From LargePop: “Re: David Brailer comments on HITECH. He says he thinks Congress will back down on penalties. He also says we’re approaching the peak of the hype cycle and will slide back to reality once we see how slow the money comes from CMS.” Also interesting: he thinks it was wrong to dump healthcare IT into ARRA, saying it puts too much risk into adoption (I assume he means the accelerated timeline).

From Haiku: “Re: Epic’s Haiku iPhone app. It’s piece of junk, hiccupping and having connection issues. Epic needs to go back to the drawing board.”

From ChrisF: “Re: Extormity. Any chance you could get an interview with CEO Brantley Whittington?” I don’t know how I’d arrange an interview with the fictitious CEO of a fictitious company put up as satirical Web page by unknown individuals, but if I can figure it out, I will do so. Or, perhaps its equally fictitious CMO: “I may have graduated last in my class at the Medical School at Universidad de Guatemala, but the parchment still says MD” whose value is described as “Bartram’s recollections of practicing medicine bring a real world perspective to Extormity products and services.”

From KayBee: “Re: Picis. I’m shocked by how often Todd Cozzens and Picis is mentioned in only the positive questions in the HISsies again this year.” Every year I urge people to nominate, stating in advance that the nominees with the highest number of votes will be the finalists for the actual voting. Every year, someone who didn’t nominate anyone complains about the choices of the people who did. I don’t know what else to say except that democracy rules when it comes to the HISsies nominations and voting. 

From Kasabian: “Re: Michael Blackman of Berkshire Health Systems. Any idea where he went? You did a a great interview with him a while back.” E-mail to him bounces back saying he left BHS on December 11, but his LinkedIn profile has not been updated. I’ll let you know if he provides an update.

From Atlanta Observer: “Re: McKesson. The comment re: Dr. Bill O’Connor jumping ship from McKesson to Eclipsys to join Jay Deady has more than made MCK ‘not happy’. They are going to aggressively make an example of his non-compete agreement breach. Decided at the highest levels.” Unverified.

From Jessica: “Re: Haiti. I was searching for ways to help with the recent earthquake in Haiti and came across Partners in Health (PIH). They are doing medical work in a number of poor countries and even more interesting, have a number of volunteer opportunities for healthcare IT types – some in the Boston area, others remotely. Thought this would be a nice way for your audience to have the opportunity to make a difference with an organization making a really big
difference.” I checked the organization in Charity Navigator and it looks solid: a four-star rating, low CEO salary, and low overhead (95% of income goes to programs).

From EMRDude: “Re: Ivo Nelson of Encore Health Resources. Heard that his house burned to the ground.” True, sadly, as Ivo confirmed to me by e-mail. Thank goodness nobody was hurt. Here’s an eloquent quote from Ivo’s e-mail: “I don’t think memories sit on shelves or hang on walls. Memories are what you did to procure those treasures. The real treasures are in our minds. Everything else is just ‘stuff’.” Here’s my one and only Ivo story since I met him only one time (and that was as me, not as Mr. HIStalk). I was talking to someone at the IBM booth at HIMSS shortly after they bought Healthlink and asked some “just being polite” question about something or other that didn’t really interest me all that much. The guy said, hey, come with me and I can get you an answer. I was sitting waiting and some guy walked in and started shooting the breeze, running off to get me a soda and talking about the good old days of being a consultant on the road. We swapped stories like old pals. He didn’t have a name tag and I wasn’t even sure he worked for IBM, so I said, “What company did you work for?” He said Healthlink. I said, what was your name again? He said Ivo Nelson. Dragging my memory, the light came on. I stammered out something like, “But … but … you are the guy!” He was really casual about it. Good guy. I’m really sorry to hear about the fire, but he’s taking it philosophically.

I’m traveling to a land where hotel wireless performance is awful (which narrows it down to everywhere, in my experience), so I’ll need to be uncharacteristically abbreviated this time around. I promise to resume posting massive tomes once I’m home. Thanks to Inga for handling Thursday’s post for me.  

