AMES, Iowa -- Veteran West Des Moines entrepreneur Donald Schoen has excelled in the growth and management of several businesses in multiple industries, including co-founding MediNotes (now Eclipsys) -- an independent Electronic Health Record vendor that was named the 2007 "Technology Company of the Year" by the Technology Association of Iowa. Schoen will discuss his entrepreneurial success on Friday, April 9 at Iowa State University, as the final speaker in the Entrepreneur Forum Series, sponsored by ISU's Pappajohn Center for Entrepreneurship.
Schoen's free, public talk will take place from noon to 1 p.m. in the Memorial Union, Gallery Room. No reservations are necessary to attend, and participants are welcome to bring their lunch. Throughout the year, the ISU Pappajohn Center Entrepreneur Forum Series has featured entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, consultants and business professionals discussing their entrepreneurial experiences.
After beginning his professional career as an audiologist, Schoen moved into the Soft Serve yogurt business as his first business venture in 1977. He later moved back to Des Moines to manage the family-owned supermarket business. While involved in the supermarket industry, he perceived a need to automate inventory control and started a software company called Retail Management Systems (RMS) in 1984. RMS rose to Inc. 500 status and Schoen was chosen in 1992 as Emerging Business Entrepreneur of the Year for Iowa and Nebraska.
In 1995, Schoen met a doctor who was developing an electronic charting system and the two began working together, eventually forming MediNotes Corporation. MediNotes established strategic alliances with major industry players and since 1995, the company has installed software in over 5,000 medical clinics and services more than 25,000 users nationwide.
For his work in MediNotes, Schoen was awarded the Entrepreneur of the Year award by Ernst and Young in 2004, and was the 2007 recipient of the CEO Award from the Technology Association of Iowa. He has also received the Sybase Innovator award, been selected as a Computerworld Honor Laureate award twice, and participated as a finalist in the TEPR (Toward Electronic Patient Records) Clinical Documentation Challenge.
MediNotes was honored on the Inc. 500 in both 2005 and 2006. It also debuted on the Inc 5,000 list for 2007. After Schoen raised $4.4 million in venture funding to advance MediNotes, the Eclipsys Corporation purchased the company in October 2008. Schoen moved into two different job roles with Eclipsys until leaving last July.
He was a founding member of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Electronic Health Record Association, serving as chairman from 2006 until 2008. He also served on the Advisory Committee of HL7, a healthcare standards organization. He currently sits on the board for Palisades Systems, an internet Data Loss Prevention software company, advising early-stage startup companies.
More information on MediNotes (Eclpsys) is available at http://www.medinotes.com/.
Additional information on the ISU Pappajohn Center for
Entrepreneurship may be obtained at http://www.isupjcenter.org/.
