Business: Health information software development and systems integration company
Launched: 1991
HQ: Juno Beach
Employees: 600+
Website: DSSInc.com
Healthcare is one of the biggest businesses in the United States, making up almost 18% of GDP. For technologists looking to make an impact, the healthtech space may be one of the most ripe for innovation.
Christopher Kunney
Christopher Kunney has worked in information technology with a focus on healthcare for three decades. He is the Chief of Strategy & Business Development at Juno Beach-based DSS, a healthcare software development and systems integration company with over 30 years of health information experience. From DSS’ commercial division, Juno Health to the United States Department of Veterans Affairs and other Federal agencies, DSS solutions are used daily by thousands of clinicians and administrative staff nationwide.
“Data is truly the currency to help understand what determines someone’s wellbeing,” said Kunney. “It’s the info that helps hospitals and clinicians make smarter, more informed decisions.” Smart use of data is critical in the shift towards what Kunney describes as “accountable care” or “incentivizing hospitals and clinicians to prevent you from getting sick, and rewarding such behavior.”
Kunney explained how DSS is leveraging technology and data to solve the industry’s thorniest problems. Take electronic health records (EHR) for example. According to Kunney, “eight out of ten professionals dislike their EHR.” That’s because legacy systems are often very keyboard heavy, which makes entering data an unnecessarily laborious task.
Kunney representing DSS at a recent rural health conference
DSS is, in Kunney’s words, “taking a bold step in the hospital EHR market” with its upcoming launch of Juno EHR.
“We’re turning the concept of the EHR on its head,” said Kunney. “We’ve built it on the clinicians’ needs, giving power back to the providers with access to the patient data they need when they need it” he explained.
This cloud-based system will centralize information and seamlessly integrate with third-party services. Because it’s a SaaS product, Kunney says that the “capital outlay for acquisition of our product is lower” compared to that of legacy providers.
This is an enticing selling point for hospitals that work off a very tight margin, said Kunney. “When they purchase as a service, it means that they don’t have to compromise: scale up as you need and scale down as you don’t.”
Kelly Kavooras
Another one of DSS’s most recent innovations under the Juno Health division, Juno RxTracker, automates and simplifies the ePrescribing process. Kelly Kavooras, Chief Marketing Officer at DSS, says that this product is especially important for meeting eprescribing mandates for controlled substances like opioids. It enables healthcare providers to check a patient’s medical records across different systems to avoid bad interactions, while also enabling prescriptions to be efficiently and effectively submitted to pharmacies.
Kunney explained that “Covid brought out the gaps and weaknesses of legacy systems.” He believes that “tech still has a long way to go to support clinical efficiencies” and thinks that DSS can play a major role in addressing the biggest healthcare challenges of our time.
“We’re starting to anticipate the direction of the industry, develop tools that help field those gaps, and help drive the market down the path for disruptive care,” he said.
Hailing from Atlanta, Kunney is “very encouraged and very excited by the healthtech market in South Florida.”
He continued, “we’re staying very involved in the tech community to support the narrative that South Florida can become a healthcare tech hub.”