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December 28, 2010 News 7 Comments

From BeKind: “Re: Texas patient privacy breaches. Mentioned in this article.” It also mentions that JPS Health Network is spending $94 million on its Epic implementation.

From Jennifer: “Re: QuadraMed QCPR. Now fully certified!” CCHIT certified QCPR as a hospital EHR on December 23.

From Skinny Minnie: “Re: vendor gag clauses. A billing vendor’s new customer did a YouTube testimonial about why they switched from their previous vendor (service and cost). The previous vendor told the customer they were violating the terms of their contract, which says they can’t ‘disparage or denigrate’ them, and insisted they make their new vendor take the video down.” No link was provided, but I found a YouTube video featuring a customer of the same ‘new’ vendor explaining why they replaced the same ‘old’ vendor, specifically mentioning the monthly cost of each. Either the ‘old’ vendor missed this one or it didn’t get taken down after all.

From Alfonso: “Re: healthcare IT tools for Accountable Care Organizations. I ran across an article touting two companies that are attracting VC and private equity interest – MedVentive and AmalgaMed. Investors are looking at the next two years as being critical for capturing market share as payment reform in the form of ACOs restructures healthcare delivery.” AmalgaMed is a new startup founded by a couple of entrepreneurs with benefits management experience.

Genesis HealthCare System (OH) sells $20 million worth of buildings to pay for an EMR system, freeing up cash flow to fund mission-critical projects.

TPD has updated his list of iPhone apps.

Who knew that Tom Selleck was a cheesy-mustached technology thought leader way back in 1993? Or at least he sounded that way as he read the script that AT&T gave him for these old commercials. I ran across a mention of this compilation video on something called Dvice, from Syfy.

Inga and I have been swamped lately, with a ton of new sponsors, interviews, HIMSS planning, etc. I’m thinking I need to hire someone part-time to help out. I could use someone who knows the industry, writes really well, and enjoys dealing with cool people like our sponsors and contributors by e-mail and telephone. Pay won’t be impressive, but it’s a good chance to learn and to get your name out there. Those interested should do like Inga did years ago: e-mail me and tell me why I should hire you since my natural inclination is to just suck it up and work more hours myself.

Registration for CMS’s Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive programs starts next week. Instructions and the link to the registration page (when it’s turned on) are available here. You can register now even if you haven’t implemented anything yet.

Weird News Andy notes that of the 20 least-efficient charities in the country, only one relates to healthcare: Charleston Area Medical Center Foundation (WV), which runs an administrative expense ratio of 49% and earns one star from CharityNavigator. In comparison from the most-efficient list, Brother’s Brother Foundation, which includes medical supply donation among its projects, runs an expense ratio of 0.0% and has earned a four-star rating from CharityNavigator (which is where I always look first before donating). I have to be honest: having worked for hospitals nearly all of my life, they’d be last on my list of organizations to which I’d donate. Charity is big business at that level, with highly paid foundation employees, lots of private club donor schmoozing, and constant trading of favors (like donors making their contributions contingent on hiring their company as a vendor or giving their worthless kids phony jobs). Not to mention that I would never fund a charitable cause that pays executives $1 million or more like many hospitals.

Cerner shares are continuing their generally upward trend, closing Tuesday at $96.01. You could have bought shares for $72 in September (or $16 in 2003).

12-28-2010 7-13-06 PM

India-based NIIT Technologies Limited acquires the Preferr patient referral system, developed by Visions@Work of Clermont, FL.

E-mail me.

HERtalk by Inga

Manatee Health System (FL) will spend $2.5 million to implement Cerner, with Manatee Memorial Hospital and Lakewood Ranch Medical Center making the switch in August.

St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center (NY) will hire at least 25 people "with considerable information-technology (IT) experience, preferably in the health-care field." The additions will double the size of the existing IT department.

UPMC introduces a mobile version of MyHealth Connect, giving users smart phone access to UPMC Health Plan information. The initial phase includes details on UPMC’s provider directory. Future versions will include a virtual ID card and access to members’ PHRs.

US Oncology names Karen Gibson SVP and CIO of its technology services, reporting to EVP Asif Ahmad. She was previously CIO of Life Technologies and of GE Healthcare Information Technologies.

Sponsor Updates

  • Cumberland Consulting Group promotes Mary Francis Shaw, Dao Dang, and Chris Wolfert to executive consultant.
  • Allscripts CEO Glen Tullman will join the founders of Wikipedia and eMedicine to discuss the impact of the Internet on healthcare on January 6 at the University of South Florida Alumni Center in Tampa.
  • CareTech Solutions offers a money-back guarantee to hospitals that try its Solution Found service desk offering.
  • Picis will incorporate the AORN Syntegrity framework into its perioperative suite.

 

E-mail Inga.

 



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Currently there are "7 comments" on this Article:

  1. The AT&T “You Will” commercials are remarkable for 2 things

    1) They’re all happening now EXCEPT the “medical records in your pocket”
    2) There is no AT&T (at least not that version of the company any more) and they didn’t bring any of these things!

  2. Re: vendor gag clauses – The video you’re referring to is a second testimonial, made by someone in a private practice. The video that was taken down was by a customer in a medical billing service. Fortunately the vendor doesn’t have the same leverage with private practices as it does with billing services. It seems some things are coming out of the woodwork. Hmm.

  3. Someone left a link for those AT&T videos over at the Occam PM blog when I wrote about predictions for the new year, and I thought they were surprisingly predictive of what we’re approaching today (though I love the first YouTube comment: “The only thing they got wrong was that the world doesn’t look like Blade Runner and there are not enough fat people.”) But I have to disagree slightly with Matt: with the iPhone and iPad locked into AT&T contracts, they are bringing a lot of these services to people, albeit not in the same way and from the exact same company as originally advertised.

  4. Re: Genesis HealthCare System (OH) sells $20 million worth of buildings to pay for an EMR system,

    Hey…whats wrong with this picture?? Sell hard assets for soft assets?? If they think the maintenence costs on a building are too much that they need to sell it, wait till they get the software maintenance bill. And when that new EMR is ten years old how much do you think they can get for it?

    Does not look like a sound financial picture to me, and another indication that EMR mania is out of control.

  5. Re: vendor gag clauses

    I think everyone reading here knows the power of ‘lawyering up’ by the vendors.

    Perhaps it’s time the focus of the efforts of all of us (that is, current or one-day-to-be patients) should be towards ‘motivating’ HIT companies to produce health IT that actually eases the tasks of clinicians and improves the care they provide, in a manner that is state of the art in terms of exploitation of advances in human computer interaction.

    Happy New Year to all.

    — SS

  6. Michelle W. Hmm….I like the too much Blade Runner not enough fatties remark.

    But the ATT&T that put out these ads, cratered over the next 5 years as long distance rates collapsed and was on the verge of going out of business when SBC put it out of its misery, but took the name. Which resulted in the baseball stadium 500 yards from my house changing its name 3 times in about 5 years.

  7. Regarding QuadraMed’s QCPR being certified – major accomplishment for this company given the numerous changes. It appears Allscripts Sunrise Clinical Manager obtained certification, according to their web site posting as of 12/28.







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