Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius has accepted President Obama’s nomination to become Secretary of Health and Human Service Services, several newspapers have reported.
Sebelius, an early Obama backer who was rumored at one time to be his choice as running mate, will be announced as the nominee on Monday. She has no Washington experience.
A source indicates that Obama will choose a second unnamed individual for a post previous nominee Tom Daschle intended to create for himself, director of the White House Office of Health Reform.
From Al Mikes: "Re: Brailer. He has always focused on self-promotion. Kolodner is the opposite, but he will be out within six months since the new HHS secretary will want his own person there. It will not be a purely ceremonial role like it was under Brailer with all the money, accountability, and transparency that is now expected. It will take a real go-getter and risk-taker, an entrepreneurial type who can be a lightning rod for the changes needed, like an American version of Richard Granger from NHS."
From Dr. T: "Re: GE. I spoke with a college buddy that works there in Seattle. Many Centricity/IDXers are getting the axe. GE is giving them a month (or was it two?) Their ‘new’ product will probably have a sunset announcement before the two remaining US customers go live. Thank God I didn’t take that position three years ago!" Unverified.
From John Johnson: "Re: IBM. Not only do they not have an EMR, they don’t have services OR a sales force. Most of the Healthlink execs have bailed. They had over 50 people in their healthcare sales and delivery group (I was one of them) and ALL of the non-executive staff were laid off. Only five VPs are left in that group with no teams under them any more. This is big-company spin at its best. I am happy to be moving on, hopefully to a company that really is serious about spending that stimulus money wisely and has leaders that truly understand the healthcare business." Unverified.
Speaking of the invitation-only David Brailer Innovation 2009 conference, here’s the agenda. The registration fee is $1,600, hotel rooms are $345, and the speakers are a bunch of stock market types.
Neal Patterson has a blog, or at least a Cerner-approved online write-up that bears his name. Maybe Neal’s casual blog writing consists of long, carefully documented and footnoted position statements and corporate marketing graphics. See if this snip sounds like him: "Although no meta-analysis has yet attempted to quantify these savings, in aggregate they are very significant, and supported by much research and published studies." My predictions: (1) it will rarely be updated because committees can’t turn it around quickly; (2) it invites comments, but they will be carefully moderated and answered only with additional harmless boilerplate; and (c) it will contain nothing controversial or contrarian because the marketing people will redact anything interesting. Neal is vitriolic, passionate, and hard to follow, but quotable. His alleged blog, like most CEO blogs, is none of those things. The PR people e-mailed me to say he wants to start up a conversation with it, so post a challenging comment and let me know how quickly and thoroughly "Neal" answers.
Ed posted a comment that said I never say anything positive about GE, so maybe I’m biased. My bias is more generalized against multi-national conglomerates who buy up really good HIT companies (Triple G, BDM, and maybe even IDX in GE’s case) and run them right into the ground, the "first to worst" phenomenon that is the nearly exclusive province of GE. I’m also not a big fan of Siemens, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, and other healthcare IT dabblers. I’ve worked in healthcare all my life, so I like companies like Epic, Cerner, MEDITECH, and that majority of HIT companies willing to make or miss their fortunes by dancing with the one who brought them. Market penetration, performance, and user satisfaction seem to validate that bias.
Jobs: Physician Clinical Resource, Regional Sales Director, Senior Manager.
Gregg Alexander, a tech-savvy practicing physician (he says "grunt in the trenches") whose gifted writings grace HIStalk Practice, is starting off a series called US Healthcare Overhaul? Sure … in 5 Easy Steps! Worth a read. A snip about HMOs: "Suppose there was one acceptable formulary structure, that quality measures could be promoted universally, that health maintenance care was paid better than (or, at least as well as) health repair, that our struggles with healthcare provision were about improving ‘best practices’ not ‘best reimbursements’."
February was the busiest month every for HIStalk readership (even though it’s a short month) with around 75,000 visits, so thanks for spending time with Inga and me.
UT Southwestern Medical Center CIO Kirk Kirksey writes a pro-EMR opinion piece for the Dallas paper, specifically mentioning Epic’s MyChart by name.
I thought athenahealth turned in good Q4 numbers Thursday, but the market apparently didn’t agree: the stock dropped around 25% Friday. The earnings call transcript is here.