I think the above poll results speak for themselves, at least if uncertainty is a valid conclusion. New poll to your right: David Brailer said it was a mistake to include healthcare IT in ARRA, saying it adds risk to adoption. Do you agree?

Chris Rauber, the excellent San Francisco Business Times reporter, covers the stunning breakup of CalRHIO, which was until recently the lead contender to run all interoperability projects in that state and serve as a conduit for millions of stimulus dollars. He says CalRHIO and its competitor CAeHC were told by the state to settle their differences and figure out who should develop a statewide HIE by mid-January. They didn’t, so the state will create a new entity to replace them both. Chris says CAeHC seems to be working with the state, but CalRHIO has laid off all its staff and CEO Molly Coye (who had just started on July 1) has gone into consulting. Board members from both organizations (and possibly some employees) will be involved in laying out next steps. Molly Coye sent this statement to me:

HIStalk readers may have heard that CalRHIO and CAeHC, the two finalists in California for ARRA funding governance entity, were unable to negotiate an agreement and form a new organization as the state requested. As a result the state has taken the lead in forming a new governance entity, with input from board members of the two organizations. For the past six months, I served as CEO of CalRHIO, and I’d like to take this opportunity to clear up possible confusion about the basis for the state’s decision. The decision was in no way a rejection of CalRHIO’s technology, as some media reports have implied. In fact, the state did not review CalRHIO’s technology in the RFI process, and specifically welcomed our technology partner, Medicity, to participate in the open procurement process that the state and the new governing entity will initiate some time this spring.

Medicity has been an excellent partner, from planning through the early stages of implementation. CalRHIO is grateful to Medicity for its innovative thinking in developing with us a sustainable business model based on shared savings. We hope other states and local health information organizations will consider this model as they develop their long-term financial plans. Medicity also helped us develop the concept of statewide shared services, a framework that California seems likely to adopt. In collaboration with the Orange County Partnership RHIO, CalRHIO and Medicity teamed to launch HIE services in one of the largest counties in the state, an initiative that will continue to bring critical patient data to emergency rooms throughout the county.

For more information please see the statement from CalRHIO’s board at www.calrhio.org.

Hundreds of California health care leaders and stakeholders worked together to create and build CalRHIO over the past five years, and we want to thank them again for their pioneering efforts. We hope that the new governance entity will be convened promptly and that providers and consumers will be well served as HIE is deployed over the coming years in California.

Jackson Health System in Miami is tanking big-time, with its reported $56 million fiscal year loss possibly actually being as much as $150 million. One excuse for its $438 million in AR is its billing system change.

Back to normal soon, so e-mail me but don’t expect an immediate response until I dig out of the backlog in two or three days. Taking time off is really hard.

 View/Print Text Only

The views and opinions expressed in this blog are mine personally, and are not necessarily representative of Texas Health Resources or its subsidiaries.

Why I Fired and then Rehired Myself
By Ed Marx

I received a message New Years Eve from a former colleague in human resources at University Hospitals (UH). In response to something I’d shared a few years back about firing myself, she said, “I loved it so much I’m firing myself today, too. Monday will start a fresh look at my job (that is, if I hire myself back).”

I think we all should give ourselves the pink slip.

A few years ago, Intel was losing market share and profitability. Consequently, the company floundered. Knowing it was a matter of time before the Board would take mending actions, the leadership (Grove, Moore) discussed a particular phenomenon they’d observed. Nearly every time a company or division installed new leadership or brought in consultants, outcomes improved. They concluded that the new leader came in energized and with a fresh pair of eyes. Knowing he was being evaluated, he took his responsibility more seriously than a tired leader.

Needless to say, Intel’s old leadership had a brainstorm. Why not fire themselves and come back to the job as the “new” leaders? "If existing management want to keep their jobs when the basics of the business are undergoing profound change, they must adopt an outsider’s intellectual objectivity." They fired themselves over a weekend, and, after shifting markets (memory chips to microprocessors), Intel became the clear leader in a very competitive market.

