Comments on: Monday Morning Update 12/10/07

By: Pierce Bushwhacker

Pierce Bushwhacker — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 17:15:18 +0000

To Warren Treesmiter:

Try sending your Azyxxi RFP request to Peter Markavage [peterma@microsoft.com]

By: Scarlet O'Hara

Scarlet O'Hara — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 15:22:30 +0000

Art Vandelay Correction – Actually HCTSi has two distinct business units, the professional services you rightly named but also products they sell to the health provider market which includes iSirona, a complete point of care data capture solution, http://www.isirona.com. They compete with Capsule Technologies rather than resell their product.

By: Datamus

Datamus — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 15:21:14 +0000

I look at this from a patient’s perspective. While I absolutely want my individual privacy protected, I also want hospitals and providers to study and improve their care. I want them to know whether their MRSA rates are rising or falling and why. I want them to understand which doctors have unusually high mortality rates. All of this requires the pooling of my data with others. Like anything else, this is a risk. As someone commented – how do we know de-identification is certain.

But the question is, am I more concerned about getting a preventable complication or about the use of my de-identified data for quality improvement or even for analysis by pharma companies? Personally, I am much more concerned about the risks of getting an infection than I am about some pharma company getting my de-identified data, spending money and time trying to re-identify it and then sending me a post card to encourage me to buy more of whatever they sell. And while I am fairly certain this is not happening, I would still take the risk over dying of a hospital acquired infection or a medication error or whatever.

I wish we could all live a life without risk, but the world doesn’t work that way. The question is, are we being sensible about the risks that are out there.

By: Dr. M.

Dr. M. — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 15:02:19 +0000

Following up on Art’s response to Jonny Yokel re: HCTSi . . .HCTSi seems to have moved beyond services and has actually manufactured software and hardware to compete with Capsule. But I wouldn’t add them to anyone’s acquisition list just yet either. They’re newcomers still working with their alpha customer(s?). No library of device dll’s to implement. No reference customers to testify of their success just yet, apart from Clarian, but that was using Capsule’s product and HCTSi’s services. That’s not to say they won’t be on the radar screen in 5 years, but Capsule’s association as the built-in solution for Epic and Eclipsys device data gives them quite a head-start.

By: Matthew Holt

Matthew Holt — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 06:20:07 +0000

By the way. The open source guys (esp Fred Trotter) think that Deborah Peel is an unsophisticated neophyte (and that’s the polite interpretation!)