This Deloitte social software evangelist isn’t a fan of CIOs, but he’s pretty funny in a cynical, HIStalk kind of way. Perceptive readers may note his slight bias from the posting’s title, "The CIO Should Be Janitor." Love the graphic. Here’s an caustic excerpt: "Their job was to connect people to data. Now their job is to ignore people, their business requirements, and generate metrics which ensure the survival of the CIO function. They drain money like a 2-year old goes through a juice box, but somehow they continue to be seen as an important function within the business world … You are only the “chief” because you have (inappropriately) been given fiscal responsibilities. Being the gatekeeper should not be what makes you important." Ouch!
I got an e-mail from Nigel Dallard, secretary of the UK’s Hospital Broadcasting Association, which I mentioned earlier saying that I wasn’t sure how hospital radio stations work. He was nice enough to explain. There are 240 volunteer-run radio stations that serve over 400 hospitals, hospices, and retirement homes in the UK (and more in Ireland and the Netherlands). Most are run as charities, although hospital volunteers operate a couple. They broadcast using low power on the AM and FM bands, licensed to cover one hospital. The content is mostly music that is targeted to the older patients who make up much of the hospital population (I’m thinking Hendrix and Pink Floyd since the Benny Goodman generation is nearly gone). The volunteers visit patients, take requests to be played in the evening, and get local sports club members to provide sports commentary. Patients can use the bedside entertainment system to participate live in the programs. Some stations actually do remote broadcasts live from the nursing stations. Since volunteers often are available only in the evening, stations often run unattended during the day, using computer automation to run pre-recorded programs. Nigel says evidence is building that music, particularly that which brings up personal memories, can relax patients, reduce perceived pain, and allow them to accept their situation. He mentioned three US stations run as part of the UK’s Radio Lollipop: Miami Children’s, Texas Children’s, and CHOC. I’m pretty fascinated by this (I’m a geek and it sounds cool) and I appreciate the explanation.
The US operation of BearingPoint, drowning in $2.23 billion of debt, files Chapter 11. What the hell was a services firm wasting all that money on — suits and Kinkos presentation folders? Uncle Sam was paying huge dollars to buy business advice from a company that couldn’t even run its own business BEFORE the recession – nice. My theory is that it’s CoreFLS karma coming around.
An incident reporting system at Queensland Health (Australia) is being reviewed after it was noticed that employees often bailed out in the middle of trying to log an incident because of the application’s general clunkiness. It also does not notify managers that incidents have been reported in their areas of responsibility, requiring instead that they log on and check.
I ran across this by accident and it’s pretty cool: Johns Hopkins offers a fully online MS in Biotechnology, Bioinformatics, or Bioscience Regulatory Affairs.
Mobile technology vendor Zi finally capitulates to the acquisition overtures of Nuance, agreeing to a deal worth $35 million after a months-long mating dance.
Red Hat says the poor economy is sending both large and small companies to its door looking for cost-savings opportunities.
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From JCrew: "Re: Meditech. Has anyone heard a rumor that they will launch a new product?"
From Susan Jacks: "Re: GE. I’m surprised you haven’t mentioned the layoffs at the Centricity Enterprise office in Seattle. Rumor has it that 100 folks got their 30-day notice, including client-facing staff. A shame to see the old LastWord/Carecast product and employees fade away." That’s the first I’ve heard about it, if indeed it’s true. GE stock price is back where it was in 1995 at barely $9. It’s kind of like the newspapers: your local one was probably doing fine until the high-falutin’ conglomerate blew into town and bought it with a ton of highly leveraged debt, reducing it to a pathetic joke because they can’t make their overly optimistic earnings and are too paralyzed by corporate nonsense to come up with a competitive business model. Maybe the one lesson we’ll learn from our financial Armageddon is that there’s no shame in being small, profitable, and anti-Wall Street.
HIMSS Analytics announces the current 42 Stage 6 EHR hospitals, ranging in size from 55-bed Parkview Adventist Medical Center to 7,654-bed Kaiser.
Athenahealth announces results after Thursday’s market close: revenue up 47%, EPS $0.19 vs. $0.07. I’m glad somebody’s turning in good numbers.
