THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 2, 1994 TAG: 9410010241
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
How do you run a national computer-services business from a farm that's more than an hour from the nearest major airport?
Easily, says Alan Monette, who does just that as president of Monette Information Systems Corp., near Smithfield in Isle of Wight County.
Even though it's physically isolated, modern phone networks put Monette Information close to the rest of the electronic world. And other aspects of the rural business climate actually benefit the company, Monette contends.
``There are a lot of really talented people in this community,'' he says, ``and there are not that many business establishments in Isle of Wight contesting for their talents.''
That means Monette Information gets more than its share of the Smithfield area's high-tech crop. It draws some other of its roughly 50 employees from as far away as Williamsburg and Virginia Beach.
The company's annual sales, now more than $5 million, will grow by double-digit percentages this year, Monette says. It is the nation's second-largest vendor of specialized software for community health centers. It's also one of the half-dozen largest providers of computer services to nursing homes around the country.
The company has customers as far away as California, but most of its business is on the East Coast. It is most entrenched in Virginia, North Carolina and other mid-Atlantic states.
Computerization is sweeping through every facet of health care - from insurance-claims filing to patient-care planning. That's driving Monette Information's growth.
It's becoming difficult for nursing homes to file Medicaid claims, for instance, in any other way but electronically. Paper claims aren't processed nearly as quickly.
Monette says his company is particularly well-positioned to capitalize on changes in health care because of its solid position among community health centers. There are now about 600 of these in the United States, but health care reformers want to push that number to as many as 2,000 by the turn of the century.
Monette Information strengthened its marketing position with the health centers last week. It landed a contract to be a nationwide vendor to health centers for a hot-selling line of voice-activated medical-records systems made by Kurzweil Applied Intelligence Inc. of Waltham, Mass.
Next move? Monette and his partners, Thomas E. Joyner and Gary A. Surma, are exploring the idea of their company becoming a computer-data storehouse for health care customers all over the country. Advances in electronic data interchange are making that possible.
No matter how large it grows, however, Alan Monette says his company will stay down on the farm. ``We just find a wealth of resources in our own back yard.'' ILLUSTRATION: IAN MARTIN/Staff photo
From left, Alan Monette and partners Gary A. Surma and Thomas E.
Joyner are exploring the expansion of their company, which offers
computer services to health care providers.
by CNB