Kenneth Kee: A Trailblazer Leading the EMR Revolution in Malaysia

The 10 Most Powerful Leaders of a Successful Business to Watch in 2021 Vol 2

Malaysian government’s efforts in promoting the era of medical tourism in the country has made healthcare organization look for the best solution that help them manage their organization competitiveness and efficiency. Among these, a few healthcare providers have succeeded while many have failed as their solutions were not innovative enough. But a visionary business leader with decades of experience in business software application and solutions realized sooner what would future hold for EMR and overall healthcare sector in the country. The trailblazing innovator leading the EMR revolution in Malaysia is Kenneth Kee, CEO of Origin Integrated Studios. He set out to create ground breaking products with a team of expert software developers. What was started with a request from a local healthcare provider to deliver a state-of-the-art comprehensive EMR solution has today turned into one of the fastest growing Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) Status software development and solutions companies committed to creating innovative and creative solutions for Malaysia and its region.

To provide quality healthcare solutions with green technology

Driven by a mission to make a difference by providing quality healthcare solutions with green technology initiative ie going paper-less (eliminating the use of physical medical records by using digital forms, save the trees), Origin is leading the healthcare revolution in the region. The Origin team’s vast experience in the development, implementation, and support of Hospital Information System (HIS), Electronic Medical Record (EMR) and Clinical Information System (CIS) has made sure that Origin is always ahead of the curve. Kenneth believes Origin’s most valuable resource is its people who work as a team to support and solve the customers’ problems every step of the way. Origin provides cost-effective solutions suitable for their needs and on-going technical and consultancy support, working closely with its customers. “We are a people company, focusing on long term and trusting relationships with our customers, the main ingredient of successful project implementations and longevity. By being relatable partners with our customers for software services and solutions, we grow and face the challenges of modern times together. Satisfied customers bear testimony to the quality of our services,” Kenneth asserts.

Continuing to progress & prosper despite challenges along the way

From its humble beginnings in 2015, when Origin was set up for MSC Malaysia Status grant purposes by a handful team of software developers in small office in suburb Petaling Jaya, to the present day, the technical team has grown exponentially to over twenty. Today, the company is projecting an accelerated growth of 100% within the next two years in order to keep up with high demand for new opening of hospitals as well as healthcare digitalisation initiatives to upgrade existing out-dated old technology system in hospitals in Malaysia. Headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, Kenneth has expanded Origin services to Indonesia within the first year of founding and working closely with partners in Southeast Asia countries primarily Philippines, Vietnam and further up Northeast is South Korea through its existing customers’ business expansion.

The universal fact that applies to most people in regards with struggles and obstacles before tasting the success, is no exception to Kenneth and his team as well. During the beginning, it was a period of struggle for Kenneth to gain confidence as the market especially when comparing Origin with all others both local and foreign HIS products that have been in the market for many years. “Although our products were one of the best in comparison however there were still missing gaps in terms of modules, features and functionalities. We have to go low in terms or pricing, and willing fill the missing requirement gaps by customisation and developing new modules such as Operation Theatre Module and Chemotherapy Module. The team unbelievable effort with our customers unwavering support, Origin managed to progress and prosper solving all the challenges and problems together,” Kenneth recalls.

Proven track record of implementing EMR successfully

According to Kenneth, EMR is not a new term in the global market but none of local Malaysian company has been able to develop local software that can successfully provide a comprehensive professional services solution to meet the needs of medical professionals in the healthcare industry. Contrary to other local players, Origin has a proven track record of implementing EMR successfully within months for many hospitals in and around Malaysia. The company’s flagship product, Origin EMR can be integrated to any third-party HIS system, or connected directly to its own Origin HIS. This unique positioning offers its customers a choice of implementing EMR first in their hospital. Features and functionalities include: configurable patient queue management, Point of Care (a web based system, bring any device, anywhere, anytime and start managing your patient’s data), patient information management, outpatient clinical workflow, inpatient clinical workflow. Origin EMR has been developed with over 10 years of industry experience which touts high adoption rates amongst doctors and nurses. By providing simplistic user interface designs, Origin EMR allows doctors to either type or write clinical notes using a lightweight Tablet PC or notebook.

Guiding & helping clients in their transition from traditional to digital hospital

Kenneth says that the main value apart from reducing the cost of paper handling (includes paper, ink, folder, human resource to manage, retrieval speed, physical storage space, etc) is that the product is built based on solving customers’ problems, functioning as an information superhighway between healthcare systems for efficiency. “We here at Origin is to cultivate a culture of guiding and helping our customers in their transition from a traditional hospital to a digital hospital of the future. Moving forward together with our customer having the same mind-set on this, Origin is on its way to transform and impact the healthcare industry and save the planet,” he adds. Apart from developing the most comprehensive EMR-on-HIS solution in the market with highest adoption rate among doctors/specialists/nurses, Kenneth believes organisations achieve greatness not just through products or services, but from their people with domain knowledge.

As each of Origin’s customer clinical workflow process is about 20% slightly different from each other, its development methodology always emphasizes on building configurable setup so that any modules, features and functionalities can be turned on or off to meet at least 80% of the customer requirements. The remaining 20% is usually changes in the clinical workflow process and newly added requirements of enhanced features and functionalities. “All our projects are based on single source code of core JAVA EE while front end UI and reporting format can be personalised. We have what we call our own a digital form module which allow us to create and design any forms for data capturing for EMR. We will continue to incorporate all good features and functionalities of our customer requests for enhancement and from internal R&D into the system to make it as comprehensive as possible benchmarking with other EMR products globally. Here in Malaysia, Origin is building world class products for local consumption and for the global market,” Kenneth further adds.

An exponential growth & incredible numbers proving the quality

Till now, Origin has been successfully leading EMR revolution in Malaysia, having served more than 17 hospitals & 15 clinics with over 3,000 beds and 500 doctors/specialists, supporting more than 5,000 application users that serve more than 5 million patients per year in and around Malaysia. “We are in the midst of implementing our solution to support some of the most technologically advanced group of hospitals in Southeast Asia, strategically working together with Origin to achieve their digital transformation,” Kenneth explains.

With more than ten years’ experience in the healthcare industry, and in-depth domain knowledge in hospital process flow and requirements as well healthcare solutions, the company looks forward to remaining in the forefront as the market leader, by providing state-of-the-art products developed through continuous research and development, to achieve creative innovation and solving customers’ problems. Origin is way ahead of its’ competitors in this game with at least 4 to 5 new implementations per year at new hospital sites and also replacing competitor product at existing hospital sites. In the next five to ten years, Origin will continue to push forward to establish themselves as one of the leading healthcare technology solution providers in Southeast Asia, and focus on group hospitals and group clinics as its clients.

Leading the company to ever-greater heights of success is Kenneth Kee, CEO of Origin Integrated Studios, who upholds the ideology of the company being customer-centric, delivering continuous customer support and providing better services. Having a wealth of experience in the development of enterprise business software applications and solutions, Kenneth has also been instrumental in materializing the idea of digital forms, an engine for Origin EMR which enable digital transformation for hospitals. Kenneth mentioned that his achievement so far derived from being passionate and persistence in pursuing his goals. According to him, passion, persistence and teamwork are the key factors to success. He advises to stay focus and be competitive.