Although UH and IT weren’t in dire circumstances as was Intel, we needed to guard against complacency. I challenged my leaders to follow my example and take time over the holidays to reflect. Pondering how you would approach your position as a new employee is a healthy and worthy assignment. Look at yourself as a potential candidate for your position then ask: How will I evaluate the talent, change processes, and service mix? Should I alter my interactions with customers, my personal engagement, or my attitude? Will I embrace innovative ideas I formerly rejected/feared? What strategies and tactics will I deploy to ensure business and clinical convergence with the health system? Do I have the courage and fortitude to remove employees that no longer add value? Am I stretching the boundaries of innovation? How will I be a better servant…?

The variations are endless! To survive, you probably won’t need to change anything you’re doing. But to thrive means constantly reinventing self and operating differently. We embraced change, adopted an innovation oriented culture and began to walk in the fullness of our authority. What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.

Several other University Hospital leaders fired and rehired themselves that New Years Day of 2007. The result? We experienced a dramatic shift moving from transactional to transformational services that had a net impact on our business and clinical operations. Our business, quality, and service metrics shot up to new heights. I experienced exponential growth, personally and professionally.

I’m due for another firing. What about you?

Ed Marx is senior vice president and CIO at Texas Health Resources in Dallas-Fort Worth, TX. Ed encourages your interaction through this blog. (Use the “add a comment” function at the bottom of each post.) You can also connect with him directly through his profile pages on social networking sites LinkedIn and Facebook, and you can follow him via Twitter – User Name “marxists.”

 View/Print Text Only

HERtak by Inga

From: TV Critic “Re: ‘Biggest Loser’ Loses Paper with help of GE’s EMR. Did you see this – actually pretty good marketing! Reminds me of 30Rock and all their corporate synergies.  Hmmm… maybe they could do a Mercy showing the nurses getting mad at the docs for not using CPOE, or a Law and Order on people who violate HIPAA, or a new Hero who has the ‘ability’ to actually use an EMR efficiently ” It’s a curious world we live in. Perhaps they could do an American Idol and the “winner” would be the provider that documents the most complete chart at the point of care. Also curious: the only link I could find to this article was in the Ethiopian Review. I would have never guessed that Ethiopians were fans of Biggest Loser.

From: Trouble Brewing “Re: Ambulatory physician eligibility for ARRA. Thanks for providing the additional explanation about how a  hospital-based EP is defined. Lots of physicians and hospital administrators are not happy with the likelihood that a big segment of the physician population will be left out in the cold.” I’ve heard similar feedback. The committee reasoned that if the physician was using hospital owned clinics or facilities, they would most likely be paying for their own EHR. Maybe true, maybe not. If the hospital is paying for the physicians’ EHR and no one is eligible for stimulus funds, wouldn’t a hospital be inclined to make ambulatory EHR a lower priority and instead follow the money? I suspect we’ll hear more on this topic.

I’m flying solo today while Mr. H is out and about. I’m actually not sure what he is doing but I hope it is something fun.

Siemens names Eric Spiegel CEO and president, taking over for the retiring George Nolen.The official press release hails Spiegel a top influential international management consultant and energy expert who previously served as SVP and senior partner at Booz & Co. I didn’t note anything in his background related to healthcare, by the way.

The NIST awards Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. a $400,000 contract to help develop a testing method and processes for certifying electronic health record systems.

eClinicalWorks joins several competitors in offering a guarantee that its software will meet meaningful use criteria. The company is also offering free meaningful use webinars, and, onsite and online readiness assessments. eCW says that 2009 was a great year for them, with revenues exceeding $100 million for the first time.

Congrats to Bill Spooner of Sharp Healthcare (CA) who was named CIO of the year by CHIME and HIMSS. In addition to his lifetime achievements in HIT, Sooner was recognized for spearheading his organization’s EMR transition.

