HERtalk by Inga
From: Overworked “Re: UCSF cancels GE Centricity project & lays off 33 IT analysts & support staff. Was this reported already somewhere? I work with a pharmacist who was formally laid off from UCSF last week and given 2 months severance pay. Apparently UCSFMC cancelled their GE Centricity project three weeks ago and he said he knows of 33 IT analysts and IT support folks that were laid off. He says the GE project budget was blown out of the water within 1 year and it had been going on for over 3 years – he had been on board for 3+1/2 years. He says it wasn’t even close to being implemented. I thought it was interesting that I couldn’t find anything in the press – but forgive me if I’m telling you old news.” Unverified. Dang. Mr. H always accuses me of not reading what he writes but I don’t think we have any official word that UCSF ha terminated its relationship with GE. However, UCSFWatch did send over a note last month suggesting things were not going well. The medical center management had hired Kurt Salmon Associates to figure things out and at that time GE-related activity was on hold.
The North Shore-LIF Health System (NY) announces it is subsidizing up to 85% of the EMR implementation and operating costs for over 7,000 of its affiliated physician. Participating doctors can received subsidies of up to $40,000 each over five years to implement Allscripts EHR. The initial agreement with Allscripts includes licenses for 1,200 doctors and one analyst suggests the deal is worth $20 million. In any case, it’s definitely one of Allscripts’ largest sales ever. North Shore’s subsidy program includes a unique twist: physicians will be subsidized at a rate of either 85% or 50%, depending on whether or not they are willing to allow North Shore to use the EHR to report and share their performance data and allow them to compare it against a set of nationally care and outcome metrics.
Allscripts also announces that Baptist Memorial Health Care (TN) has selected Allscripts EHR/PM to automate its 65 employed and 3,100 affiliated physicians.
Meanwhile, a Jeffries’ analyst upgrades Misys to a buy and predicts the company will sell off each of its three divisions. Speculation is that the first division to go would be the Allscripts segment, which would appeal to buyers like “GE Healthcare and similar major players.” Analyst Milan Radia says, “”Our upgraded price target reflects our view that we are now approaching an end game in the transformation of Misys.”
A reader forwarded the attached copy of an email sent to all the ER docs at his hospital. He explained to me the ER recently adopted a new documentation system and is now paperless. However, authorities are now questioning if the system is in compliance with billing regulations because it prompts users to add certain items in earn a higher level service. If the “experts” determine that the system is out of compliance, the hospital will likely need some sort of fix from the vendor. In the worst case, the hospital (and presumably others in its chain) will have to revert to paper for some amount of time. I asked a reader his opinion, and he believed that technically the system was “legal” because the doctor still has to approve the code. However, he suggests it is a tricky game that can invite “serious auditing.” Any other opinions?
If you are a careful reader, you will have noticed that Mr. H left me to my own devices this week while he is out gallivanting the world. We always joke about how I would handle things if some major IT story broke while he was out of pocket, like someone buying Cerner or Judy Faulkner resigning from Epic. I’m thinking that Xerox’s acquisition of ACS was just a warm-up for some really big, breaking story during Mr. H’s next vacation. Investors, by the way, appeared lukewarm on the merger, and Xerox’s stock price fell 15% on Monday. The $5.7 billion cash and stock deal allows Xerox to expand its footprint into the services business, not unlike HP’s EDS purchase last year and Dell’s recently announced bid to buy Perot.
Cerner and the University of Missouri announce a $100 million partnership that reassigns about 100 workers from the UM Health System to Cerner. The plan calls for the creation of the Tiger Institute of Health Innovation, which will be tasked with designing innovations to improve patient care and population health. University and Cerner officials say the collaboration could improve patient safety and save the state $1 billion (sounds optimistic.) As part of the 10-year agreement, the university and Cerner would split profits from any new developments based on the amount of money each invests in the institute. A portion of the proceeds would be used to continue funding the institute. Former Ascension Health CIO Sherry Browne will lead the institute.
Accretive Health, a provider of RCM services, files for a $200 IPO.
