabFusion – a leading LIS niche player… anyone know their
inside story? May lad us into a whole LIS shtick…
• Please call 505.466.4958 or email: vciott@hispros.com