Home » News » Currently Reading:

News 1/18/12

January 17, 2012 News 9 Comments

Top News

1-17-2012 5-52-13 PM

mrh_small Thomson Reuters names its Top 15 Health Systems that have achieved superior clinical outcomes based on quality, patient perception of care, and efficiency. If anyone knows how many are Epic, that would be interesting given all the lofty ambitions expressed by customers trying to justify their expensive projects. Or for that matter, how many are HIMSS EMRAM Stage 6/7 since HIT cheerleaders are always trying to make the connection between HIT and outcomes.


Reader Comments

inga_small From Barefoot in Vegas: “Re: Trade show shoes. AMAZING TOPIC!!!!!!! Please send me your show list.” I love people who don’t chinch on exclamation points, so I was happy to share my shoe brand tip with Barefoot. I admit I was amazed (!!!) how many people were interested in my footwear insights. It made me feel a little like Oprah.

1-17-2012 6-04-42 PM

mrh_small From Social Profiteer: “Re: pimping HIT tweets. Apparently so-called news organizations, especially those owned by HIMSS, are willing to sell out their readers.“ I can’t decide which is more interesting: (a) charging vendors $10,000 for a couple of tweets,  or (b) vendors thinking that barraging a news site’s readers with unwanted Twittermercials is actually hip, progressive marketing that will benefit those companies. It seems kind of unsavory and reader-insulting for a company with “news” in its name to be doing this kind of revenue augmentation without regard to the potential damage to whatever reputation it has, but it’s really none of my business – that’s between the publication and its readers.

1-17-2012 7-01-24 PM

mrh_small From Harcourt: “Re: inpatient MU attestation. Please post this graph. I believe the huge gap between Cerner, Meditech (including its contribution of HCA’s attestation), and Epic would create interesting discussion.” The graph is here. As with EP attestation numbers, I would be cautious about trying to apply client MU figures to the likelihood of a given customer earning MU money. Meditech has more live hospitals than anyone, so I’d expect its numbers to beat those of other vendors. In fact, I’m slightly surprised that it doesn’t have a wider lead over Cerner and especially Epic (Epic’s number suggests that 50% of the hospitals it has ever sold to have attested, which I would think trounces both Cerner and Meditech if you’re calculating odds). I can’t say I’m really interested in any of this information, since any vendor with even one successfully attesting client has proven that its software has the capabilities needed. Beyond that, much of the required effort belongs to the customer.

1-17-2012 7-30-55 PM

mrh_small From HITEsq: “Re: Girard Medical Center (KS). Really doesn’t like Cerner – suing them for breach of contract. Among the interesting tidbits, Cerner staff apparently though that Cerner was able to get the hospital to agree to an agreement as a result of ‘concert tickets and booze’ and that the Cerner staff was only there ‘because [they] drew the short straw.’ Apparently, Girard feels like it paid $1.3M for nothing.” The 21-bed hospital says it has paid $1.3 million of the $2.9 million total without receiving “any tangible work product” and that the time and attendance system that it thought it was getting wasn’t included (they claim Cerner helpfully suggested using an Excel worksheet instead.) The hospital also claims that Cerner assigned “incompetent staff” to implement the system. That’s all fun to read, but (a) this is one side of an argument that has two; and (b) some of the claims fall between irrelevant and desperate. There’s a good lesson here for customers: don’t let your buddy-buddy salesperson talk you out of getting an expert in contract law to insert protection into the agreement that covers whatever you are (or should be) afraid of as a customer. Once it gets to the lawsuit stage, there’s a good chance that nobody will be happy with the result except the hourly-billing lawyers.


HIStalk Announcements and Requests

mrh_small Listening: reader-recommended Turisas, epic pagan battle metal from Finland, like a band of Vikings hit Kerry Livgren over the head with a mace in 1975 and took over prog band Kansas, then merged it with Green Carnation and Muse. While I acknowledge that most folks won’t like it, I definitely do. 

mrh_small I’m really behind after taking some time off, just in case I seem unresponsive. I don’t think that situation will change until well into the weekend since I’ll be working all of it.


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

1-17-2012 2-52-09 PM

7 Medical Systems, a provider of on-demand digital imaging, EMR, and RCM solutions, acquires Manager Consultoria em Informatica LTDA EPP, a Brazilian company  that offers similar services to hospitals and clinics in Brazil.

Elsevier purchases QUOSA, a provider of life sciences content management and workflow productivity solutions.

VeriTeQ Acquisition Corporation completes its acquisition of PositiveID Corporation’s VeriChip implantable microchip  and Health Link PHR.


Sales

The DOD’s Military Health System awards Planned Systems International a five-year, $96 million contract to provide code maintenance services.

