This year’s holiday season is officially here, which for many of us means a flurry of social engagements, shopping trips and family gatherings. In the business world as well, the fourth quarter can be a stressful time, from final efforts to meet quotas to meticulous budget planning for the next year. It’s easy to get caught up in this whirlwind without taking time to reflect back on the current year, accomplishments achieved and lessons learned.

As I think about 2023, I have much to be thankful for. My wife, Meagan, is an incredible partner and my role model in parenting. I have two wonderful young kids, Benjamin and Ruby, and watching them thrive in youth sports and otherwise find their passions in life is truly a privilege. We love our home in the Atlanta area, where we have a great community of friends and neighbors, and where we can enjoy outdoor recreation most of the year. At a professional level, I’m celebrating 16 years with the company, and I’m excited and honored to step into a new role as Executive Vice President of the Paragon business unit here at Altera.

One for the books

The entire Paragon team has a lot to be proud of as we look back on 2023. This year, we celebrated the 25^th anniversary of the EHR platform—a testament to its strength and the strength of partnerships built with our clients. The team’s unwavering discipline resulted in  contract extensions with ten existing clients, including Bergen New Bridge Medical Center, Pipeline Health and Columbus Community Hospital. We also proudly announced a new relationship with Resilience Health, a two-hospital system in Chicago.

In addition to this momentum, a lot of the team’s hard work will really come to life in 2024. Our first Microsoft Azure-hosted Paragon client went live earlier this year, and we have plans underway to shift the entire base to the cloud in the coming years. We’ve also spent time investing in exciting new clinical functionality and redesigning our R&D methodology, which will bring incremental wins to our clients more quickly, more reliably and more cost-effectively.

A new chapter begins

While these accomplishments are worth celebrating, we have not lost sight of the very real challenges facing our clients. Community hospitals are under more financial pressure than ever before, and large corporations threaten their independence. Software and technology that gives them more for their money is no longer an option, but a necessity.

This is why the Paragon BU is operated as a partner to our clients, rather than as just another vendor. We know the stakes, and that is reflected in the product itself. Built specifically for community hospitals, Paragon is an integrated, enterprise EHR that covers more areas of a hospital’s operations than others in the market—at an attainable cost. We’ve evolved our deployment methodology to be both prebuilt and customizable, giving clients a ready-to-use solution, but in an environment all their own.

We recognize the huge market opportunity in this space, and we are ready to execute in the year ahead. While Paragon has existed for 25 years, Altera is closing out its first full calendar year since joining the Harris Healthcare family. With the energy of a startup and the discipline of an experienced veteran, we are poised to elevate healthcare. And we’re just getting started.