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announces $27.8 million in ARRA awards, including 18 grants totaling $22.6 million for EHR implementations. The balance will support various HIT projects, including HIEs and helping existing health centers use existing EHRs to improve patient health outcomes. Think how fun it must be to be Sebelius, handing out millions of dollars to grateful recipients every couple of weeks. Almost as good a gig as Santa Claus
The Hannaford Charitable Foundation presents Health Quest (NY) a $50,000 donation to help fund its CPOE project. This is the second such gift from the foundation that was created by the Hannaford supermarket chain. Health Quest is investing about $60 million to overhaul its IT infrastructure, including implementation of a Cerner system.
Freshmen at Indiana University are embracing the school-supplied PHR, with 40% already using the program just weeks after the start of school. NoMoreClipboard.com is the PHR vendor.
The State University of New York at Stony Brook expands its deployment of PatientKeeper products, adding the ePrescription and Pay for Performance applications.
Nuance Communications announces the availability of version 9 of its eScription application. Among other changes, version 9 offers advancements in document quality review and administrator efficiency.
The Lake Erie Regional Health System/TLC Health Network is awarded a $4 million grant towards a $5.6 million IT integration project between the Brooks Memorial Hospital and TLC Health Network facilities. The grant is part of $436 million in funds being distributed through the Health Care Efficiency and Affordability Law of New York State.
RelayHealth says that both Hill Physicians Medical Group (CA) and Montefiore Medical Center (NY) have improved care collaboration, patient satisfaction, and specialty treatment prioritization using RelayHealth’s referral management service. The product, which was co-developed with Hill Physicians, facilitates secure health information exchange between primary care providers and specialists.
West Georgia Health System signs a seven year deal with Perot Systems for revenue cycle services to the hospital organization. Perot just recently provided the health system support services to implement MEDITECH 6.0.
Speaking of Perot, I was sad to hear that the individual charged with insider trading ahead of Dell’s proposed purchase of Perot was one of the heroes in the 1979 Iranian hostage rescue. If you aren’t familiar with the story, Ross Perot spearheaded a mission to rescue two of his employees held hostage in an Iranian jail. Reza Saleh was an EDS employee at the time and led the mob that broke into the prison and ultimately rescued the hostages. The SEC has now charged Saleh of making $8.6 million in illicit profits from the Perot/Dell deal.
Hudson Headwaters Health Network, a network of 16 community health centers in upstate New York, receives a $7 million grant to finance HIT and a medical centered home initiative.
A new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation finds that Finland, Sweden, and Denmark are the clear global leaders in terms of EHR adoption in hospitals. Those countries also ranked far better in their use of electronic prescribing and CPOE. At least we beat the Brits and New Zealand.
University Hospitals (OH) makes plans to rent a closed school to train more than 4,000 employees on its new Eclipsys Sunrise EMR system. The health system wants 6-day-a-week, 24-hours-a-day access to the school from January to June.
Cumberland Consulting Group is named one of 2009 Best Small Firms to Work for by Consulting Magazine.
The CDC issues $4.37 million in grants to fund four new Centers of Excellence in Public Health Informatics. The recipients will use the funds to enhance HIT and improve the detection of and response to emerging public health interests. Winners are Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Indiana University, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Utah.
Warning: if you are an HIT purist, feel free to mosey along and not read this last note. For the rest of you, here is an amazing statistic: more than 2 billion applications have been downloaded from Apple’s App store since July, 2008. More than 85,000 apps are currently available, and only about 18% of the downloaded apps are paid for. However, the average cost of paid applications is growing and US revenues for applications will grow 10 times between 2009 and 2013, reaching $4.2 billion. I downloaded my first paid application recently: Scrabble ($4.99) and I am totally addicted.
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Xerox announces plans to buy ACS for in a $6.4 billion cash-and-stock deal. The deal is worth $63.11 per share, which is a 34% premium over Friday’s closing price.
From Evan Marcos: “Re: conference invitations. Amen. After a lifetime in healthcare marketing, this is how the VIP scam works. Target a slice of C-level pigeons (CEO, CFO, CIO, CNO, etc) who need a few days off to relax. Next, choose a speaker panel of political hacks, policy wonks, executive has-beens, and think tank blowhards. Throw an innocuous agenda that yaks about the obvious in a fabulous, expensive resort. Now, the hook. Market the VIP ‘Summit’, ‘Roundtable’, or ‘Executive Leadership Council’ to healthcare C-levels and tell them they can attend for next to nothing but airfare in exchange for 20-30 minutes of their time talking to a vendor. Second hook, market the ‘executive lead opportunity’ to vendors wanting badly to make their quarterly numbers and find low-hanging fruit in exchange for a mere $30,000 – $50,000 (which pays for the conference and salaries for the organizers). Now, market the everloving stew out of it with aggressive, relentless, pit bull sale folks in a boiler room. I’ve been on both sides of the invitee list and I assure you there’s rarely anything truly positive to come from it except for the salaries and commissions to the organizing company. And I think you know who the top two or three offenders are.”
