ifroehlich

Goodbye to a Respected Competitor

Zix Corporation announced yesterday its intent to wind down its e-prescribing business in an orderly manner after it has fully satisfied all contractual commitments. Earlier in the year they said it was coming, but it has been a waiting game to see how the cards fell.
I’m sorry to see them go.

I met Zix seven years ago. As the former Director of Account Management (currently Director of Marketing), I was closely involved with the week to week efforts to successfully roll out electronic prescribing with the eRx Collaborative. The Collaborative consisted of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Tufts Health Plan, Neighborhood Health Plan, Zix Corporation (PocketScript®), and DrFirst (Rcopia™), and it was our unified goal to jumpstart the adoption of e-prescribing technology in Massachusetts.
Seven years later, the eprescribing industry is booming, with over 150,000 providers actively writing electronic prescriptions every day. Unfortunately we’ve lost a few of the real pioneering companies along the way.
DrFirst, on the other hand, has taken a different path. We’re in this market for the long term, and we’ve diversified our services to meet the evolving needs of the provider community. We will always offer top quality eprescribing, but we also provide integrated electronic prescribing services to nearly 100 EMR, EHR, and PMS companies. And our hospital services business is growing rapidly as have begun to create “connected” communities around the country.
Putting “Doctors First” is what DrFirst is all about. As Zix exits the scene, we stand ready to provide a quick migration path for PocketScript users who are concerned about facing a gap in their eprescribing service. And when those physicians are ready to move to an EHR, we have a huge number of partners from which they can choose for a very simple and quick conversion.