Hum ho. Yet another insurance company reports the loss of confidential patient information. BCBS TN announces 500,000 patients records may have been compromised after 57 computer hard drives were stolen from a closet. The company believes at least 220,000 records included social security numbers.

Apparently the state of Connecticut was not happy about Health Net’s privacy breach last year. The state attorney general is filing suit against the company, charging it with violations of HIPAA privacy and security rules, based on the disappearance of a hard drive. The company believes the missing drive contained PHI on 1.5 million members, including 446,000 from Connecticut.

The news out of Haiti is mind-numbing. This article highlights the work of Doctors Without Borders, who have already set up four tented facilities to treat the injured. Some are working in undamaged hospitals in Port-au-Prince, while others try to identify medical structures that are still intact.The organization is also waiting on the arrival of an inflatable field hospital, which sounds like a incredible piece of technology that includes two operating theaters and 100 beds. Lots of worthy organizations like Doctors Without Borders and The Red Cross are, of course, accepting donations. If you’d like a quick option, you can text “HAITI” to 90999 on your cell phone to donate $10 to Red Cross.

Cerner promotes Michael Valentine to COO, filling a vacancy that’s been open since 2007. Valentine previously served as Cerner’s US general manager.

Saint Peter’s University Hospital (NJ) plans to deploy Horizon Clinicals, including CPOE and enterprise care visibility. Saint Peter’s already utilizing McKesson’s revenue management products.

I was recently asked how I got this great opportunity to work with Mr. H and HIStalk. Almost three years ago, Mr. H made this small comment about needing an extra hand: “I need some help doing HIStalk (writing, chasing down information, etc.) If you know someone who’s interested and who might work remotely for a less than extortionate pay rate, let me know. I was thinking about hiring a grad student who might work a few hours a week to handle routine stuff. I’m just completely tapped out on time.” Since I was a big fan and at a point in my career where I had a bit of extra time, I begged him to hire me. One phone call later I was on board. When I arrived in April 2007, HIStalk had about 42,000 views for the month; today, between HIStalk and HIStalkPractice, we average nearly 100,000 hits a month. Mr. H is still tapped out and HIStalk now takes me more than just the original “few hours a week.” And it’s probably the most fun job I have ever had.

Eric Zimmerman, RelayHealth’s former SVP of marketing joins RedBrick Health Corp. as chief marketing officer.

Here’s something to contemplate: by 2020, the newest doctors will have been born after Amazon.com and will have never known a world without email or cell phones. MEDSEEK will discuss the impact of technology on patient care in its upcoming webinar “2020 Vision: The ePatient Evolution Over the Next Ten Years.” Register here for the January 27th event.

Ridgeview Medical Center (MN) expands its use of Wellsoft’s EDIS program, upgrading to v11 and adding electronic OE, charge capture and an HL7 interface to McKesson’s Paragon HIS.

Coming to HIStalkPractice tonight: ten execs answer the question, “What kinds of practices will be able to reach the 80% CPOE level?” I was personally a little shocked that a couple CEOs thought it was going to be so easy. Sign up for e-mail updates while you’re there.

Good news. Americans are not getting any fatter than we’ve been over the past 10 years. Of course a “hefty” number of adults (73 million or 34% of the adults) are still obese. A greater percentage of women are obese than men, but the guys are catching up pretty fast. Unfortunately, so are the kids. Perhaps too many folks are just sitting on their couches watching shows like the Biggest Loser.

E-mail Inga.

 View/Print Text Only

From rx4change: “Re: dialog. This is a very interesting dialog at the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology two days ago. Atul Gawande and Google CEO Eric Schmidt talk health technology and policy.” Schmidt should have kept his mouth shut, but instead expounded his unoriginal thought that practicing medicine should be a simple as having a doctor type in symptoms and then review the resulting computer list of best practices. Gawande gently sets him straight, mentioning the doctors have 15 minutes to manage six problems instead of plowing through reams of computer-generated junk. The problem with computer people is that when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. As nice as it would be if patients simply got better because of computer algorithms that matched Symptom A to Government-Approved Treatment B, that doesn’t work. I say let Schmidt find a doctor who practices that way and commit to seeing him or her for the next five years and then report back.

