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Ingenious Med Adopts Rapid Software Development, Allowing Customers to Drive Product and Technology

Posted on: Wednesday, 21 January 2009, 10:25 CST

ATLANTA, Jan. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Ingenious Med (IM), the leader in inpatient practice management information systems, announces recent adoption of rapid development methodology. Rapid development aims at aligning software development directly with client's needs, resulting in a more usable and versatile product.

Rapid development delivers high-quality software at a quick and effective pace by radically reducing the size and duration of iterations of the software. The smaller scope of content and shorter duration of the release cycle allows design, development and Quality Assurance to occur nearly simultaneously, and within a very short period of time after a business need is identified. In addition, the smaller and quicker software project iterations differ from the traditional software development model of drawn-out, expensive and dramatic model changes, by allowing for tightly circumscribed changes resulting in higher quality, user-driven and more frequent releases.

Additionally, rapid development emphasizes a leadership philosophy, replacing hierarchy with team-work and aligning development projects with customer needs. This collaborative methodology elicits usable, highly developed and maintained software and prompts input from many sources (internally and externally) during the development process. Comprehensively, rapid development focuses on interaction, usable software, customer collaboration and fast response to change.

"We want our customers to be our partners," said Chris Randall, Director of Technology. "Ingenious Med is breaking down the barriers between traditional development and customer involvement in order to maximize usefulness and value of the product. We want our software development to be driven by the application's users, not by technology."

Ingenious Med's evolving rapid development model will focus on a group environment with open face-to-face communication between developers and customers. Short iterations with minimal planning allow the project to quickly adapt to changes, while minimizing overall risk and disruption of the product. IM's four-week schedule of design, coding, testing and release is complete with a monthly staff meeting facilitating discussion of the release, suggestions and requests across all departments within the company. Additionally, IM is actively partnering with its clientele to serve as designers and consultants on the development team. In the form of a customer advisory board, IM engages with users of the application to discuss product releases and gather feedback. IM welcomes all interested users to join the customer advisory board.

"Down the road, we hope to deliver complete transparency between our users and staff," said Mike Pickering, COO. "We want to meet our clients' real needs, and offer high-quality, extremely usable software focused around their practices and, especially, their patients."

About Ingenious Med, Inc.

Ingenious Med was founded in 1999 by a group of practicing hospitalist leaders and has a customer base comprising thousands of users in more than 500 facilities across the United States.

Ingenious Med's flagship product, IM Practice Manager is an Internet-based application that enables inpatient physicians to capture charges, improve quality of care, and communicate digitally with peers and administrators. In addition, the program aggregates management data separately from the hospital information system, so individual physician and total department performance can be accurately evaluated. Nationwide, they are the leader in inpatient practice management solutions, and support all inpatient physicians from hospitalists to all specialty groups. For more detailed information on Ingenious Med, visit www.ingeniousmed.com or call 404.815.0862.

SOURCE Ingenious Med

Source: PR Newswire

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