Based on what appears to be a misleading (or at least intentionally inflated) press release, Motley Fool crows that "Big Blue Struts its Stimulus Stuff" in selling "its medical records systems". Apparently the Fools missed the point that IBM doesn’t sell EMRs, at least here. After skipping over several paragraphs of self-congratulatory gibberish, here’s what it says IBM actually sold: (a) services for a Sovera document imaging and workflow account; (b) some vaguely described services for a tiny hospital; (c) a business intelligence contract; and (d) an ILOG business rules engine (IBM bought the company last summer). Given its status as an on-again, off-again HIT dabbler, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the big blue corporate toe poised to dip in our now-enriched waters. Maybe this was the kickoff, as modest as it was.
Hammy General Hospital actors chew the scenery in a scene involving "Meditech," an unnamed product from a publicly traded company that one of the hospital executives wants in the hospital despite being turned down by the board. "I want them to think Meditech is like the second coming … I want Meditech in this hospital." I’ll say this: I’ve worked in several hospitals and I’ve never seen nurses that look like those in GH.
Someone asked me if I have many readers in the UK. If you read there, let me me know (and also what else you read to keep up with HIT happenings there).
Listening: The Old Ceremony, polished orchestral pop from Chapel Hill, NC that I found on Rhapsody. Touring now. A compilation CD they are on led me also to Kelly McRae, who I like a lot (try "Fall" on the player).
Alliance for Clinical Excellence, a new international non-profit group that looks at cost/benefit metrics of IT, announces at AsiaPac09 that evidence is insufficient to prove that IT improves healthcare. Given the unyielding support HIMSS has for its vendor members, I’d be surprised if they are asked back.
Speaking of HIMSS, this was the subject line of their latest e-mail blast. Tacky, yes? (not to mention grammatically atrocious with the superfluous "why" after "reasons").
Wirral University trust signs its own deal with Cerner, going direct after local service provider Fujitsu bailed out last summer.
Sentry Data Systems announces availability of its Datanex Platform, a cost-effective healthcare cloud computing platform on which solution providers can build business intelligence and data-intensive applications. It includes a virtual server infrastructure, a massively scalable distributed database, ETL services, an API, and a "digital highway" transport and interoperability layer. They’ll have a preview fired up at HIMSS, which I plan to check out since this is the future. Pharmacy folks will know Sentry for their inventory and 340b tools and claims processing infrastructure, while hospitals may have seen their HealthBIT business intelligence system. They’re already moving hundreds of millions of transactions each day, so they’ve got cred.
Supply chain and revenue cycle vendor MedAssets announces Q4 numbers: revenue up 55%, EPS $0.11 vs. -$0.20.
Q4 numbers for soon-to-be Emageon parent AMICAS: revenue flat, EPS -$0.81 vs. -$.02, although all but a penny of the loss was from an impairment charge.
Jim Brady, founder of Payerpath and a partner with the private equity firm that acquired claims processor MedAvant for $24 million last year, will take over as MedAvant’s executive chairman.
Merge Healthcare’s Q4 numbers: revenue down slightly, EPS $0.03 vs. -$0.28.
David Brailer announces the agenda of a conference that the public can’t attend (So why a press release? Maybe to remind you that he was king of the HIT world once, leaving just in time to miss the chance to be a $2 billion Santa Claus). Anybody want to buy some stocks? Anyone?
CareTech Solutions announces that it finished 2008 by signing Web product and services agreements with Lehigh Valley (PA), Covenant (TN), and Marietta Memorial (OH), wrapping up a big year for its Web services division. Client quotes here.
Singapore General Hospital will go live on a SaaS EHR by the end of the year now that its pilot project has concluded successfully.
We don’t have this here: a UK charity hospital radio station gets a grant to replace its equipment that provides patients in many hospitals with music, information, and entertainment. It doesn’t actually broadcast since the content is sent directly to individual patient beds. Pretty cool, although I’m not clear how it’s content differs from regular radio.
eClinicalWorks gets a mention in an Inc. article titled Three Small Business Owners Who Love Obama’s Stimulus. At a $1.75 trillion deficit and counting, Obama’s not exactly exploding the image of politicians bankrupting tomorrow to keep today’s party hopping, but I guess that’s considered conservative ranting these days.
Here’s an interesting business: a 30-year-old paramedic starts Remote Medical International, which offers world-wide telemedicine services for adventurers and travelers, with its medical staff sharing information by iPhones, laptops, BlackBerries, and satellite phones. He said he could do it all cheaply because of the technology, with just himself and another techie handling the IT chores for 67 employees.
