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News 7/25/07

July 24, 2007 News 5 Comments

From Meat Beat Manifesto: “Re: Misys. Misys will be announcing a sales leader to take over the Misys Connect product. He is a former Cerner guy who has been with Misys less than a year. If they want to sell more EMR, they need to give Connect away or sell it as a subscription with a low monthly cost. Similar players (Healthvision and their competitors) already have a foothold, the community market is soft, and RHIOs are broke. All these things will make it hard to sell Connect like in the good old days (for $250K and up). By the way, conference calls are being held today to brief sales teams on the recent changes. Everyone had a fit when things started popping up in HIStalk.”

From Nick Cave: “Re: Sunquest. Who gets the name? Lab had it first so, it should go to Vista. The name is worth something since it used to be a great company to work for and to be a client of.”

From Oldtime Sunquest: “Re: Sunquest. Now the lab, rad, and pharm business can move forward and not back. Now the profits from lab can be reinvested in lab. The new owners know software and there is still a place for growth in the diagnostic software market. The software is still good, even though Misys tried to run it into the ground. It feels good to call them Sunquest once again. Sid must have a smile on his face today. I know the users and employees do. I agree that GE should look out.”

From Terence Hogan: “Re: Misys. Keith Hagen actually came from Sunquest first, then moved to Misys Transaction Services to be groomed for bigger and better things (like being CEO of QuadraMed, ha!) Lab and rad are good products, but weren’t selling well due to outdated technology. CPR was indeed hard to install and, although CPOE was very strong, the integration that was supposed to happen never really did.”

From Misys User: “Re: CPR. QuadraMed needs to get rid of the CPR Client Services management. The few users who attended the recent conference agreed that the last twelve months have been the worst in the history of the CPR product. We aren’t going to give QuadraMed as much time as Misys to make it work.”

From MrMisyster: “Re: Sunquest. There is very little question that the original Sunquest group in Tucson have reason for celebration today. Misys did nothing for them but take the profits and throw them away on a failing acute care business comprised of every lackluster product Tom Skelton could buy. The real question is who will lead this group since all executives are in Raleigh (Atkin?)  Also, what about infrastructure: marketing, HR, and a few others that all got compressed into the milieu that was Misys? What a six-year mess, but at least there’s some hope for the future of the Tucson group.”

From Enumerator_of_Beans: “Re: Misys. Looks like what’s left of Misys Healthcare is running about a 13% operating margin. Not the loss-maker some think, but hardly a punchy, software-type margin, either. For the $400 million, I would expect them to acquire an ASP-based physician product and save some cash for share buybacks to keep shareholders happy for the short term since the dispositions will negatively impact earnings unless they do something sensible with the proceeds.”

From Mia Hottie: “Re: Cerner. The iNet monitoring system that competes with Visicu is rumored to be at risk of being de-installed in a handful of hospitals.”

From Lane Kimchee: “Re: Google. Google announced a bunch of healthcare advisors, mostly big-name talking heads and luminaries, and not a single RN, much less anyone who’s ever actually taken care of a patient. Is there another industry where the #1 user group would be ignored? Google may just be another clueless big company trying to get into healthcare like those that failed before them: Amicore (IBM, Pfizer, and Microsoft), Dossia, and Cisco.”

I missed this: the interface engine part of Quovadx is bought by – who else? – a private equity firm. Cloverleaf will live on under the Quovadx company name, but the company will be moved to Dallas under new owners Battery Ventures, who also put their CEO at the helm.

If you had problems reading HIStalk on Monday or Tuesday, I’ll apologize yet again. I knew the server was going to get pounded when I noticed that over 100 readers were on during the early hours of both days (I can only see the first 100, so I only know it was some number bigger than that). It didn’t drop below for long on either day (mostly due to a crapload of stock analysts reading up, judging from incoming addresses). HIStalk was the only source of full coverage of both the Misys and Picis events (sleep-in reporters don’t like working Sunday afternoons and the wee hours of Tuesday morning like I did, even though I have another day job and they don’t).

Anyway, as Inga pointed out when I bemoaned possible site slowdowns, the user volume and feedback seem to indicate that HIStalk has become the primary source of industry news, both breaking and routine. For that, we say thanks. We really do work hard to get information, thoughtful opinion, and industry reaction in front of you. It’s easy for me to lose sight of that fact since all I see is a keyboard in an empty room for several hours a day, never talking to anyone about HIStalk or acknowledging that I’m behind it. I really appreciate the support of readers and sponsors. It wasn’t nearly as much fun with I had neither. As several folks have noticed, we’ll get our 1 millionth visit to HIStalk soon. Nobody wants HIMSS Hummers these days, so maybe I can get one cheap and give it away.

If you read HIStalk on the HIStalk2 site (with the pipe-smoking doc), you can click Archives at the top of the page to find your way around.

Cerner is speculated as a possible bidder for a big Australian hospital IT project.

HLTH Corp. (the stupid name WebMD chose voluntarily) and Emdeon Practice Services are suing nine insurance companies to force them to pay the estimated $58 million legal bills of their nine indicted former officers and directors. I bet it didn’t even cost that much to keep OJ golfing.

New CIO: Tom Pagano, Carondelet Health (MO), moving over from Truman Medical Centers. Boy, the paper really botched the name of the HIMSS chapter of which he was president.

HITSP seeks public opinion on its next recommendations to AHIC: emergency responder EHR specs, security and privacy, quality use case, and consumer information access case.