From Larry Leotard: “Re: new company. I saw an analysis that said new SaaS companies need to assume negative cash flow for 3-4 years because when you get paid monthly, the cash comes in slowly compared to selling licenses. Sales expectations in start-up biz plans are always too optimistic. Anyone can sell 10 hospitals, but getting to 40 is hard.”
I’m taking a little break, so Miss Inga will be presiding for a few days. Please treat her with the appropriate deference and civility as she is a delicate flower.
The newly opened Jane Pauley Community Health Center (IN), a collaboration between Community Health Network and the local school system, is using the GE Centricity EMR, merging physical and behavioral data. Its namesake, the former news anchor and Mrs. Garry “Doonesbury” Trudeau, was on hand.
Salem Hospital (OR) signs for PureSafety’s Occupational Health Manager.
The PACS Designer is putting together a list of iPhone apps designed for healthcare people to use on the job. Send me the names of those you like and I will forward to TPD for a future Readers Write article.
In Australia, the Royal Flying Doctor Service is rolling out a new EMR for its remote patients.
Some employees of Regional Medical Center (SC) are crying “institutional racism” after a hospital ceremony recognizing the IT people involved in its Cerner project kicked off with someone in a gorilla suit handing out bananas while “Hail to the Chief” played in the background. The committee who planned the program always starts off with that music to introduce the CEO and the theme of the program was, “We’re Bananas Over You”, but that explanation didn’t appease those who were offended. The trustees get into the act, claiming the hospital tried to “sweep things under the rug,” so the hospital is sending everybody off for diversity training.
I’m happy to announce that we’ll be having another blockbuster HIStalk event at the Atlanta HIMSS conference in March. Sponsors have stepped forward, a topnotch venue has been secured, and liquor trucks are being diverted from all over the Southeast to stock it up. More details to follow, but mark down Monday, March 1 in your planner. Your event ideas are welcome.
Former ONCHIT head Rob Kolodner retired on September 22 after 31 years of public service. A job darned well done, I say. In his e-mail announcement, he said, “I am delighted to not only to have had the honor to serve our nation’s veterans for almost three decades, and be able to help them in their time of need after so many of them put themselves in harm’s way on our behalf, but also to have had the privilege of participating in VA-wide and nationwide activities to improve the quality, safety, and efficiency of patient-centered health care. Hopefully, this time we will finally succeed in achieving sufficient health reform to trigger the transformations in health and care that we so desperately need in the US.”
Bayer announces Contour USB, a plug & play glucometer that launches diabetes management software on a PC.
West Georgia Health System chooses Perot for revenue cycle services in a seven-year agreement.
An insurance company executive recommends three areas of focus for HIT startups: electronic connections for families, caregiver coordination, and population health.
Boston Medical Center, which just gave former CEO a one-time $3.5 million parting gift at her retirement, will close an ICU and lay off its 40 workers. The selectively generous facility will lose $170 million this year. Maybe it has board members from Merrill Lynch.
Newly announced Davies winner Urban Health Plan (NY) was able to create alerts and clinical decision support rules on its eClinicalWorks EMR the same day that CDC issued its H1N1 guidelines.
Odd lawsuit: an ambulance chaser and a Florida hospital are suing each other after the malpractice lawyer demanded records of all the hospital’s adverse events going back to its opening in 1934. The lawyer claims he’s thinking about getting a colonoscopy and wants to know how many perforated colons have occurred there. So why not just ask for those specific records? “"I could have a family member contemplating another procedure,” he said evasively. Or a client — he’s suing the hospital over a client’s perforated colon.