From Computer Historian: “Re: first real microcomputer. This article says the first real microcomputer, three years before the Altair, was built to handle medical records.” That’s pretty cool. The article says the computer was built at Sacramento State University in 1972 specifically to manage medical records. Of course, Meditech had been in business for several years by then, but this refers to an actual PC built expressly for healthcare use. The only surprise is that some hospital isn’t still running it.

From The PACS Designer: “Re: Google Wave.TPD has alerted HIStalkers about the beta called Google Wave. Now, InformationWeek has some interesting comments on what Google Wave is trying to convey to users.” Its major problem seems to be that no one can explain what it is or what problems it solves. I guess it has passed the Peak of Inflated Expectations and moved on to the Trough of Disillusionment.

From Cryovac: “Re: Bill O’Connor. The former McKesson doc who was in charge of clinical sales support is now SVP of marketing at Eclipsys. He was connected with Jay Deady at McKesson, so I am sure McKesson is not happy about his move.”

From Sylvester: “Re: wikibook. Here’s a compendium of wikipedia articles on informatics. The standard textbook is Shortliffe’s Biomedical Informatics. I don’t know how they compare, although this one is favorable on price!”

An insider says that the allegedly upcoming Apple tablet will be aimed at healthcare, not the consumer market. He makes the good point that the Intel C5, the hottest thing at HIMSS a few years back, has been pretty much a dud, now wildly overweight and overpriced. Of course, tablets haven’t exactly lit up the night skies of healthcare either, but Apple wasn’t involved.

I like to report on my personal technology experiments every now and then for you fellow geeks out there. Here are two winners: Dragon Naturally Speaking and SugarSync. I bought DNS Standard for $55 and it is truly amazing, deadly accurate straight out of the box and a very polite application on my modestly powered PC. I’m using it to reply to e-mails since my fingers tend to get tired after the third or fourth hour of typing after a full day doing exactly the same thing at work. SugarSync is an online backup application, of which I had tried Mozy and Carbonite without much satisfaction. SugarSync is fast, easy, and free with up to 2 GB of storage. It’s a real-time backup and has a Web interface that allows you to use or view your files from any PC or mobile device. I recommend both from my limited experience so far.

Allscripts announces Q2 numbers: revenue up 32%, EPS $0.10 vs. -$0.05. Showing how little I know about stock-picking, some analysts were disappointed despite what looked like gangbuster numbers to me. Market cap is at $2.8 billion. The company also announces its EHR certification guarantee, an EHR financing program requiring no payments for the first six months, and a faster implementation program. I also noticed that Glen Tullman mentioned HIStalk in the investor conference call.

Vince Kuraitis has a useful resource list for the proposed Meaningful Use rules.

Speaking of Meaningful Use, I like to think HIStalk is nimble in getting information to you faster. For that reason, I’m proud of Inga’s series on HIStalk Practice in which she connected with several industry executives to get their thoughts on the proposed regulations. She asked our 10 executive collaborators whether the proposed criteria were a surprise and whether they will have problems meeting them in Part 1. In Part 2, we find out what difficulties they expect physicians to have in meeting the proposed requirements. Thanks to our participants.

Our pen pal Janeen Cook, a former RelayHealth marketing VP now at graduate nursing school at Vanderbilt, says she’s torn between using her student discount or her AARP discount to attend HIMSS (funny). She’s doing a little marketing on the side, so that’s her Killer Marketing Collaborators text ad to your right. She’s trying to convince me to let people bid to sponsor her schooling in return for clinician and marketing services afterward. Sounds fun to me.

