ORLANDO – Jeff Donnell, president of Fort Wayne, Ind.-based NoMoreClipboard.com, a personal health record company that was spun off from ambulatory EHR vendor Medical Informatics Engineering, used to work in advertising.

Back then, he heard of an agency that created a spoof firm: Mammoth Pervasive and Bland, Inc. “They talked about how they specialized in lunch, and overcharged for branding, and all this sort of stuff,” said Donnell. The genius of the project, he said, was how the real firm used a fake firm to show of its own creative bona fides, while simultaneously calling out the antithetical excesses of certain unnamed competitors.

Flash forward to this February, at HIMSS11, where Donnell announced at a press conference, after much speculation across the healthcare IT industry, that he’s “Brantley Whittington,” the fictional CEO of the fictional EHR firm Extormity, which pokes fun at the predatory pricing and pitiful customer service of certain nameless big-name vendors.

The firm’s funny website – alongside that of SEEDIE (Society for Exorbitantly Expensive and Difficult to Implement EHRs), a phony standards and certification commission – has gained a considerable online cult following from industry watchers, frustrated providers and, Donnell said, some of the very companies he’s parodying.

While he said NoMoreClipboard and MIE established the site in secret – striving at first to ensure “plausible deniability” should a link ever be alleged – now that they’ve decided to let the cat out of the bag, they seem to have found a novel way of marketing themselves as small firms in a crowded field of vendors.

While Donnell spent much of the press conference highlighting his own (real) company’s bona fides, he also kicked things off by announcing the launch of Extormity's newest solution: “Manacle: The Shackled Patient Portal.”

“If you like tethered portals, you’re going to love being shackled,” he said, as a photo of a pair of rusty handcuffs flashed on the screen.

The joke is emblematic of Extormity’s mission, said Donnell. Part of the reason NoMoreClipboard was established as a separate legal entity from MIE was that “we had philosophical concerns with the concept of a tethered patient portal,” he said. “Generally the consumer, the patient, can’t add information or take the information with them elsewhere.”

That’s one instance of the sort of locked-down proprietary model against which NoMoreClipboard and MIE – who tout affordable, interoperable Web-based apps – stand.

As the firms started seeking clients outside Indiana, Donnell said they heard stories from providers unhappy with the cost, disruption and poor customer service of their EHR buys.

Those “tales of woe,” said Donnell – after “several late-night brainstorming sessions aided by grain-based, creativity-enhancing beverages” – inspired the creation of Extormity, a funny and creative way to “shine a light on the fact that there are some questionable practices out there in the vendor community.”

The most common EHR complaints from providers? Prohibitive costs and necessitated workflow changes. So, from “extortion” and “conformity” came Extormity.

Typifying the worst excesses of the post-HITECH market, the firm’s press releases have found a receptive audience in the health IT industry. Its website recorded 40,000 visitors in the first month. It seems, said Donnell, to have “tapped into a deep, rich, pervasive vein of discontent.”

It may be that some providers don’t mind overpaying for EHRs that disrupt their daily workflows. Indeed, said Bruce Lisanti, the CEO of MIE, “a lot of the large practices buy into the Extormity party line: that bigger and more expensive is better. They can afford it. And they attach a certain amount of prestige to how much money they spend on technology.”

But many more are frustrated with high prices, arrogance and inept technical support. (Donnell relayed some implementation horror stories he'd heard that defied belief.)

They’re looking for alternatives, and NoMoreClipboard and MIE are happy to submit themselves for consideration. “We consider ourselves to be sort of a challenger brand,” said Donnell at HIMSS11. “As you'll see on the show floor, we have a nice exhibit, but we don’t have an aircraft carrier.”

The “innovative and subversive” parody project is a way to help draw attention to what NoMoreClipboard and MIE do well – and what they won’t do. “It's a lot of fun,” said Donnell. But at the same time, “it has moved the conversation. I think people are more aware: ‘You know what, we don't have to put up with this.’”

Moreover, it continues to help inform real-world business decisions. In meetings, said Donnell, they’ll sometimes ask, “What would Extormity do?” and promptly do the opposite.

Some have wondered whether, now that Extormity is associated with Donnell’s company, he’ll be putting an end to the parody. Not a chance. “As long as there's something to lampoon, we'll lampoon it,” he said.

In the meantime, Donnell is hoping this phony company will help set his actual firm apart from some of its bigger competitors – making size a non-issue.

“Vendor size is important, but isn’t the deciding factor for success and viability,” wrote Don Fornes, founder & CEO of Software Advice, on “The Medical Blog” earlier this year. “In this intense market, success will result from execution. The winners and losers will be determined by the competency and discipline of their management.”

And, also, perhaps, how funny and their guerilla advertising is.