Creativity at the Core of PHNS Leadership

Chick Young and Rick Kneipper combine entrepreneurial skills to help hospitals get "business healthy."

How do banking, filmmaking, cycling, hunting, soccer, welding, litigation, ATMs, cooking and guitars connect for America's not-for-profit hospitals?

The answer is at PHNS, a company whose leadership is possessed by the commitment to find the right solutions for complicated hospital challenges. PHNS offers what it calls HealthCaring solutions to help hospitals get "business healthy."

What strange confluence of events led to the establishment of a company dedicated to the concept that hospitals could deliver patient care better, safer and cheaper through some simple technology training and process changes for nurses, doctors and administrators?

It started on an airplane.

Serendipity in the sky.

In 1991, Chick Young was an established pioneer in information processing in the financial industry looking for a new challenge. Rick Kneipper was at the top of his game as both a lawyer and businessman, having counseled several successful health and biomedical companies. A serendipitous meeting on an airplane began a working relationship that came to serve as the foundation for PHNS. Young and Kneipper founded the innovative healthcare services company together in 1999, aiming to revolutionize the out-of-date, lumbering industry with new technology and culture paradigm shifts.

In founding PHNS, Young and Kneipper developed a business model that is distinctly unique, compared to others in the marketplace. And they knew it would work, having spent a year conducting detailed research, speaking with the top experts in healthcare and investment banking. The idea and concept was well received, but Kneipper and Young knew that in order for this conceptual business model to become a reality, they needed to put together an experienced team with an extensive background in business and technology. They brought together well-respected professionals from their past work experiences to form the core executive team at PHNS.

The team consists of President of Business Process Outsourcing Larry Schunder, Young's right-hand operations man at his former company, ACS, who has vast experience in global implementations and operations of technology, applications and software; and Chief Technology Officer Ken Breckenridge, a business associate of Young's for more than 35 years, who worked with Young to globally introduce and implement banking technology. The circle was complete, and with the team formed, it was time to start discussing the benefits of this innovative model with the marketplace.

It was easy to see that the business of healthcare was sick - and that, as the digital age fell upon the industry, healthcare would have a difficult time handling electronic information.

To address this vast gap in healthcare's capabilities, PHNS soon developed and began delivering a comprehensive set of health information management services to two hospitals within the McLaren Health Care Corporation system based in Flint, Michigan . With commitment from the hospital's leadership, the facilities served as the alpha and beta sites for the implementation of PHNS' e-Medical Records Management Services. Based on a guarantee of accountability and reduced costs, PHNS' partnership with McLaren resulted in improved patient care delivery, improved patient record access and unparalleled customer satisfaction from patients, employees and physicians.

To summarize, it is the first of many success stories.

Creative HealthCaring

Hospital administrators know what they need---ways to prove accountability, safety and assurance to myriad audiences. The issues are complicated: How do you get new ideas introduced safely into the hospital environment?

PHNS meets the challenge with creativity. Reengineering the way technology aids in information flow across a healthcare system is something that requires a unique approach. PHNS believes in not only transforming the tools, but also in shifting the culture so that personnel who use those tools do so effectively and efficiently. After all, a hospital is people, not machines.

Creativity reigns at PHNS and in the everyday lives of the company's leadership. Co-founder and CEO Chick Young played guitar in a rock band and hunts wild game. Co-founder and CAO Rick Kneipper welds metal sculptures in his backyard and founded a not-for-profit to support independent films. If one follows by example, PHNS' leadership proves that creativity at heart is found somewhere "outside the lines."

Unlike its competitors

PHNS stands alone in the industry because of what it doesn't do. Unlike its competitors, PHNS does not sell software and isn't a former accounting firm now offering IT consulting and PHNS only serves hospitals.

Together, the talents of the PHNS leadership team and PHNS' more than 1,500 employees produced revenues of $167 million for fiscal year 2006 while helping more than 425 hospital customers across the nation save much-needed funds on their own bottom line. The more than $60 million that PHNS has generated in cost savings for its hospital partners is proof that by aligning goals and objectives with its hospital partners, PHNS is able to generate cost savings while improving services by introducing new technologies.

Creativity is the only key to solving the problems of a lumbering, ancient industry such as healthcare. From its people to its business model and practices, PHNS proves that a little non-standard thinking is what it takes to improve the efficiency, cost savings, culture and overall patient care of its hospital partners.

PHNS is proud to provide HealthCaring solutions so that hospitals and other healthcare organizations can focus on the business of caring for others. It's at the core of what they do, and it's what sets PHNS apart.