Bizarre: Mercy Walworth Medical Center (WI) fires two nurses and calls in the FBI after they’re caught posting cell phone pictures of a patient’s X-ray on Facebook. The image showed a sex device lodged in the patient’s most private of areas, as Howard Stern used to say when he was on FCC-regulated radio.
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HERtalk by Inga
We know that Obama’s 2010 budget proposal includes a 10-year, $634 billion reserve fund to help finance universal health coverage. Unfortunately, we don’t have too many specific on what money (if any) will be targeted to HIT (beyond the HITECH funds.) However, if you want details about possible dogs for the Obamas, a simple Google of “Obama dog” will yield over 41 million choices – or, about 40,994,00 more options than you get with “2010 budget healthcare technology”.
The Institute for Transfusion Medicine licenses four of Mediware’s Blood Center Technologies software products to enhance recruitment and improve efficiency and effectiveness of blood collection initiatives.
Device manufacturer Medtronic will disclose payments it makes to any physician that exceed $5,000 starting next January.
Baylor Health Care System (TX) selects MedAssets to provide group purchasing services, supply chain analytics, and medical device consulting services. Also, MemorialCare Health System (CA) signs an agreement with MedAssets for its Alliance for Decision Support enterprise-wide management tool.
Siemens announces three new Soarian clients: H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center (FL) — financials; Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital (NY) — clinicals, ED, and Device Connect solutions; and Franklin Medical Center (LA) — several applications plus MedSeries4 general financials. That last hospital caught my eye in the press release, first because the CFO’s name is Bob Boullion (if only that first O wasn’t there) and he said this about MS4: "The MedSeries4 will bring state-of-the-art technology to Franklin Parish." It’s an OK product from what I’ve heard, but unless it’s been rewritten since I saw it last, it’s a lot of 1980s COBOL with some technical lipsticking (the Siemens Web page calls it a "proven, yet progressive platform"). It’s a workhouse, I imagine.
A Parks Associates’ report finds that personal health technology providers can generate over $460 million in revenue by 2013 in targeting the disease management industry. The study looked heart monitoring devices, PHRs, and similar technology.
Virginia Commonwealth University Health System, Mercy Medical Center (IA), and CHRISTUS Health (TX) implement PatientKeeper’s Sign-Out application.
Mobile charge capture and rounding software provider pMDsoft offers a BlackBerry Storm version.
HIMSS promotes its vendor members by offering an Online Buyers Guide, which is free for providers looking to buy HIT solutions. Question: where do you go to find product information when looking for options? Mr. and I have had this discussion a few times, only to conclude there aren’t enough unbiased and free alternatives out there.
A jury awards a female Brigham and Women’s neurosurgeon $1.6 million after finding she was subject to a hostile work environment and that the hospital retaliated against her when she complained. The verdict concludes a seven-week trial that addressed a sex discrimination lawsuit.
State government rolls out a secure portal for staff in rural hospitals in South Australia that will give them around-the-clock access to cardiologists.
Streamline Health Solutions names Jay Miller to its board of directors. Miller is the former president and CEO of Vital Images and served in various roles at GE Medical Systems and Siemens.
Here’s more evidence that the economy is causing more Americans to cut back on healthcare in order to save money. Of 1,500 people surveyed, 53% admitted to delaying medical treatment or seeking home remedy alternatives. Nineteen percent claimed that medical costs were already leading to severe financial hardships and 34% feared losing their healthcare coverage.
Presbyterian Healthcare Services (NM) selects master data management software Initiate Patient to support its enterprise-wide call center.
Dr. Gary L. Gottlieb, the president of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, will take over as CEO of Partners HealthCare Systems when Dr. James J. Mongan retires at the end of the year. Meanwhile, Partners announces it lost $185 million in its first quarter as a result of investment performance. As a result, the health system will slow its HIT investment plans, as well as facility expansions and other capital expenditures.
E-mail Inga.
From The PACS Designer: "Re: OpenOffice. In these tough times, everyone is looking for free software applications that are tried and tested for usefulness. One that comes to TPD’s mind is OpenOffice. Since it’s Java-enabled and supported by Sun Microsystems, it is a solution that is gaining in popularity and is a good one for use by collaboration teams." Link.
