SpectraSoft History

SpectraSoft, Inc. was founded in 1993 with a vision to create a new generation of affordable and easy to use appointment scheduling software for the healthcare market.

Steven L. Petrie, the C.E.O. and founder, had been involved in the computer business since 1974, and had extensive experience in healthcare computing. Prior to founding SpectraSoft, he was a principal in a company that created and sold large software solutions to hospital departments.

In 1993, appointment scheduling systems available to small clinics and private practices were usually part of a billing system, and were created as an afterthought to enhance the billing system offering. They were slow and difficult to use. As a result, the most popular method of scheduling was a paper appointment book. Larger practices would buy large appointment books from beauty supply houses to try to handle the appointment scheduling task.

Our research confirmed that scheduling systems offered to the hospital market were largely very expensive adjuncts to large centralized hospital information systems. Because of their underlying technology they required extensive user training to be used effectively, and making appointments was usually a complex and lengthy process. Those systems were almost always used in a centralized scheduling setting and often shunned by ancillary departments because of their cost and complexity. Again, manual scheduling methods were the norm with their attendant problems of inaccuracy and difficulty of obtaining meaningful management information from the appointment book.

What was true in 1993 is largely true today.

SpectraSoft’s objective was to create an appointment scheduling system that was faster and easier to use than an appointment book, and provide the additional benefits of accuracy and meaningful management reporting. We focused on functionality and ease of use coupled with features that would help practices increase revenue, reduce costs and increase patient satisfaction. The acceptance of the marketplace is a testament to our success in meeting our high product standards: SpectraSoft products are installed in more than 3,000 clinics and 450 hospitals, as well as a variety of other venues. The software has been selected by a number of companies who integrate the system and resell it with their products.

SpectraSoft’s products today reflect the experience of almost 10 years development and experience in a wide variety of settings. Our systems are very much a reflection of thousands of users’ input and requests over the years. While the functionality and features have increased significantly, the program is still true to its original design goal: it is quick to learn and easy to use. One hospital administrator reported that after replacing his previous system with the SpectraSoft solution, his user training was reduced from one full week to two hours.

SpectraSoft solutions are now available for clients of all sizes, from small private practices to enterprise systems for large multi-facility hospitals. Every system is optimized to pay for itself quickly by increasing revenues and reducing expenses. Our commitment to customer service and on-going research and development underscores our commitment to be a long-term solutions partner with our clients.