An internal Kaiser memo says that starting next week, patients will be able to securely e-mail images to their Kaiser doctors, giving patients an alternative to follow-up visits. Suggested uses are for post-operative wounds, lesions, acne, and rash. Their pilot project showed that 90% of received images were useful in making clinical decisions. Smart.

Gerard Livaudais MD, MPH, formerly of Kaiser-Hawaii, is named EVP of product management for Quantros.

Tim Adams, chief investment officer at Constitution Medical Investors, is named SVP and CFO of athenahealth, replacing the recently retired Carl Byers.

Athens Regional Medical Center (GA), chooses Eclipsys PeakPractice PM/EMR.

Cerner’s CareAware iBus receives FDA pre-marketing clearance, making it generally available. It provides data exchange between EMR systems and medical devices.

It’s a Weird News Andy field day. A new blood test finds that 80% of people previously thought to be allergic to peanuts really aren’t. Expectant but absent fathers can see live videos of their unborn child on their iPhone. A British TV show seeks a terminally ill volunteer to be mummified Egyptian style. And a professional singer who hiccupped 20 million times over three years is cured by brain surgery.

The judge in Charlie McCall’s HBOC securities fraud trial freezes his assets and raises his bond to $4 million, uncomfortable with the ease that Charlie could hightail it in his yacht. He also denies the defense a new trial and soothes the concerns of his attorney that Charlie can’t pay him if his assets are frozen. Charlie got off on a solicitation charge in 2006 when the undercover officer’s tape recording was of poor quality. According to statements, he asked the female vice officer about “various options” and offered her $100 to accompany him back to his hotel.

ONCHIT is advertising for a vendor to attempt to re-identify a de-identified database, linking the data elements to individual patients.

Flagstaff Bone and Joint chooses the SRS hybrid EMR.

The National eHealth Collaborative posts its preliminary slate of board candidates for public comment.

The Houston business paper does a writeup on Encore Health Resources, highlighting its growth from 10 employees a year ago to 41 currently with 10 new folks coming on board each month. The company is sponsoring the HIStalk event at HIMSS, which I appreciate. For all the experience Ivo and Dana have in consulting, they have obvious deep domain expertise in the bartender-to-guest metric, as evidenced by their wildly popular reception at the last HIMSS conference. I’m pretty sure a good time will be had by all.

The entire 26-member EMR team at Royal Berkshire Hospital is canned as part of its UPMC implementation partnership. Also in the UK, Charles Gutteridge is appointed as the first national clinical director for informatics.

A New York Times article mentions an upcoming study that concludes that the Danish HIT system is the most efficient in the world, saving doctors 50 minutes per day and the country $120 million per year. They have advantages for that kind of adoption, however: high taxes, free medical care, and different attitudes toward privacy. Not mentioned is the prevailing Scandinavian model of not having healthcare be a rampant playground for greedy capitalist enterprises. You get the feeling that their healthcare isn’t run by MBAs and multimillion dollar CEOs.

MediConnect Global acquires PHR vendor PassportMD.

The state of California establishes the use of open source software as an acceptable practice. The CEO of Red Hat notes that economic conditions are pushing companies to consider open source to offset budget shortfalls.

E-mail me.

HERtalk by Inga

From UB40: “Re: ambulatory physician eligibility for ARRA. I know there has been some fuzziness about MDs who work for hospitals, like pathologists, radiologists, anesthesiologists, ED docs, etc. Obviously, the object of the ruling was that if the EMR was bought and paid for by the hospital and the MD was working exclusively in a hospital setting, then he shouldn’t reap the benefit of the work the hospital did.” UB40 is referring to an upcoming conference call hosted by The Health Management Academy, to discuss the exclusion of “thousands of physicians practicing in hospital-owned ambulatory clinics or facilities, whether or not the physicians are employed by the hospital or health system.” Reading over the latest documents, the wording does indicate that hospital-based EPs are not eligible for the Medicare or Medicaid incentive payments. A hospital-based EP is defined as one who furnishes substantially all (90% or more) of his or her Medicare-covered professional services in a hospital setting  (inpatient and/or outpatient) through the use of the hospital’s facilities and equipment, including the hospital’s qualified EHR. In other words, if a provider performs 90% or more of his/her services under place of service codes 21, 22, or 23, regardless of the provider’s employer, he/she would not be eligible for stimulus funds. The assumption is that a provider providing 90% or more of his/her services in the hospital are not likely to expend significant resources related to EHRs in other, non-hospital settings. OHCHIT is looking for feedback on whether or not this assumption is correct. I admit their assumptions sound reasonable to me.