From Cam Winston: "Re: Eclipsys. I’ve heard a rumor that Philip Pead, former CEO of Per-Se, has joined the board of directors of Eclipsys and that he ‘may’ replace Andy Eckert by year-end. As CEO of Eclipsys since 2005, Andy has failed to turn around this second-tier HIT company." You’re at least half right – Pead’s on the BOD. Nothing else has been suggested or announced (so far). I just remembered when checking that information that Jay Pieper of Partners HealthCare is still on the ECLP board after 13 years, maybe going back to the days when SCM was going to ride the Brigham’s BICS rules into market dominance (but those seemed to disappear quickly right after). Partners got almost a million shares of ECLP stock for their clinical rules, which was a fantastic deal (for Partners).
Speaking of Eclipsys, the company announced Q4 numbers after the market close Tuesday: revenue up 2%, EPS $0.06 vs. $0.44, missing expectations on earnings but beating on revenue. Weak sales and a slow services business were blamed.
Georgetown University Hospital sets up six webcam-equipped laptops in its ped onc department, allowing elementary school patients to take part in their classes remotely with video and Skype audio.
Verden Group releases (warning: PDF) its insurer ranking report for Q4.
Amicas will pay $39 million for Emageon, which presumably includes the $9 million Emageon just got from failed suitor HSS. It’s a long way from the $62 million that HSS was supposed to pay, but still more than the market thinks Emageon is worth (shares were at $0.82 when Amicas offered $1.82, which seems irrationally generous).
Jobs: Clinical Systems Analyst, Business Development Executive, Client Services Director. Hot jobs gravitate right into your inbox if you sign up here like I did (always be looking, I say).
Matthew Holt posts a rational look at the man-made tempest in a teapot over CCHIT, concluding that the government naturally wants some kind of oversight in return for spending money directly on EMRs. He also suggests a better firewall between HIMSS and CCHIT, which I think is an excellent idea given that HIMSS has called itself a trade group in the past and also lobbies on behalf of its members (primarily the vendor ones). While we’re changing CCHIT from the cheap seats, we might wish for reduction or elimination of vendor members (of 14 ambulatory work group members, eight appear to be from large vendors; and of 21 commissioners, only six appear to be from provider organizations and none from the typical 1-2 doc practice). I suppose small vendors and practices don’t have the time to participate, thereby ensuring (like always happens) that big groups are over-represented.
Speaking of CCHIT, PCC blogger Chip Hart says he was Cyber-SLAPPed by HIMSS, who was unhappy about the anonymous individual who keeps posting raving anti-CCHIT comments on any sites vaguely healthcare-related. To be honest, I thought the attorney’s e-mail was polite and careful to not impugn Chip rather than his anonymous commenter (at least it wasn’t full of the usual lawyerly fake threats using words like "demand," "immediately," and "further action.") Here are the funny things I noticed, though: (1) the attorney managed to mangle the acronym for HIMSS, turning it into HIMMS (maybe he’s a "HIPPA" lawyer); (2) the crank making the anonymous post used the name Rocky Ostrand and the lawyer’s name is Ernst Ostrand (another Leavitt conspiracy!); and (3) the attorney works for a labor law firm (do they suspect a rogue current or former employee, maybe, from this looney comment accusing HIMSS of violating human rights?) Adding icing to the conspiracy theory cake, a couple of bloggers desperate for attention keep posting identical comments (with their blog links, of course, and without their names) urging the other blog’s readers to come over to their place for the definitive word. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of all this grandstanding, so I’m done with the topic unless someone turns up something a lot more interesting than I’ve seen so far. Let’s turn this into something useful: assuming CCHIT isn’t going away and will continue to be the government’s certification body, what would you like to see changed about it?
I’ve worked in a couple of hospitals that made dumb payroll errors in paying out excessive severance and then sheepishly asked the former employees to return the excess, so I predicted this would happen. Microsoft finally gives in, saying the laid-off workers it accidentally overpaid can keep the change, for the same reason my two hospitals did (the PR is terrible and you’ll never get the money back anyway).
Consumer Watchdog, which wailed about Google’s "rumored lobbying effort aimed at allowing the sale of electronic medical records," is now officially and publicly unhappy that a Google executive referenced that incident in suggesting to a philanthropic foundation that it stop giving Consumer Watchdog money. Sounds like each hit the other where it hurts.
