BusinessTN

Providing Class II gaming platforms to markets throughout the United States since 1991, VGT is one of the fastest-growing private companies in the gaming industry. Products include LCD touch screens, stepper-reel live-draw bingo games and narrow-width gaming cabinets that let facilities place two machines in the space traditionally taken by one. The company also manufactures Live-Call Bingo, which is the top-earning bingo-based Class II gaming platform for Native American casinos. Revenues, as well as employee numbers, continue to climb year after year.

Nearing its 10th year, health care administration consultancy PivotHealth assists companies in staffing senior administration positions, interim managers, IT support and organization analysis. More growth is anticipated via its expansion into satisfaction analysis (patient, provider and employee), coding and compliance services and hospital-physician strategy implementation, which involves creating business services to assist providers in improving their medical practice performance. As hospitals continue to trend toward a return to employing physicians and/or linking physicians to the hospital through a management service company, PivotHealth will continue to enjoy an increase in the number of health system requests for its services.

Named one of Apparel magazine's "Top 50 Most Innovative Companies" for 2008, Perfection Uniforms manufactures uniforms for police, fire and EMS workers and distributes them internationally through a network of distributors. The company has serviced consumer brands like L.L. Bean, Polo and Jones New York, as well as government agencies like the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Other accolades include receiving the Uniform Market's Univator award, which recognizes innovation in the uniform industry, for three consecutive years. Recently, in keeping with the "going green" trend, Perfection Uniforms has garnered interest for its eco-friendly uniform initiative.

With 6,000 employees and more than 120 distribution centers, OHL is one of the largest third-party logistics companies in the world. The company provides supply chain management solutions, including transportation, warehousing and distribution, customs brokerage, freight forwarding, and import and export consulting services. OHL operates internationally and serves the food and beverage, health care, apparel and consumer electronics industries (among others). Recently, the company signed a contract with Sara Lee Corp., making OHL the supply chain provider for all of Sara Lee's household and beverage division.

New Constructs reads and analyzes the annual reports for more than 3,000 publicly traded companies. By "scrubbing" those reports, the nine-employee company is able to provide investors with insights into the true economic earnings of companies, including option grants, off-balance sheet financing, write-downs, reserves and pensions. The equity research firm expects Congress to use it as a tool to plug the holes in the corporate financial reporting system and bring more transparency to the market. It aims to provide Congress with a central resource that will reveal the hidden financial facts that make reported earnings misleading, provide a more accurate and standard measure of profitability, and show the future cash flow growth required to justify stock prices for all publicly traded companies.

Formerly a health care consulting firm founded in 1985, onFocus recently transformed into a health care-specific enterprise performance management software company. The software company's core product, onFocus|epm (enterprise performance management), is a Web-based tool that helps hospitals and other health care organizations ensure execution and achieve targeted financial, clinical and operational business objectives across the entire enterprise. onFocus' first customer went live in 2008, and in the first half of 2009, the company sold onFocus|epm to more than 30 health care facilities with another 60 installations pending as of June.

Launched in 1984 as a 12-person accounting firm with investments from its original founders, LBMC now encompasses eight different operating companies, employs more than 400 people and ranks as the 45th largest accounting firm in the United States. With offices in Brentwood, Knoxville and Chattanooga, the company provides accounting, human resources, technology and operations solutions. In February, it announced the formation of its newest company, LBMC Managed Security Services, which will work with clients to provide security protection from unauthorized access and sensitive information disclosure through intrusion prevention and detection services. Other current growth opportunities for the company include risk services, payment card interface (PCI) and succession planning.

Founded almost 15 years ago, IMI Health has migrated from being predominately a data platform provider to a data solutions company with a focus on health plans, large employers and unions, health systems, physician practices and pharmacy benefit managers. The company transforms health care data into actionable knowledge for some of the largest health plans around the country. In 2006, IMI's Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) solution—which manages health care data from disparate source applications—received official certification status from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), becoming one of only 11 vendors (and the only vendor in Tennessee) with certified quality software recognized by NCQA. With the Obama administration focused on comparative effectiveness and electronic pathways for clinical data, outsourcing or partnering will become increasingly necessary. IMI stands at the ready.

Launched in 2004, Cumberland Consulting Group is a national technology implementation and project management firm serving ambulatory, acute and post-acute health care providers. The company works to help clients improve their business performance and advance the quality of care they deliver. Recently, Cumberland was included in the Healthcare Informatics survey of the top 100 health care IT companies by revenue. (The company's health care IT revenue has nearly doubled in the past two years.) Cumberland was also recognized as one of the "Seven Small Jewels" of the consulting profession by Consulting Magazine, making the company the first-ever Nashville-based firm selected.

Community Ties provides consulting, case management, therapy and licensure/certification review services to individuals with special health care needs, as well as quality improvement and consulting services to private or public health care service providers. The company—which already has operations across the country, including corporate offices in Tennessee, a therapy services division in Florida, and a licensure/certification review division in Hawaii—has plans to expand into multiple states this year. Community Ties also assists individuals enrolled in Tennessee's Home and Community-Based Medicaid Waiver with determining the health care services they require and their eligibility for federal, state and local programs. As the health care industry seeks more effective and efficient ways to serve people, the Community Ties model has positioned the company for aggressive growth.

CareHere specializes in providing on-site health care through employers in an effort to make health care easier and more affordable. The company provides employers, physicians, employees and dependent patients with online appointment schedules, lab notices and graphed interpretation, electronic medical records, medical trends and more. Presently, CareHere manages more than 80 clinics nationwide and plans to expand on-site limited pharmacies to full pharmacies and to extend electronic medical records to other caregivers.

Founded about nine years ago, CCI provides secure online confirmation services that improve the end-to-end turnaround time for fulfillment of audit confirmation requests. Confirm technology can help streamline the confirmation process, increase client privacy, avoid fraud and eliminate paper storage. The company already supports thousands of registered accounting firms and financial institutions. As banks increasingly require auditors to use CCI services and the industry continues to undergo regulatory changes, CCI's growth prospects look promising.

C3 is a management and information technology consulting firm focused on project leadership for companies going through growth or change. The certified Woman Business Enterprise (WBE) works with companies of all sizes (from small startups to Fortune 100 organizations) to help them streamline processes or use technology to solve business challenges. Profitable since its inception in 2005, the 44-person company is currently focusing on health care IT initiatives and health care business process reengineering, both of which support a popular topic, health care reform.

Each month, Internet users stream tens of billions of videos, a trend that shows no signs of slowing. American Music Channel offers roughly 15,000 mainstream music videos on demand via record label agreements forged by Willis, the former CEO of Country Music Television (CMT) and a co-founder of the first company ever to take video over DSL (mPhase Technologies). Also a general entertainment destination and community for music fans, American Music Channel appears to be the first Web "channel" to put video and fan content side by side with a social network connecting music fans and independent artists. The cumulative effect is to seamlessly mingle indie and mainstream content—allowing all artists an equal shot at worldwide exposure and all music fans a unique opportunity to find new music. The company seems a capital infusion away from becoming the record label of the future.