Medical Software Developer Broadening its Market

X-Link Medical Software Interfacing of Pasco County

Sometimes in life you have to take matters into your own hands. The Gorslines did just that in 1988 when they first started their business, Easy Business Software. The business is now called X-Link Medical Software Interfacing.

After one of their daughters was born with a bad medical condition, they discovered how medical records get lost or misplaced within hospitals and physician offices.  This prompted them to become the developers of a medical software interfacing system, which acts as the middleman between systems and exchanges data between them.

They recently discovered a great opportunity to expand internationally. “The beauty of it is many countries are behind the United States in healthcare,” Gary Gorsline said.  “They have the advantage of seeing all the mistakes the United States has made and in a lot of cases they can leapfrog much more quickly into better solutions that hopefully provide better outcomes for their populations.”

With the increasing development of healthcare systems and technologies they decided to reach out for help.

“I think our biggest challenge is for us to keep up with the international marketplace,” Gary said.

Following their work with Sandra Campbell at the U.S. Commerce Department, Max Stewart at SelectFlorida, and Devon Barnett at the Pasco Economic Development Council, the Florida SBDC at University of South Florida was recommended to the Gorslines.

With the joint effort of all four organizations, X-Link was able to develop a successful Export Marketing Plan.

X-Link owners recently attended Discover Global Markets: Healthcare Connections in Seattle where they connected with six different buyers from five countries.  Beforehand, they were able to take advantage of the classes the Florida SBDC at USF offers.

“International Trade Master Series was an excellent class; it was an excellent way to cover the basics before we jump into international trade,” Mary Lynn Gorsline said. “We went to Seattle for the discover global markets for healthcare, which was a fantastic trip. It was just a really good education to have the class and our Export Marketing Plan before we went to that event so we were really prepared to speak with these people and really get a lot of information out of them.”

They will be travelling to Dusseldorf, Germany, this November to present at Medica, the largest healthcare event in the world with more than 130,000 attendees. They may also be attending the Arab Health Convention in Dubai next January.

“While we were at the Discover Global Markets: Healthcare Connections in Seattle, one of the buyers that we talked to from Saudi Arabia is very involved with the private health care distribution in the country and their biggest problem is they need to connect into the government’s healthcare system for the sharing of records, which again this is exactly what we do; we get the clinical data out of different systems to other systems,” Gary said.

Not only are they seeing success internationally but also on a local scale.

“We’ve got quite a few projects where we’re transferring clinical data to a statewide HIE (Health Information Exchange),” Leana Gorsline said.  “We’ve also pushed into the physical therapy space which has pulled us into almost every aspect of healthcare. We are very excited to be a part of that knowing that we have the know-how and knowledge to sort through the data to make it really work for them because it is a very complex set of data.”

X-Link continues to expand and grow their business. “The SBDC gave us a prioritized list of approximately 30 countries. They used 13 different indicators to come up with a selection list, so our position right now is to get this selection process completed and go forward with exporting,” Gary said.

“My recommendations for other companies who are considering exporting would be to get involved with all our your local economic development organizations, as they can help you sort through all the details that apply to your company specifically,” he added. “If you’re going to try exporting and you’re a small business you definitely need to get involved with these organizations for their help, without it you will not be successful, it’s too overwhelming for a small business.”