Imagine having only a few months to find a new EHR platform when your current vendor decides to exit the market. [insert panic here]. For one provider, this crisis was an opportunity to find a new vendor that was more aligned with their organization – open, flexible, and collaborative. Lucky for them, they found one.
That was the reality for Dria McCluskey, Senior Vice President of Innovation and Technology at Sound Physicians, when her team had to replace an outgoing vendor on a tight timeline. Together with Venky Chellappa, VP of Sales and Business Development at CharmHealth, she shared how urgency, open APIs, and AI copilots changed the trajectory of their EHR strategy.
Key Takeaways
- Forced transitions can accelerate innovation. When Sound Physicians’ vendor exited, the urgency pushed them to rethink what an EHR could be—not just documentation, but a telehealth-first platform.
- APIs were critical. CharmHealth won the RFP not by having every feature out of the box, but by proving they could open up APIs and co-build with Sound.
- Excitement for AI copilots. Both organizations see AI copilots as more than note-taking. CharmHealth is embedding them into every screen to guide workflows, onboard clinicians faster, and eliminate templates altogether.
Crisis as Catalyst
Pressure often exposes weaknesses, but it can also accelerate bold decisions. For Sound Physicians, the vendor’s exit triggered a rethink of what their technology stack should do for their national practice.
“Prior to Charm Health, we did have another vendor and they had approached us earlier last year and shared that they were exiting the industry,” explained McCluskey. “So, we had a bit of pressure to find a new technology. We did an open RFP out in the market.”
Sound Physicians is not a typical practice. They do not have physical locations. Instead, they provide emergency medicine, hospital medicine, critical care, anesthesia, and other services to other healthcare providers. Sound Physicians also has a large telemedicine practice. Their unique service model means they have unique requirements for their EHR.
“Most telemedicine is B-to-C where the provider is one-on-one with the patient, that’s not what we do,” continued McCluskey. “We have what we call a patient presenter, usually a nurse, who connects with the doctor first, and then they bring the device into the resident or patient’s room for the telemedicine consult.”
Not surprisingly, two key requirements that were included in Sound Physicians’ open RFP for their next EHR were: flexibility and adaptability.
APIs as the Differentiator
CharmHealth didn’t win the RFP because it checked every feature box. The company won by being open and willing enough to build alongside Sound Physicians. For Sound Physicians, it meant being able to document clinician-to-clinician encounters, having Slack-like messaging in the platform, and state licensing rules baked into the workflow. Those kinds of requirements would overwhelm most out-of-the-box EHRs.
“We built a lot of APIs based on the requirements, and then also worked very closely with Dria and their team of engineers,” stated Chellappa. “We made a huge commitment.”
Those APIs were the bridge that allowed Sound Physicians to layer on its own provider matching algorithms, licensing checks and consult routing, without losing speed or control.
AI That Works in the Background
Both organizations are excited about the potential of AI to reduce or eliminate administrative work – notes that write themselves, chats that get auto-summarized, and more intelligent scheduling.
“We’re very excited about Charm Co-Pilot,” said McCluskey. “Whether you’re on a patient record and you need something summarized or you are in a chat and you want that summarized, we’re very excited to see how the co-pilot helps make the workflows more efficient.”
Chellappa added that copilots could also ease onboarding for part-time doctors who don’t live inside the EHR every day, answering their questions in plain language and formatting their work automatically.
Adaptability outlasts any product roadmap
No one likes to have a deadline forced upon them. Doubly so when it’s an incumbent vendor shutting down a platform you depend on. But from that crisis, Sound Physicians found a new EHR partner in CharmHealth who was willing to collaborate and whose platform had the APIs to accommodate the unique needs of their practice.
High-pressure transitions don’t always end this way. Yet as healthcare faces more change and turbulence, the ability to lean on collaboration and technology built for adaptation may matter far more than having every feature checked off on day one.
Learn more about Sound Phyisicians at https://www.soundphysicians.com/
Learn more about CharmHealth at https://www.charmhealth.com/
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