Comments on: News 8/6/08

By: dr feelgood

dr feelgood — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:49:53 +0000

Re: athena offshoring to india – I recently read the post by wonderbread, as well as the reply from inga. First off, I never knew that athena offshored to india, and second od all, I have to disagree with inga’s reply about the good customer service from her dell rep in india. On several occasions I have had to call dell for my grandmother when her computer wasn’t working because she has a hard time understanding them, not to mention they call her back at very unreasonable times late at night due to the time difference. Seeings how my grandmother would be the typical patient demographic calling about her billing statement, do you really think this will be an easy process, and of benefit to patients like this whose physician uses athenas services?

By: Edmund Billings MD

Edmund Billings MD — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 20:14:03 +0000

“We share your assessment of McKesson’s CIO Randy Spratt’s keynote at LinuxWorld. It is intolerable that we have a U.S. health-care system where avoidable medical errors are a given rather than a rarity. But, healthcare organizations cannot afford the clinical systems being offered by vendors of proprietary software systems like McKesson. Why is it that in 2008, approximately 75% of hospitals do not use advanced clinical systems to mange their care? Because they need affordable truly integrated solutions, not overpriced complex patched-together ‘Best of Breed” systems. They need an IT partner focused on results and that proves their value everyday, not a vendor who just sells technology. They need open solutions that free them to make the system work, not the vendor lock practiced by proprietary solution vendors. Taking the VA’s VistA system into open source is the disruptive innovation the other 75% have needed. How about a practical proven system that is a fraction of the cost, open and allows the customer to invest the money and time they save into getting the clinical transformation that we all need. With all due respect Mr. Spratt, it is the proprietary software business model that is 30 years old and not serving us well.”

By: What Happens at Eclipsys Stays at Eclipsys

What Happens at Eclipsys Stays at Eclipsys — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 22:18:03 +0000

Re: Nep. O. Tysm & Eclipsys Recruitment Practices….

1. Multiple VPs and above keep getting announced….jobs were never posted, so were they created for these people? They seem to keep fragmenting leadership responsibilities just for the sake of hiring or promoting into these new positions.

2. The entire company has been asked to watch expenses, but corporate overhead continues to grow. Andy has taken the charge to clean his own house…is another VP the way?

3. Related, but unrelated…..Internal recruitment contractors are horribly inefficient, positions that are posted for mid to low level (read billable folks) take months to be filled.

By: DrM

DrM — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:53:59 +0000

Although I agree with Dr. Howell’s general point about CPOE (i.e., that they are not designed to improve the whole process), I wouldn’t agree that they’re designed for doctors. They’re still not very usable for doctors. I think he goes on to make that point in his article, although he does lead with that statement. I think he and I would both probably agree that they’re even worse for nurses and other clinicians, though.

RIAs, or at least the concept of a highly configurable UI that doesn’t depend on a massive single system in the backend, are probably the way the world *should* go, but vendors are completely not inclined to go in that direction. With the 10-year lag in health IT, we can expect to see this corrected around 2017.

Looking at the agenda, CCS sounds better. The other one gives off that vibe that it will be long on promises and ra-ra speeches and short on useful information. Thanks for pointing it out, I actually may attend (it helps that it’s a 5-minute drive for me).

By: Wompa1

Wompa1 — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:48:27 +0000

Mr. Holt,

You say “libertarian” and “right-wing” like they are objectionable terms!

Nothing wrong with Libertarians. From looking at the site, I suspect that “free liberal” could be interpreted as “classical liberal.” They added the “classical” after FDR stole the term “liberal.”

From what I have read of your work, I have a feeling that your definition of liberal is far to the left of what most of us would define as “liberal.” Today’s libertarians and conservatives are yesteryear’s classical liberals. Today’s liberals are yesteryear’s “progressives” in the Roosevelt and Wilson traditions. Such lofty forbears you progressives have.