50 Most Trustworthy Companies of the Year 2020
The Silicon Review
The healthcare segment is one of the most massive industries in the world. Healthcare consulting is critical to the success of leading health systems because of rapidly evolving market dynamics, regulatory forces, and consumer demands. A healthcare consultancy must fully understand the role of every stakeholder across the value chain, whether a patient, doctor, manufacturer, or payer, because it contributes to the organization’s ability to solve complex problems. Healthcare consulting involves driving value and providing deep experience to every healthcare engagement.
e4 is a healthcare consulting and services company specializing in innovative solutions. The company’s mission is to be the premier solution provider within healthcare by combining great people, great customers, and innovative ideas to solve its customers’ most complex problems. e4 is comprised of an elite team of leaders and professionals who are among the best and the brightest in the industry. Founded in 2006, e4 provides a full suite of IT, Revenue Cycle, Clinical, HIM, CDI, and Coding solutions. Its goal as a company is to remain customer-centric, quality-driven, and specialized, working with only the best people and organizations that want the best in specific disciplines. e4 chooses areas where it knows that it can be the best and employs LEAN Engineering software and tactics to deliver an unparalleled value proposition. e4 has grown to serve more than 200 total health systems, including respected and established national academic health systems, children’s hospitals, large health networks, community hospitals, and clinics. e4’s clients recognize it for its specialized skills, first-class people and unique innovations.
In conversation with Niall Doherty, President, Co-Founder of e4
Q. How has COVID-19 changed how e4 delivers services?
We have been steadfast in delivering the highest level of service to our clients. However, there is no denying that the COVID-19 pandemichas pushed healthcare into unprecedented new territory. As a result, new and innovative solutions are needed to support healthcare organizations in what we see as Healthcare 2.0. Where traditional services can take months – or even years – to develop, e4 has been developing six brand new solutions every six weeks. These Solution Bots are simple, self-contained, and can be deployed quickly to provide immediate assistance to health systems dealing with the impacts of COVID-19. These Bots address some of the most pressing issues being faced in healthcare. For example, our Remote Worker Productivity Tool (e4sight™) is the only healthcare-specific productivity tool for remote workers, and is helping organizations to quickly and easily capture and report productivity data for any work function, both remote or onsite. Our LEAN Engineering Agile Programs (LEAP) Bot improves transparency and accountability of an organization’s entire portfolio of projects within 30 days. Additional Bots have been designed to support telehealth optimization, supply chain cost reduction, coding cost savings, process improvement, and much more.
Q. How has e4 been able to build trust with its client base?
We work hard to earn our customers’ trust and become trusted advisors and a reliable partner in anticipating and addressing needs so that our clients can achieve results that exceed the sum of the parts. The greatest driving force in this success is driven by retaining A Player, quality people who deliver quality results for our customers – many of whom come back to us time and again for solutions.
Q. What separates e4 from the competition?
At e4, we aim to employ a LEAN Engineering mindset to solve our customers’ healthcare industry problems. We believe that healthcare services do not have to be never-ending, wasteful, expensive, or self-serving. We believe there is a faster, better way for healthcare institutions to solicit help that is as efficient and economical as possible, which will also make each client self-sufficient. This drive led us to develop e4 LEAN Engineering, which is based on utilizing proven, repeatable processes to achieve an on-time, on-budget initiative. We employ LEAN Governance, a3’s, Kaizens, Blueprints, and industry-leading program management and visibility software (e4caster®) to eliminate waste, accelerate timelines, and reduce overall expenses. Our clients start projects fast and finish faster because we empower them with every lesson, shortcut, and strategy from our constantly evolving LEAN Engineering Playbooks. These Playbooks are full of tactics, pre- built templates, and LEAN tools.
These tools have been enhanced through extensive trial and error to help our clients avoid common program roadblocks and pitfalls.
Q. What big changes do you see occurring in healthcare in the next five years?
In addition to the increased use of artificial intelligence in healthcare, we see organizations continuing to need to find ways to “do more with less.” The pressure to find cost savings is increasing for every healthcare organization. We feel that our role is to provide services that improve operations while also having a rapid bottom-line impact. We are excited to continue to build solutions that will go a long way toward achieving our goal of helping our customers create better healthcare.
Meet the leaders behind the success of e4
Niall Doherty, President and Co-Founder: As e4’s President and Co-Founder, Niall oversees projects at an executive level and provides strategic and tactical healthcare assistance to multiple customers. He is also an industry expert in managing complex programs and initiatives. He is a 15-year veteran of Siemens Health Services serving in positions including General Manager of HIM and Document Management Solutions, National Sales and Marketing Director, Project Manager and Senior Engineer. Niall pushes every team member at e4 to be LEAN, and to be critical and innovative thinkers. He has worked exclusively with healthcare institutions across the US for the last 25 years; his passion is optimizing the management complex issues and projects in the healthcare industry.
Mike Brensinger, RHIA, CPHQ, and Co-Founder: Mike is a Health Information Management and Technology Executive with leadership experience in successfully building and optimizing Health Information Management (HIM) and Technology Services organizations and companies. With more than 15 years’ experience in Health Information Technology management, Mike possesses a unique and valued combination of expertise in HIM and Information Technology operations.
Jim Hennessy, CEO: Jim has over 33 years of management experience within the business technology field, with 30 focused in the healthcare IT field. He possesses a clear understanding of how to effectively position IT and how to drive transformation initiatives to meet the business requirements of healthcare organizations. He has served in numerous executive level roles including Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Information Officer, Chief Technology Officer, and various senior manager/director leadership positions.