Rome Memorial Hospital (NY) selects McKesson to provide the software for its $7 million EHR investment. Last month Mr. H mentioned that a Congressman helped the hospital obtain $250,000 to help fund the effort.

Meditech and Zynx Health partner to provide Meditech Magic and C/S customers the Zynx Health portfolio of evidence-based order sets.

The results of this new EMR usage survey indicate that 43.9% of physicians use an EMR, at least partially. However, only 6.4% utilize the full functionality of their systems. The survey used a self-reporting methodology, so the results may not be the most statistically valid. Regardless, adoption is clearly on the rise.

Thomson Reuters names Raymond Fabius, MD, FAAP, FACPE as chief medical officer of its Healthcare & Science business.

Frimley Park Hospital NHS Foundation Trust goes live with Picis in surgery and critical care.

Bronx Lebanon Hospital Center is now live on Sunrise Emergency Care in it ER and Ambulatory Care at a 40-doctor practice. The hospital plans to deploy the the Ambulatory Care solution to all it 27 outpatient clinics in 2010. Eclipsys also announces that New York Downtown Hospital (NY) is adding Sunrise Acute Care, Pharmacy, and Emergency Care applications.

University Medical Center at Princeton, a 10-year client of QuadraMed’s, plans to offer e-MDs to its affiliated physician practices. I was curious what would happen with the QuadraMed/e-MDs partnership now that QuadraMed is owned by Francisco Partners. Looks like the alliance is not dead yet.

Michael Martens takes over as Mediware’s new CFO. Martens replaces Mark Williams, who announced his retirement last fall. Martens’ previous employers include Euronet Worldwide and Cerner.

Geisinger Health System is implementing RelayHealth’s RevRunner solution for eligibility and benefits verification.

Southeast Alabama Medical Center selects Wolters Kluwer Health to deploy Provation Order Sets, powered by UpToDate Decision Support. Fort Worth Endoscopy Center also contracts with Wolters Kluwer Health for ProVation MD for procedure documentation and coding and ProVation EHR for patient charting.

CliniComp says four military treatment facilities went live with Essentris inpatient documentation solution during Q4.

Florida Hospital, an eight-location system with 2,188 beds, deploys HealthPort’s release of information technology, alongside Cerner Millennium.

VirtualHealth Technologies announces plans to sell its Secure eHealth messaging division to Wound Management Technologies.

Now that the holiday season is behind us, I’m beginning to feel that pre-HIMSS excitement. I love opening my mailbox each day to discover all the informative junk mail from vendors. Mr. H and I have been so busy lately that we have yet to talk much about details. I am sure he’d like to hire a dozen fake Ingas in low-cut blouses to sashay about the exhibit floor. And for the last three years I’ve asked him to hire a Mr. H look-a-like — that would be someone looking a lot like George Clooney — to provide foot massages. If you have any suggestions on how we can make HIMSS more fun and/or informative, let us know.

E-mail Inga.

 View/Print Text Only

From Situation: “Re: little Epic app. Haiku available now. Get it from iTunes.” I like that it even has tallman lettering on the drug names. The one mention I found says users need a Haiku license and Epic Summer 2009. It works on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

From Colleen: “Re: Meaningful Use. Looks like the comment period has opened.” It sure does, even though ONCHIT just told be it would be Wednesday. You can submit comments electronically on the Meaningful Use criteria. The link to the larger reimbursement document isn’t working yet.

