Embark's History

“I need an EMR that offers the functionality I need to run my business without costing a fortune.

And it has to be easy to use so I can start utilizing it today.”

– Said every practitioner, everywhere

Great to meet you!

Shaping a solution

What do people need?

When we built Embark EMR, we challenged every cost to extend savings directly to practitioners. We challenged every cost to develop and operate Embark EMR to extend savings directly to practitioners. This means Shelby and I paid close attention to the specific needs necessary to operate and grow a practice, while minimizing complexity and cost by identifying what you don’t need.

 

We talked through every feature. Belabored over the essential tasks needed. We added things. We removed things. We spent 100s of hours refining Embark EMR.

 

Today, we’re proud that, as an autistic-owned small business, we’re helping 1,000s of practitioners to effectively run their business without sacrificing profit by using a traditional EMR.

It's all shenanigans

Our madness has a method

How did we achieve this drastically lower per user cost? Without sacrificing functionality?

  • We researched the well-known vendors by web-scraping their platform, iterations, and LinkedIn employees to define their infrastructure, strategy, and cost. 
  • We discovered old infrastructure, high-technical debt, and maintenance requirements. This simply means that these components were costing companies tons of money to operate.  
  • In addition, the platforms offered so many features (often more than most practitioners and groups need) that required more development, maintenance, and complexity – a cost that’s ultimately passed onto their customers.

That’s how we discovered our opportunity to disrupt the EMR industry.

We've come a long way

Our madness has a method

We launched our first version of Embark EMR in June 2021. Now, we serve over 1,000 practitioners from over 580 private practices.  

 

We are committed to continuously grow and evolve the platform, offering critical features while keeping costs low.  Over 80% of Embark’s features were requested by our brilliant users, making this an extraordinarily effective platform for you to build a thriving practice.

Our journey

We understand you, because we are you! We are a husband and wife team.

 

I (Shelby) am a speech therapist in private practice. When I first started out, my partner (also a speech therapist) and I did everything on a shoestring budget. As we grew, we knew our paper and pencil systems couldn’t sustain us so we jumped into using an EMR, hoping it would help us grow as a practice. Between the subscription costs, credit card fees, and “hidden” fees, we were spending more than $17,000 every year for an EMR that offered more features than we’d ever need to use (or have time to learn). And as a small practice, we could no longer justify the high cost. Enter, Cory.

 

I (Cory) am an innovative engineer with a history of applying creative solutions to challenging problems. So I stepped in to create something designed for solo and group practitioners who couldn’t justify purchasing an EMR but needed to leverage its ability to improve patient outcomes and give practitioners the ability to step away from the office.

Why does this matter?

Embarking on a mission

An electronic medical record (EMR) is the second-highest cost for solo and small group practices. A 9-person private practice typically pays $14,000 per year for an EMR (between $95 to $130/month/user).

 

Embark EMR is setting a new precedent in EMR functionality and affordability by offering a simpler and more cost-effective solution at $20/month/user. That’s a savings of more than $11,800 per year.

Define and build

Practitioners need help, let’s be there

Through our innovative approach – using cloud technology, creativity, and customer-centric features – we could offer a more simplified platform on the backend to save on costs while simultaneously providing practitioners with a better user experience.

 

Leveraging design thinking (Cory is an engineer after all!), we defined core jobs-to-be-done through 57 interviews with prospective customers and more than 100 hours of screen recordings of day-to-day task demonstrations. 

 

This allowed us to clearly define what features practitioners used, what they didn’t use, and what features were missing. 

Autistic Owned Small Business

Show the world
what you can do.

Get started with a system built around you.