1-18-2012 4-25-38 PM

Putnam County Hospital (IN) announces plans to implement CPSI.

Prevost Memorial Hospital (LA) selects CMR EDIS version 3.3 for its emergency department.

1-17-2012 2-43-06 PM

Home health provider RBA Texas selects Axxess’ Agencycore home health software.

1-17-2012 2-46-10 PM

Nashville General Hospital signs a multi-year agreement with Sectra for its integrated RIS/PAC solutions.

1-17-2012 2-47-12 PM

Baylor Health Care System (TX) adopts technology from strategicplanningMD, a provider of strategic planning software for the healthcare industry.

IASIS Healthcare LLC (TN) selects NextGen Practice Management and RCM for its 19 hospitals across seven states.

Ellenville Regional Hospital (NY) selects Healthcare Management Systems (HMS) EHR and financial applications.

The Premier Healthcare Alliance awards a contract to UltraLinq Healthcare Solutions for its Web-based imaging system.

1-17-2012 8-57-45 PM

Mercy Medical Center (IA) selects MedVentive’s Population Manager and Risk Manager products to facilitate management of its accountable care contracts.

Massachusetts General Hospital chooses Voalté’s consolidated voice, alarm, and text communication system for nursing communication.


People

1-17-2012 2-48-08 PM

Aria Health (PA) appoints Brian A. Hannah MD as CMIO.

1-17-2012 5-45-55 PM

OB fetal monitoring software vendor PeriGen names former Allscripts SVP Matthew Sappern as its CEO. He replaces Donald Deieso, who retired at the end of December to join Arsenal Capital Partners.

1-17-2012 10-38-43 AM

St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center (NY) appoints Michael A. Spurchise director of enterprise and ambulatory systems.

1-17-2012 2-49-13 PM

Chris Caramanico joins SCI Solutions as SVP of marketing and business integration. He was previously SVP of new business enterprise applications for Allscripts.

1-17-2012 7-42-37 PM

Cornerstone Advisors names Gregg Fajkus as VP and Epic practice director. He was previously with Encore Health Resources.

1-17-2012 8-16-44 PM

Pamela Lane, formerly VP of health informatics with the California Hospital Association, is appointed deputy secretary of the health information exchange at California’s HHS.

Steven Arnold MD is named chief medical officer of surgical implant management solutions vendor MediQuip.


Announcements and Implementations

Human capital management software vendor API Healthcare announces strong growth for 2011, including the best quarter in its history.

Stockell Healthcare Systems announces GA of its InsightCS Business Intelligence Suite 2.0, which expands its revenue cycle management system with executive dashboards that include days in AR, cash receipts, collector productivity, denial rates, clean claim rates, and coder productivity.

In England, six hospital trusts say they’re saving $12 million per year by operating a telestroke program based on Polycom’s RealPresence video collaboration solution.

Misys Open Source Solutions grants exclusive Swiss distribution rights for its Misys Connect XDS registry and repository to Switzerland-based enterprise content management vendor Uptime Services AG.


Other

A data entry error creates grossly inflated bills for hundreds of Bronx-Lebanon Hospital (NY) patients. The hospital blames its billing company for inserting invoice numbers in the space designated for the amount owed.

The local paper profiles Beacom Health, one of six practices that have taken advantage of subsidies from Fremont Area Medical Center to implement eClinicalWorks.

1-17-2012 10-55-20 AM

Cerner donates $10,000 to its First Hand Foundation to celebrate hitting the 10,000-employee milestone. The company has now employs 10,062 associates, including 6,575 in the Kansas City area.

inga_small I couldn’t help think of Mr. H when I read this since I know he enjoys both his music and his exercise. Between 2010 and 2011, 47 people were killed or seriously injured while walking and wearing ear buds or headphones. I predict a few lawsuits against Apple for allowing the music to play so loud. 

mrh_small Weird News Andy says he’s excited at the news that a pill may replace the need to exercise, but he’d be happy with one that helps him remember where he put his car keys.

mrh_small Strange: unknown criminals steal a computer and paper records from a South Carolina doctor’s office, then drill a hold in the roof, insert a garden hose, and turn it on to run all weekend.

1-17-2012 8-35-54 PM

mrh_small Commissioners of Bay County, FL discuss a settlement with chiropractic office management software vendor Redpine, which relocated to the area to take advantage of $750K in incentives and then closed its doors. The company has offered to sell its software rights to repay the incentives and claims it has several prospective buyers.