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From Been There: “Re: Humedica. It’s a good thing they raised $30 million because with a CEO, CMO, CTO, CFO and five vice-presidents (among just 40 employees), they might be a touch top-heavy. One other observation: no VP of Sales. I hope their solutions sell themselves.” Humedica, a “next-generation health care informatics company”, launches itself in a blaze of buzzwords. I don’t know any of the people on the board or management team, but it’s got a lot of investment people in charge, especially from Leerink Swann (one of the companies that provided its $30 million in seed money). It sounds like they’re doing population-based data analytics stuff. I’m going to guess that the company was formerly Health Insight Technologies since I see some people and address overlaps. If so, that means they’re going to be selling de-identified patient data, which means they have to figure out how to get hospitals to give it to them. Hoping to cash in on Uncle Sam’s proposed effectiveness and outcomes studies, I’ll postulate, since they seem in an awfully big hurry to gear up.
From Fan of Mr. HIStalk: “Re: Accretive. They are backed by the same VC money as Exault, an HR outsourcer created form BP’s HR department that went public and was picked up by a big player. Ascension says, ‘We will give you 14 of our hospitals in Michigan to try this in at no cost to us. If you succeed, we will let your take over all of our RC functions. If not we can just ask you to go away. We have had more than one client curious and concerned about what Accretive might launch in the RC space. It is lucrative and prime for re-engineering."
From Carrie Ann: “Re: Newsweek’s Top 500 Green Companies rankings. I thought it was interesting who made the list and who was not on it. Equally interesting is the criteria they used (which is up to speculation and debate) as well as the categories said companies fall into. For instance, Cerner made the list under Technology yet McKesson is listed under Retail. Things that make you go hmmmm.” Here’s the healthcare list and technology is here. Cerner snuck in only because, being in the software business, it doesn’t create greenhouse gas, acid rain, or toxic emissions. Otherwise, it earned a 4.04 score (on a 100-point scale) for green performance reputation.
From Fuzzy: “Re: ACS. I work for ACS in their healthcare solutions division and there has been absolutely no word of a furlough, mandatory or otherwise. And we’ve no end in sight for the contract that I’m currently assigned to.”
From BostonGuy: “Re: BIDMC. Interesting issue about ER physicians charging more at night.” SEUI’s organizers are making a fuss about the $30 ED surcharge for patients seen between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m., parking their billboard truck outside the Four Seasons where the hospital’s community leaders are meeting (a pretty swanky place for a hospital meeting — rooms start at $500).
From The PACS Designer: “Re: Linux desktop. Linux, the open source software platform, is finding more uses as developers build more applications using Linux as a server operating system. One area of growth for Linux is desktop applications, and one of the desktop systems that is free is Gnome. Gnome just released its latest version, Gnome 2.28, which adds support for Bluetooth devices, and should gain new mobile users who want a desktop view for their netbooks and phones.”
Jobs: System Analyst: SQL Server/Web Developer, CMS Operations Specialist, Epic Beacon Consultant, Java Developer.
I keep getting “you’re invited” e-mail blasts, urging me to attend one conference or another. I figure maybe I’m getting a VIP offer of free attendance for some reason. Nope – only after I’ve skimmed a mountain of marketing prose do I find that my “invitation” entitles me to pay the same exorbitant registration fee as everybody else.
British police appeal to the public to help find a man who stole two PCs from St. James Hospital last month. The new HP laptop and desktop contained “vital” radiotherapy software for cancer research that had not been backed up.
London Health Sciences Centre, stung by a whistleblower’s disclosure of an auditors’ report showing that its CIO had issued $3 million of no-bid contracts to friend, takes decisive action. It launches an investigation to find the whistleblower, saying the report was confidential. Not the smartest PR move I’ve seen.
Piedmont Healthcare expands its use of NextGen’s PM/EMR.
Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Standard with Headset – $29.99 after rebate and pretty cheap shipping. Saw it in the ad and thought someone might be interested.
The prospect of getting stimulus money has brought new HIEs out of the woodwork, so here’s yet another: Camden Health Information Exchange (NJ). Noteworthy Medical Systems will run it, I’ve heard.
A British shoplifter is arrested after a judge questions the veracity of her doctor’s note that claimed she couldn’t appear because of an appointment. Said the judge, “I have never seen a doctor write that clearly.”
The customer service director of a UK Internet service provider sends out a mass marketing e-mail pitching the company’s new billing system, but accidentally attaches a CSV file with full information on all the nearly 4,000 people who had signed up for it, including their contact and logon information. Among those whose information was contained in the file were a local hospital and New Scotland Yard.
