develop new products. The company has also formed partnerships with Entrust Technologies, MEDePass and Sequoia Software. The company was formerly known as Vger Technologies, Inc. and changed its name to Phyve, Inc. in May 1999 as a result of the merger between Vger Technologies and Digital Medical Systems Inc. The company was founded in 1997 and is based in Nashville, Tennessee.

Phyve slims down to 13, said to reach profitability RECOMMEND TWITTER E-MAIL PRINT SHARE The workforce of health care IT company Phyve Inc. has shrunk from 85 to 13 and consequently turned the four-year-old company into a profitable entity Published January 7, 2002 by Molly Cate The workforce of health care IT company Phyve Inc. has shrunk from 85 to 13 and consequently turned the four-year-old company into a profitable entity, according to its CEO.

The bulk of those changes took place Oct. 15, although some were completed over time through attrition, says Chief Executive Terry Hemmings. “We streamlined some positions on the back office infrastructure side and out in front on the development side. The development team is now working on some of our strategic partnerships that could serve as revenue streams down the road, versus the original plan,“ says Hemmings. “We’re now a financially healthy company with a sustainable business model at this point.“

Phyve, originally called Vger Technologies, is one of five sister companies financed by Charlie Martin the year after he sold OrNda Healthcorp to Tenet Healthcare for roughly $1.7 billion in 1997. The company is located in Burton Hills, where a whole slew of Mr. Martin’s portfolio companies are nestled in together.

Nashville-based HCA also made an investment in Phyve. The hospital company uses Phyve’s technology in its hospitals across the country. Phyve offers a secure Internet connection that can be used to transfer clinical, financial, and administrative processes from providers to outside parties. The company expected its biggest driver of its revenue to be the security portion of HIPAA (The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996). However, the federal government has been much slower to implement the sweeping privacy regulations than anyone in the industry expected.

Phyve is now solely focusing on its security piece and expects the demand for it to swell when the grace period of HIPAA’s security portion ends in roughly two and half years. The company dropped a Web portal delivery model that it acquired after purchasing Silicon Valley-based Digital Medical Records in 1999. Phyve also shut down its California office, which once employed 50-55 people. Some of those developers moved to Nashville upon the closure of the office.

Of Phyve’s 85 people it originally employed, Hemmings says 15 were outside consultants.

“That was at the apex of the new economy though,“ Hemmings says.