What started out as a whim by a couple of software engineers led to a big breakthrough for MIM Software.
In early 2008, MIM’s developers began hammering out the initial lines of code to what three years later became the first-ever medical imaging mobile app to be cleared for sale by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
“It wasn’t part of our business plan. It just happened,” said Chief Technology Officer Mark Cain. “Two of our employees began writing the code just to see if they could do it.”
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It’s that visionary work and first-mover status that makes Beachwood, Ohio-based MIM Software the first winner of MedCity Media’s “The Cities” Disruptor Award, given to a company that has made a major breakthrough in the last 12 months. “The Cities” awards honor the best, brightest and most innovative in Cleveland’s healthcare scene.
“I am proud that we haven’t lost sight of the goal to improve the healthcare of patients through our software, even as we have grown from four people in a one-room office nine years ago to over 60 employees today,” Cain said.
The company navigated through a lengthy, two-year minefield of regulatory uncertainty to obtain FDA clearance of its Mobile MIM app, which shrinks the size of radiology images like CT and PET scans and transfers them securely while still allowing physicians to measure image intensity values.
MIM has created versions of the app for the iPhone and iPad. The company hopes the app makes reading medical images more convenient and spurs more collaboration among physicians.
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In May, the company released another app, the VueMe, that allows patients to view medical images sent to them by doctors.
In addition to the mobile radiology app, MIM sells several other software imaging packages used in oncology, neurology and cardiology. The company recently released the second-generation version of its web-based MIM Cloud software, which allows for the transfer and sharing of radiology images.
MIM Software got its start after founder and CEO Dennis Nelson saw that the technical limitations associated with viewing medical images like CT and PET scans were harming doctors’ ability to provide the best patient care. He worked nights and weekends to come up with a software package to better align the two types of images, and that software eventually became the company’s MIMfusion product.
So what’s next for MIM Software? Cain points to one of the company’s most recent products, MIM Symphony, a software package that helps doctors perform a procedure called low-d0se rate (LDR) brachytherapy. The procedure can be used to treat breast and prostate cancer, and involves implanting radioactive seeds into the body. The procedure can offer fewer side effects and less discomfort than traditional radiation therapy.
Cain said the new software package fits with the company’s mission of providing physicians with the tools they need to improve patient care. If MIM Software sticks with that ethos, it’ll likely help Cain achieve his own goals for the company.
“My goal is to keep MIM Software a place I’ll want to work at 20 years from now, because of the joy in what we’ve accomplished and the quality of life and satisfaction we’ve made possible for our entire staff,” he said.
