“H.I.S.-tory”by Vince Ciotti

© 2011 H.I.S. Professionals, LLC

Episode # 30:

H.I.S., Inc.

Part 1

Now Where Were We…• Well, we’ve come to the end of our

minicomputer saga, this last episode telling the tale of a daring young mini-based firm in Brooklyn, NY, that had the temerity to think they could grow into the mainframe market.

• Why? For the money, of course! Mainframes sold to the largest hospitals who paid the most for hardware and software, so every vendor dreamed of selling to the big boys…

• And just who dominated the mainframe market in the late 70s when minis first took hold? If you remember our earlier episodes on mainframes, there’s a simple, 1-word answer you can see on the chart on the right from Sheldon Dorenfest’s 1987 “Guide:”

Mainframe Software Vendors• And who was writing code for these IBM mainframes?

A whole bevy of vendors vying for the huge revenue opportunity of selling to the largest hospitals willing to pay many millions to keep their 4300s running, and all developed at pioneering client sites. The leaders:– IBM itself offered software named after 2 of their

largest and most prestigious clients who built it:• The Duke/Parkland System, which was primarily

a set of clinical apps that clients had to customize heavily to meet their needs

– TDS – with superb MIS clinicals & pioneering CPOE developed first at El Camino Hospital in CA

– Medicus – an HIS consulting firm who developed a hot patient accounting software package called “Medipac” at Evanston Hospital in Illinois.

An Unlikely Challenger• The upstart little firm who challenged these far larger and more

proven vendors is an amazing HIS-tory in its own right.• The firm’s name gives away their chutzpah: Healthcare

Information Systems, Inc., and was started by two of the smartest and hard-working guys I ever met in the industry:– Barry Septimus – chairman and super-salesman– George Weinberger – president and super-techie

• They started HIS Inc. in 1978 selling a Long Term Care system that ran on Quantel minicomputers, writing code in Basic– (the Dartmouth “Quick-Basic” variety)

• They were aided by a 3rd young HIS-hero name Gershon Weintraub, who could demo the socks off of a bobby-soxer!– “Geashon” (as his name was pronounced), did their early

installs, while Barry sold and George developed the code.

Early Success & Rapid Growth• Working out of a brick corner building in the Borough Park section

of Brooklyn (with no air conditioning in the sweltering summers!), HIS Inc. grew rapidly, selling & installing over 20 LTCs on their mini systems, and growing the firm’s staff and annual revenue nicely.

• Many LTCs were owned by or affiliated with hospitals, who liked the system so much they asked if HIS had any acute care software?

• That was all the boys from Brooklyn had to hear! George’s programmers took off expanding the LTC system to handle acute care needs. Whatever prospects told Barry they needed, George programmed it Sunday and Gershon installed in on Monday!

• Soon Gershon was installing their new hospital mini system all around NY city and state, including such large & prestigious sites as Westchester County Medical Center and NYU right across the bridge in Manhattan!

Too Small for Their Britches• NYU proved to be a real challenge, as the Quantel

minis were just not up to the huge volumes of a such a large & complex major medical center.

• The software was plenty powerful, as HIS added a full suite of general accounting (ERP to moderns) applications and all the demands of NY billing.

• Plus, Barry was getting interest from more and more large medical centers in NYC all of which ran on IBM mainframes: 4300s, 303Xs or 308Xs.

• It didn’t take long for HIS to decide what they had to do: re-write the Basic code to run on IBM mainframes, whether older DOS or new MVS OS.

• George and his Tech VP and programming genius, Harold Fischman, picked PL/1, ironically, written in a NYC project lasting from 1965 to 1975.

A Brilliant Move!(?)• Rather than start from scratch re-writing all the HIS programs in PL/1,

George and “Heshy” (Harold) decided on a brilliant approach:– Translate the software from Basic to PL/1, by writing a translation

program that morphed the Basic code into PL/1 logic; where log jams were encountered, then and only then would human programmers jump in and write the needed PL/1 code.

– At a stroke (literally), they were off, coding their usual 12 hour days and 6 day weeks (Saturday = Sabbath)

• Barry started thinking about the hundreds of large IBM mainframe hospitals around the country who were targets, and realized he needed to hire a Director of Marketing who knew the larger market outside of NYC

• And didn’t look and sound like a “New Yahkah” to all those foreigners out West…

Fatal Flaw• And it was here where these brilliant NYC

entrepreneurs made their one dumb mistake.• I’ve tried to keep these episodes free of

personal prejudice, but I just have to state that the man Barry & George picked is one of the most pathetic names in the HIS industry:– An ego as big as his mouth (huge!)– With little or no brains to back it up– With an insatiable hunger for the limelight– Never knowing when to shut his trap– And totally devoid of any morals

• This idiot almost sunk HIS’ ship single-handedly with his poor sales management.

• Who was the jerk? Stay tuned next week…