Sponsor Updates

  • Health Language Inc. releases a new version of its provider-friendly terminology  to include clinician friendly synonyms and more than 100,000 attributes for ICD-10-CM.
  • The Health Training Network, a service of Inland Northwest Health Services, opens a new training facility to house medical classes, including a paramedic program.
  • IMDsoft reports strong growth in 2011, including first-time installations in three countries and involvement with  45 critical care and anesthesia projects.
  • SCI Solutions announces HITECH certification of its Schedule Maximizer V34.
  • Awarepoint reports that 10 of its newly-live customers were interviewed by KLAS, with all of them reporting high satisfaction.
  • McKesson customers share keys to successfully attesting for Stage 1 Meaningful Use.
  • The New Zealand Trade and Enterprise names Orion Health one of nine finalists in the “Best Business Operating Internationally” category in the New Zealand International Business Awards.
  • Aspen Advisors announces that in 2011 the company grew revenue 40%, expanded its leadership team, and added 23 clients.
  • ICA Informatics signs a memorandum of understanding with the New York eHealth Collaborative to join its workgroup for developing connectivity standards.
  • Princeton Orthopaedic Associates (NJ) selects the SRS EHR.
  • Canon and Nuance Communications successfully  complete interoperability testing of Nuance’s eCopy ShareScan v5 software for converting and passing scanned documents from Canon ImageRUNNER ADVANCE MFPs into EHR applications.

Contacts

Mr. H, Inga, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Gregg.



HIStalk Featured Sponsors

     

Currently there are "9 comments" on this Article:

  1. Re Attestation Numbers.. The vendors count customers differently.. unique hospitals vs. customer organizations or contracts.. Epic has many many more unique eligible hospitals using its solution. For example Kaiser and Sutter are each counted as one customer yet they include about 40-50 individual Hospitals. Epic probably has 4 to 5 times the number of Hospitals actually utilizing its system than what it counts for customers. Do the math on their annual user group meeting. The number of people who show up doesn’t add up with the number of Hospital Customers they have.

  2. Must be old news re: Caramanico because the press release is from Jan 2011. I’m sure the crack marketing team failed to change the template. The bull has entered the china shop and those who know Chris understand what that means.

  3. Theives that stole a computer from a doctor’s office, drilled a hole and inserted a hose and let it run all week-end?…Aren’t those the infamous “Wet Bandits” from Home Alone fame ???

  4. Re: Attestation Numbers and Mr. Bradford’s comments….CMS is doing the counting, not the vendors. Using that logic Ascension would count as 1 for Cerner, and HCA would count as 1 for MEDITECH. MEDITECH numbers may be understated because most of the HCA inpatient facilities (the attestation leader) are mostly MEDITECH. Incidentally, the presentation detail also says that all inpatient attestations have been successful!

  5. Kudos to Chris Caramanico. A bull, yes…but I’d follow a bull before I followed a lamb anywhere. Good luck Chris.

  6. RE: David Bradford – While I agree that it is a customer count based on health systems being counted as one, would it also not correlate to say a Kaiser that may have 40 individual hospitals, but say only really 20 have attested, but EPIC counts Kaiser health system as attesting.

    In the end, I agree with Mr. HISTalk, if you have one attested you are good to go. I mean, this is Stage 1 folks…this stuff should have been in the system to begin with.

    Question though: Where is McKesson in this list? With Horizon AND Paragon, you would have thought they would have at least beat out HMS or Iatrics…seriously?

  7. Turisas… Is it wrong for a man to acknowledge his like for pagan metal…I think not, especially if it includes horns and strings! ROFL… Have to admit I took a listen to Lana Del Rey after she got panned on SNL..her production sound is much better (I skipped the live version and don’t want to ruin it)…

  8. David Bradford is wrong. Epic actually has fewer customers than Meditech and the like. The size of Epic customers makes the difference – more beds, but fewer individual facilities. 10 Meditech facilities might be the size of 1 Epic facility, so Meditech wins 10-1 even if the same number of beds are involved. It’s also more important to CMS if they count “eligible hospitals” rather than counting every single facility. The numbers are accurate, but they don’t really tell any particularly useful story, except that it’s easier for small hospitals and for hospitals with large employed physician bases to achieve MU.







Text Ads


RECENT COMMENTS

  1. Re: Epic - "The foundation will sell stock back to the company to distribute donations. No public sale.” This plan…

  2. I think Disingenuous is confused (or simply not aware of how it has been architected). How control of Epic is…

  3. It seems that every innovation in the past 50 years has claimed that it would save money and lives. There…

  4. Well, this is predicting the future, and my crystal ball is cloudy and cracked. But my basic thesis about Meditech?…

  5. RE Judy Faulkner's foundation wishes: Different area, but read up on the Barnes Foundation to see how things work out…

Founding Sponsors


 

Platinum Sponsors


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gold Sponsors


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RSS Webinars

  • An error has occurred, which probably means the feed is down. Try again later.