Biltmore Couple Turns Tragedy to Triumph

"He's a techie," says Mary Purkiss of her husband, Ed. "And she is a visionary," gushes Ed right back. Together, this Biltmore-area couple took tumor sized lemons that life gave them and made more than lemonade - they made a future for themselves and their family.

Here's how. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Purkisses were busy parents to three children under age 10 and business partners with a successful group of call centers. Their center allowed them to travel the world and help oversee the careers of more than 500 employees.

Living a seemingly idyllic life, the Purkisses lived, worked and played together with smiles on their faces when looking at all they had accomplished as a team.

Then, "that night" happened. "That night" refers to what was the couple's annual company holiday party. While eagerly getting ready for the big night, Ed noticed a lump in Mary's breast that he swore wasn't there even a week earlier. Nervous, he convinced Mary to at least get it checked out - just in case.

Somehow, both scared, they made it through the holiday party.

When Mary visited her doctor, she ended up having to have a needle biopsy. Still healing from it, the doctor called days later and gave Ed news that would rock their world forever.

"Your wife has breast cancer, and we need to schedule a mastectomy immediately," said the doctor to a shocked Ed.

Terrified, less than three weeks later, Ed sat in the hospital watching as Mary was taken away for surgery. And it wouldn't be the last time. The healing process, and resulting reconstruction took over 2 years.

"During that time we decided to sell our business to focus on both Mary's cancer battle and the children," says Ed, noting that selling the business was a blessing in disguise as it turned out that Mary needed six surgeries as part of her reconstruction process, during which her father was also diagnosed with lung cancer.

The entire family's life revolved around doctors' offices for the better part of two years. It was there that Mary, Ed and even their children were continuously mystified at how busy Mary's specialists and doctors were dealing with the business of cancer - and its technologies - and how it took precious time from patient care - including their own. For several years, the Purkisses got to know all too well the perils the medical industry faced with impending mandatory regulations, including the movement towards electronic records - and how it directly impacted patient care at the scariest time in their lives.

"Did it really have to be like this, we thought," wondered Mary. As Mary healed, both she and Ed were motivated to action.

Because she had experience running a highly efficient business and were comfortable with rapidly changing technology, the couple found themselves fast friends with some doctors and eventually ended up as paid consultants to radiation oncology practices.

As they quickly found, many medical practices were being taken advantage of by technology companies and others charging 20 times as much as they should for simple storage, upkeep and usability of medical information and records electronically. "Doctors got into business to save lives, not to deal with this," said Mary.

So as they consulted in business matters with several local doctors, they studied the issues each had over and over with "the cloud," online storage and more.

By 2008, the Purkisses had a good grip on the process and were increasingly handling their doctor clients' technology needs as well. The time seemed right to launch their own venture right in the Biltmore community: Iron Medical Systems.

In that first year, the Purkisses had 3 clinics as clients. By this summer, the Purkisses will have expanded from one data center in Arizona and those three clinics to more than 70 clients across the country." We are actually in the process of expanding to the East Coast to keep up with the work we have out there," says Ed.

Their Iron Medical systems cloud product allows physicians to work from anywhere on any device. The system is built to run efficiently and backs up constantly. The cost of the system is lower than if clients bought the hardware themselves and tried to comprehend it all. It does not replace practice tech staff either - it just helps them become more efficient.

Through their own years long cancer battle, this couple is motivated to ensure NO ONE else has to go through what they did, and that doctors are better armed with secure technologies so that they can focus on what really matters, patients and their care.