Nuvodia LLC, a young company with Inland Imaging Business Associates LLC's long-time information technology operations at its core, is preparing to increase its market penetration nationwide.

The effort, says Nuvodia CEO Jon Copeland, largely will involve working to provide health informatics to rural hospitals and specialty practices throughout the U.S. Long term, the company also wants to increase its information-technology presence in professional services—the accounting industry specifically—and to enter the energy sector.

"We're going to be opportunistic," says Copeland, who started as Inland Imaging's first IT specialist 16 years ago.

In addition to the longstanding Inland Imaging IT unit, Nuvodia involves the Spokane-based TROI IT operations that Inland Imaging acquired in early 2011 and the former St. Louis-based QuickStudy Radiology Inc., which it bought early this year. It services include medical imaging informatics, help-desk support, hosting, and consulting, among others.

Copeland says Nuvodia expects to have $20 million in revenue this year, about half of which will come from the former Inland Imaging operations and about a quarter each from the former TROI IT and QuickStudy operations.

The company has a total of 90 employees, most of whom are located in the Inland Imaging headquarters at 801 S. Stevens. The other employees include eight in St. Louis, four in Seattle, and one in Texas.

Copeland says the company's business plan calls for it to increase to $30 million in annual revenue by the end of 2016. That growth, he says, is expected to occur through a mix of acquisitions and increased market share, or organic growth.

The company's workforce will increase as well, but not at an aggressive clip. Randy Kembel, president of Nuvodia, says that if the company reaches its revenue goals during the next 4 1/2 years, its total employment likely will increase by 10 percent to 20 percent, or nine to 18 people.

The new company is operating as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Inland Imaging Investment Inc., which is the parent company for the Inland Imaging group of companies. Those companies include Inland Imaging PS, the radiology practice, and Inland Imaging LLC, the joint venture with Providence Health Care that operates the 15 imaging centers throughout the Inland Northwest, in addition to Nuvodia and Inland Imaging Business Associates.

Inland Imaging CEO Steve Duvoisin says Nuvodia, which is intended to mean "new day," is expected to be a primary vehicle for the company's expansion in coming years.

Of all of the business units, Duvoisin says, "Nuvodia has the biggest potential for growth."

He adds, "Nuvodia is going to be focused on health care, and health care is going to need a lot of IT in the coming years."

Copeland says one area of concentration early on will be rural hospitals, primarily those with 25 or fewer in-patient beds that are classified as critical access hospitals. Nuvodia currently serves about 50 such hospitals, mostly in Eastern Washington and in the Midwest. He says, however, there are almost 1,500 such facilities in the U.S., and many of those facilities could benefit from having greater telemedicine capabilities.

Urban hospitals, in many instances, are trying to add in-patient beds while such beds remain empty in rural hospitals, with patients being sent to larger facilities because of some inadequacy at the smaller one, Copeland says. Installing technology that would allow physicians to review images or see a patient via video conference might allow more rural hospitals to keep more patients in their facilities.

The former QuickStudy operations have a strong presence in that market, and Copeland says the Midwest is "the Milky Way of rural health care," meaning there are a lot of critical access hospitals clustered in that part of the country—and relatively close to the St. Louis office.

Another area of focus will be specialty medical practices, many of which are receiving incentives from the federal government to convert to all-electronic systems.

"All of the 'ologies are going digital, and we've been there for the last 12 years," he says.

Nuvodia will look also to increase its market share beyond health care. Already, about 25 percent of its business is outside of the health care sector. The vast majority of that is from the former TROI IT operations, which had been owned by the LeMaster & Daniels PS accounting firm.

The company also has a presence in the manufacturing and utility industries, including doing some work for Spokane-based Avista Corp.

Copeland says that in the coming years, the company will look at gaining a stronger foothold in the energy sector. He says there are a couple of similarities between that sector and health care; both typically have large, complex systems, and those systems must function continuously.

Entry into the energy market might be accomplished by strengthening the expertise the company already has, Copeland says, or through acquisition of an IT company in that field.

He says, though, that while it will look to diversify, "We will only go where we have a deep expertise in the domain."