Ignacio Valdes wants Congress to ban the use of federal money to purchase proprietary EMRs, saying, "Without a ban on federal money for purchasing proprietary Electronic Medical Record software and requirements for licenses such as the Affero General Public License that safeguard public rights and ensures sustainability, we will become a nation of renters of poorly performing health IT software infrastructure that taxpayers paid dearly for, and will pay for again and again."
Steve from the Transforming Healthcare Summit says 400 people have registered for the Thursday evening event, so it’s your last chance (the text ad to your right saves you 10%).
An Atlanta conference that kicked off Tuesday puts Israel-based telemedicine companies in front of US-based vendors for potential deal-making.
Scottish charge master services vendor Craneware books a 59% increase in profits and says it expects to benefit substantially from US HIT (space carefully double-checked) stimulus money and requirements around recovery audit contractors.
Community Health Network (IN) announces its PillBox medication management application for the iPhone.
The school of pharmacy at Keele University (UK) develops virtual doctors, patients, and a pharmacy for training students in communication and decision-making. That sounded great until this line of the press release: "They have also developed a ‘virtual doctor’ to help with the training of pharmaceutical sales representatives." (video demo here). Why would a pharmacy school train drug salespeople? The sleazy computerized drug rep keeps using hard-sell phrases like, "I’m sure you’ll agree" and "this benefits the patient greatly enough to be worth the extra cost." Maybe they have to provide virtual lunch.
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HERtalk by Inga
Huron Consulting Group posts a 95% increase in operating income for its health and educational consulting segment in Q4. The company as a whole saw a 20% increase in revenue in Q4 and a 22% increase for the full year.
Here is a curious consequence of the economic downturn. Despite strong demand for nurses, hospitals and nursing schools lack funds to recruit additional staff.
A study conducted on behalf of Wolters Kluwer Health and ProVation Medical finds that cardiovascular information systems are not delivering quantifiable financial benefits, according to participating cardiac cath directors. Sixty-nine percent of the respondents said that physicians were continuing to dictate and 31% reported no quantifiable improvements in revenue or revenue cycle.
MEDSEEK promotes Peter Kuhn to CEO and SVP of operations and Daren McCormick to president and COO, saying the changes reflect the company’s record success over the last year.
Catholic Health Initiatives completes its deployment of Lawson’s software suite of business applications, claiming it has already saved $125 million in supply chain costs. The Denver-based healthcare system anticipates it will continue to reduce annual operating costs by $50-60 million a year.
CMS predicts that the government will be paying more than half of the country’s healthcare spending by 2018. Kind of makes you sick just thinking about it.
Here is a scary report: a survey finds that 59% of workers leaving a job within the last 12 months admitted to stealing company data, while 67% used the former employer’s confidential information to get a new job.
Sandlot, a subsidiary of North Texas Specialty Physicians, takes its HIE and integrated EMR platform live. The HIE is powered by Healthvision and is integrated with Allscripts and NextGen Healthcare EMR systems. Sandlot is a 600-physician IPA in Fort Worth, TX.
Indiana University Health Center launches the NoMoreClipboard online PHR solution for its students. Sounds like a great place to use the application because students are already well versed in using online tools. Their doctors at home may or may not want to help populate a patient’s history, but I bet graduates will come to expect their physicians to use similar online tools.
The Military Health System places a $14.1 million order with Vangent to develop a clinical solution to improve the workflow of patient’s behavioral health information and integrate it with military’s EHR.
Dialog Medical announces that St. Luke’s Episcopal Health System (TX) has extended its contract for Dialog’s iMedConsent.
UnitedHealthcare offers a portable medical record option that benefits the patients and physicians of Southwest Medical Associates (NV). Patients willing to sign an advanced directives statement will receive a CD that contains the directives plus current medical records information. The 14-clinic, 250-doctor practice is a subsidiary of United Healthcare.
HealthGrades identifies (warning: PDF) the country’s top 50 hospitals based on highest performing outcomes. They were found to have a 27% lower mortality rate than their competitors and eight percent fewer complications. Funny how few of them are Most Wired (and despite the Massachusetts saturation of big-name medical centers, IT hotbeds, and ultra-expensive care, that state has zero hospitals on the list).
CareTech Solutions adds three large health systems to its client roster, saying it has grown its client base 69% since 2007.
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