Visions@work featured in the November 13, 2009 edition of The Orlando Business Journal
Startup partners with Lake County on e-referral pilot.
New technology offered free to doctors, hospitals When a doctor wants to send a patient to a specialist or other health care provider, a referral is usually pretty low-tech — a phone call, fax or piece of paper.
But Pranam Ben, CEO of Visions@work, a Clermont-based health care information technology firm, wants to change that. He said a computerized system can transfer more patient information
and better coordinate care between the referring doctor and the specialist, plus save on paper and staff time.
That’s why he’s offering Preferr, his firm’s new Web-based electronic referral management system, free for a year to Lake County’s 600 doctors and
four hospitals through a partnership with the county, Lake-Sumter Community College and the Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission.
The Lake County pilot program “will be great testimonial for us to release the product nationwide and worldwide,” Ben said.
An electronic referral system may streamline the process, instead of having a referral clerk do it manually, said Ellen Cannella, practice manager for
Leesburg family practitioners Dr. Steven Hawk and Dr. Jacqueline Puglia. “It definitely sounds like it has potential.”
