Comments on: Monday Morning Update 3/2/09

By: not a stimulus plan fan

not a stimulus plan fan — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 14:20:44 +0000

To Pez Man – you’re right. For a company that is run by highy conservative Republicans, Cerner seems positioned to do well in the world of Obama. Cerner has had a PAC for years and leans heavily on all execs of the company to contribute to it. Looks like the PAC is paying off for them! And I don’t care what Obama says – there will always be lobbying in Washington – it’s how that town rolls. Just look at all the pork in both the budget and the stimulus plan – and Obama didn’t stop it – so like most politicians, he’s just playing a shell game with his words to make you think it’s not business as usual on the hill. The legislation that he supports tells the true story, so we have to be careful not to get roped in by his talent for giving eloquent speeches. Words, as always, are cheap.

By: PezMan

PezMan — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:30:48 +0000

DeParle and Sebelius both being appointed by Obama & their huge Cerner ties raises a lot of eyebrows across the HIT world…especially with the current administration’s policy of no lobbying. Is this the new school of lobbying? Also, I was a little shocked to see the love for Cerner…seems to me that it’s either Cerner, GE, or McKesson that gets the brunt of Mr. HISTalk’s frustration with the HIT world. I guess if they weren’t so huge and publicly held companies, they would get less negative press (i.e. Epic).

Also to Rollo Tomasi – Is there any Perinatal product out there that integrates with anyone? Not really sure why none of the large Clinical IT companies don’t develop better integration to either a partnership with a niche or self-develop this product. Especially with the baby boom we are in…

By: not a stimulus plan fan

not a stimulus plan fan — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 05:16:53 +0000

I think this is the first time I ever saw you say that you “… like Cerner”. You seem to be warming up to Neal in your old age

I agree with you that his blog is carefully crafted by the internal PR team – but I am also sure that he was intimately involved with framing the content and reviewing the text in detail before it went to print. Do you think that there’s any coincidence that this blog was started just days before DeParle was appointed Healthcare Czar, and Sebelius (who has been in the Cerner VC many times), was nominatead for HHS position? I don’t. Seems well timed for him to start the dialogue. It should be lively! But, too bad all his comments will be filtered by a team of talented wordsmithers – he could become the Rush Limbaugh of Healthcare IT debate on the web!

By: OldTimer

OldTimer — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:36:34 +0000

I think that the list of HIT vendors now among the missing misspoke when it incuded BDM. They were a consulting company that did a lot of DoD stuff in the 70s and 80s, becoming more diversified in the 90s. They were swallowed by Ford Aerospace, then acquired by the Carlyle Group, then sold to Grumman, then Grumman merged into Northrop Grumman.

[From Mr. HIStalk] That’s a different BDM. GE’s BDM was the #1 in KLAS pharmacy systems vendor from Canada, acquired at the end of 2002.

By: Bloodclot

Bloodclot — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:01:10 +0000

I agree with John Johnson’s comments about IBM from last week. Healthlink North (as it was re-branded for Canada) was a half baked total failure. All the actual licensed clinical staff they had have all left but one RN. They never had one Healthlink project, leaving those of us on the bench for months at a time.

IBM Health solutions Canada would much rather hire MBA’s, MHA’s or engineers. People with zero clinical background leading the way for eHealth projects for Canada’s pan Canadian eHR scares me. This fact almost made me feel ashamed to be a nurse.