Discuss today’s news here: Misys, Picis, or even non-rhyming newsmakers.

Impress me with your knowledge or speculation: e-mail me or use the Rumor Report to your right to spill secrets or educated opinion. We like both.


Inga’s Update

Last week, Mr. HIStalk mentioned that Acermed was perhaps closing its doors. I was able to connect with Acermed’s Anoush Tabriz in Client Relations. While Tabriz wanted to make it clear that AcerMed is continuing to provide clients with support with their “skeletal staff,” the rest of our (short) conversation had several “no comments”. So officially no comment as to what is going on with the company, why the reduced staff, whether or not they are still selling new products, if the situation is temporary, etc.

Millennium Research Group announces results of a study that nearly 18% of physicians had an EMR in 2006 and the number is expected to rise to over 30% by 2011. System costs and the disruption of implementing a new process are the two biggest barriers today. To increase acceptance vendors are introducing more streamlined versions of their products. While these adoption numbers seem lower than some I have seen, I am inclined to believe they are fairly accurate.

Compare that to the recent AAFP survey that indicated that half of doctors that responded to a survey said they had either fully implemented an EMR (37%) or were in the process of implementing (13%). That suggests that either family practice docs are more advanced than other specialties, or, that the study was not as scientific as it could be (since it was based on respondents versus a random sample.)

Anyway, all interesting data points, but in 2005 some “experts” predicted that by now 24% of the docs would be using EMR. And about a year ago, the predictions suggested that by the end of 2007 25% of the 1-2 doctor groups would have EMR and as many as 78% in the larger practices. There are obviously varying interpretations of what it means to utilize an EMR and that likely lends to a wide range in the percentages. Bottom line – regardless of whose survey you look at, the market is still pretty unsaturated. Once there are more easy to use products and possibly hospital or government subsidies, the market will see some rapid growth.

eClinicalWorks was chosen by the DC Primary Care Assocociation (DCPCA) to provide EMR/PM solutions for their six community health centers. Four additional centers may be added in the future. No mention of the size fo the deal.

Not sure I have anything to add to all the comments regarding Misys. I actually have had fun reading what readers have had to say. Guess my only thought is that at one time Misys (at least the old Medic piece) was considered the Mercedes product in the industry. The good thing about an old Mercedes is that, even with age, they tend to still work. The problem with an old Mercedes is that there are a lot of other options that do the job as well or better and happen to be sexier and cheaper. I am sure that there are still a number of great employees left and I hope Misys will take care of them.

A MED3000 client forwarded us a letter that was apparently sent to all their clients. Chairman and CEO Pat Hampson announced the finalization of the InteGreat acquisition and the “vision” for how it was to become a “critical component” of MED3000’s and their clients’ success. There is acknowledgement that they are large users of multiple vendors’ software (Misys, GE, Sage, Allscripts, etc.) but Hampson point outs that they have “only limited influence over the direction of their software development.”  MED3000 plans to continue to expand development of IC-Chart and IC-MyHealthRecord. A cynic (like Mr. HIStalk) might suggest that clients watch out for a push to move everyone over to the InteGreat products.  However, if you take the four-page letter at face value, Hampson is trying to enforce the idea that they will continue serve the needs of their 9,500 physicians, including those on other systems, while at the same time channeling additional efforts to promote the InteGreat products. As Hampson rightly says, “the proof is in the pudding”.

Chat up Inga.



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Currently there are "5 comments" on this Article:

  1. Can anyone provide an update of Soarian live sites? Aside from Susquehanna, is anyone using the workflow they promote in this product? Seems to me like a lot of nice promises, but little results.

  2. As my brother George said: those who don’t remember the past are doomed to repeat it. Misys continues an endless loop of groundhog day-making sales people pay the price fro products which haven’t been significantly changed since 1984 (Tiger-unless you call a GUI overlay in 1999 a change; and Vision since 1994-again, unless you count Vision or Windoews) Add that to a sales org structure which is virtually identical to what they have had for the past 10 years- Tiger reps, Vision reps and “big deal” peope. Big deal. For this they paid BCG and Mackenzie millions? I doubt if big systems guys from Kodak, Eclipsys, etc. will have much impact. Watch for this property to be privare equitied in the next year. When do we hear about re-orgs in d and d and product management

  3. I think Meat Beat is not exactly correct about a Cerner guy taking over the Misys Connect product. My understanding is that there are going to be several sales types promoting Connect and other large opportunities and they will report to the individual regions. Which, actually, sounds a bit “groundhog” day-ish, as Mr. Santana pointed out.

  4. In response to Dr. Ben’s question, he must be asking about Soarian Financials because that is what Susquehanna has been the alpha/beta site for. My understanding is that Susquehanna is still the only site with elements of Soarian Financials live and it is not being fully used across all of Susquehanna. The general feeling is that Soarian Financials is still a long way from being ready (3-5 years). Hard to replace a system as proven and flexible as INVISION. University Hospitals of Cleveland has been very disappointed because they hoped to replace their homegrown billing system three years ago. So far, they only have Soarian Scheduling live in Rehab and they aren’t happy with how it is working there (barely better than paper and not all users agree that it is).

  5. If anyone would like to understand the true state of Soarian at “University Hospitals of Cleveland”, they should contact Edward Marx, Don Paulson or Liz Novak. Relying on rumor and then repeating it as fact is not credible.







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