The Hindu : Business : U.S. firm sets up innovation centre

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Feb 25, 2006

Business

Business

U.S. firm sets up innovation centre

Special Correspondent

To take up medical data conversion

CHENNAI: athenahealth, Inc. of the U.S., which provides online revenue cycle management services for physicians, has announced that it has set up a corporate innovation centre here. The Indian subsidiary is christened as AthenaNet India. The new corporate innovation centre is expected to induct high-level software developers and process engineers.

The move for an innovation centre (akin to a research and development outfit) comes even as athenahealh completed more than four years of operations here through a contract relationship with Perot System. The U.S. firm is essentially using a third party vendor like Perot System to convert a maze of medical information in paper into the electronic mode.

Jonathan Bush, co-founder and Chief Executive, athenahealth, said there was huge opportunity for driving the outsourcing business in India given the sheer size of medical information on paper currently in the U.S. The innovation centre, he said, was aimed at scaling up this outsourcing business volume.

Mr. Bush, who is a cousin of the U.S. President, George W. Bush, said the innovation centre would work in close tandem with its third party vendors like Perot System. "The centre will also take ownership of both the outsourcing relationship and underlying technologies," he said. The centre would manage all the business process work done for athenahealh in India.

The centre had come up with an initial investment of $500,000. Mr. Bush indicated that athenahealth would infuse more funds into it as and when required. The centre would have a headcount of 50. He hinted that athenahealth's number count in India — on its own and through third party vendors — would go up to 500. Besides providing strategy and direction, the Chennai centre would develop application software. "At least one-third of the value added work for U.S. clients could come from here," he added.

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