From SniffSniff: “Re: RHIOs. I’m working with RHIOs in various locations. A large vendor is not playing nice — won’t share data, won’t participate, and is pushing its hospitals to not be part of the health exchange. It’s apparently coming from the top. Yep, you guessed it — Epic. I’m going to the client in two weeks to explain this and advise them against the EHR, solely based on this reason.”

From Proust: “Re: HIMSS Analytics Stage 7. University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics got its designation on January 7, another Epic facility.” Do you suppose its outcomes and costs showed improvement and are superior to its lesser-staged competitors? My guess: no.

Ingenix will announce that it will offer interest-free loans to practices who buy its CareTracker PM/EMR. In addition to guaranteeing that CareTracker will meet meaningful use technical requirements, Ingenix says it will also help providers qualify for CMS incentive payments. Here’s their best pitch, though: the Web-based CareTracker EHR costs only $23,500 over five years, less than the ARRA reimbursement of $44,000 over five years.

Revenue cycle management vendor Origin Healthcare Solutions of Windsor, CT announces that Technology Crossover Ventures has made a “significant growth equity investment” in the company.

US CTO Aneesh Chopra, speaking at the CES show in Las Vegas, emphasizes healthcare IT:

“We don’t have a lot of innovation yet about how consumers can communicate with our electronic health record systems and smart meters and frankly education technology. We need more innovation. If you ask how many people receive an electronic record of their health information after they visit a physician or a hospital… I would be shocked if it was more than five percent. It’s probably more like two percent. That’s one of the provisions we’re calling for — the ability of patients to get records within 48 hours of their request. We should have a fairly open standard that will allow entrepreneurs to make that a low-cost product that physicians and hospitals could acquire.”

I’m not sure anything about HITECH encourages innovation, low-cost products, or entrepreneurs, but that’s what he said.

Listening: reader-recommend Hey Marseilles, an unsigned Seattle indie folk/pop band with orchestral backing. They’re good, reminding me a little of R.E.M.

Myrtue Medical Center (IA) chooses MedsTracker Enterprise Medication Reconciliation from Design Clinicals, which the hospital’s CEO says will increase patient safety while qualifying it for ARRA funding.

Above are your responses to my last poll on the proposed Meaningful Use criteria. New poll to your right: if providers meet the Meaningful Use criteria, will the average patient benefit?

Ninety-four of the 100 University of Missouri Health Center IT employees who were offered a chance to transition to the Tiger Institute the hospital created with Cerner take the offer, with six passing. Those 94 are now Cerner employees, bringing their seniority along and keeping their current salaries plus $1,000. Some of them think that’s unfair given that they are now Cerner employees working for state employee wages. “We have a ton of experience, so we don’t want young whippersnappers coming in making $10,000 or $15,000 more than we are.” Did he really say “whippersnappers?” I’d bet the number left in a year is a good deal less than 94.

Elsevier acquires NurseSquared, which offers an EHR simulation product for nurse training.

Christopher Thompson MD, chief medical officer of ED documentation system vendor Touch Medix, is sentenced to five years in prison for his role in a road rage incident involving bicyclists.

An Arkansas county jail will make prisoners responsible for paying a co-pay for medical treatments and prescriptions. The ordinance was approved by justices of the peace, who also passed a “pay for stay” ordinance that bills convicted prisoners for their room, board, and transportation to and from jail.

Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie, ON launches its TELUS Sourcing Solutions HR systems as it begins recruitment for over 1,000 new employees to staff its expansion.

SAIC gets up to $14 million over five years to support the VA’s blood bank software.

Wales announces The Welsh Clinical Portal.

Odd lawsuit: a man trying to determine if his surgeon made mistakes sues University Community Hospital (FL) when the hospital tells him the search through decades of paper information will cost him more than $1 million. The hospital explained that its employees would have to manually search patient charts and redact privacy-related information. The lawsuit demands that the hospital prove its actual cost of producing the records.

E-mail me.

 View/Print Text Only