Susan Neimeier joins medical device connectivity vendor Capsule Tech as chief nursing officer.
Red Hat announces Q2 numbers: revenue up 12%, EPS $0.15 vs. $0.10, beating estimates for both revenue and earnings. Nice.
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HERtalk by Inga
From My Fair Lady” “Re: KLAS appoints UPMC to board. This should be interesting. With UPMC owning a stake in dbMotion, how can they possibly be unbiased in their approach to interoperability platforms?”
From Joe Wilson: “Re: CEP America Chart off. Here is some clarification from the CIO of California Emergency Physicians – MedAmerica. Though Picis was quickest with regard to timing, they were missing two of the six elements of the case. Since CEP gave the cases out in advance, timing was far less important than having a complete chart. CEP declared Wellsoft the ‘winner’ by five seconds based on both quality and timing.”
From Alex DeLarge: “Re: foreign healthcare. Remember A Clockwork Orange? We ought to make all our legislators read these anecdotes and then challenge them to keep repeating that our healthcare is the best in the world.”
Sun Life Family Health Center (AZ) selects the browser-based InteGreat EHR for its six clinics. InteGreat is a division of MED3OOO.
The 180-provider Jackson Physicians Alliance (MI) inks an agreement with Cielo MedSolutions to purchase licenses for Cielo Clinic software.
The SEC charges two men with running an $8.6 million insider trading scheme in connection with Dell’s recent agreement to buy Perot. One of the men, who has done work for Perot, apparently got wind of the pending Perot acquisition. Less than three weeks ago, he and a buddy then purchased over 9,000 Perot call options. The SEC was not amused.
It’s been the best of times and it’s been the worst of times for IT provider InfoLogix. The company announces a new contract with Albert Einstein Healthcare Network (PA) to develop Web-based eLearning software to support its EMR implementation. InfoLogix also releases word that it received a deficiency letter from NASDAQ stating that it no longer meets the minimum $1.00 per share requirement for continued listing, though they have until March 15, 2010 to regain compliance.
Hewlett-Packard retires the Electronic Data Systems name, renaming it HP Enterprise Services.
The Hospital of Central Connecticut selects Ingenious Med’s IM Practice Manager for electronic charge capture.
The Ottawa Hospital partners with EDCO to implement its Solarity and Solcom products to digitize, store, and route paper documents electronically.
Former MinuteClinic CEO Michael Howe joins MEDNETWorld.com’s board of directors. Interestingly, Howe also is the former CEO of Arby’s, which may or not come in handy when dealing with HIEs.
LibertyHealth (NJ) launches EDIMS’s nursing documentation and charge capture systems. The health system implemented EDIMS’s CPOE and physician documentation systems in March.
Outpatient Surgery Center of Jonesboro (AR) selects ProVation MD software to document GI procedures.
Halfpenny Technologies’ new Web-based portal allows physicians to order lab procedures and view results.
Vermont Information Technology Leaders and Allscripts reveal plans to enter into a strategic alliance. Allscripts will extend preferred pricing to Vermont physicians, with both organizations focusing on providers in small practices or rural areas.
Doctations appoints Jerry Kolosky chief operating officer. He was a VP for 3M Health Information Systems.
The Washington Health Information Collaborative extends grants to 34 physician practices, health clinics, and hospitals in small and rural communities across the Pacific Northwest. Providers will receive up to $20,000 each to invest in IT to improve health care. First Choice Health is contributing $500,000, the largest single donation.
WellSpan Health’s York Hospital implements AeroScout’s Wi-Fi solution for asset tracking.
In case you missed it,we posted an interview with athenahealth’s Jonathan Bush on HIStalk Practice yesterday. Bush, in his ever-amusing, passionate, and irreverent way, gives the low-down on the company’s new program that guarantees athenaclinical users six months’ free service if they fail to qualify for government stimulus money. Here’s a sample: “I believe that every single doctor that we give a proposal to on athenaClinicals will actually make more cash as a result of being on athenaClinicals than not. I couldn’t say that for (the last) five years, and I still can’t say that about any of the other software products that I’ve seen.” While you are over on HIStalkPractice, sign up for e-mail updates so you don’t miss any other cool stuff.
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