Well that's a bad look as the Senators contemplate filling in the House gaps in the VA Bill
News 2/8/12
Top News
Cerner reports Q4 numbers: revenue up 23%, EPS $0.52 vs. $0.41, with adjusted earnings of $0.55 beating expectations of $0.53.
Reader Comments
From MU Jackie: “Re: latest CMS attestation data. It’s incredible that the CMS data has been downloaded only 120 times – it’s out there on a silver platter for vendors, consultants, press, etc. I did some quick and dirty pivot tables. For inpatient, if you add Meditech and HCA’s customized version of their product, they are the clear winner, with almost twice Epic’s numbers. For ambulatory, Epic has 2.5 times more than #2 and 10 times Cerner, probably because hospitals do ambulatory first to replace a mixed bag of junk. Coming in at #12 of 250+ vendors with at least one attestation, Practice Fusion shows that it’s real. It would be interesting to do a study of one-doc practices of how little you would have to change your paper ways to ethically attest.”
From Jon: “Re: eHealth Nigeria. Good for this audience.” A couple of young Americans, one a technologist and the other a medical student, form eHealth Nigeria, working in that country (which has a population of 150 million and 50,000 women die from childbirth complications each year) to digitize healthcare records using the free OpenMRS. They’ve added SMS capabilities for both patients and caregivers since low-end cell phones are the ubiquitous technology rather than broadband-connected PCs. Their poster from the recently concluded mHealth Summit is here.
From Maren: “Re: question. We’re choosing a new HIS vendor and my boss keeps asking how many screens a nurse would use for her daily operations. Any way you can help me? I’ve never seen that statistic.” Neither have I, and I’d have to question its relevance to choosing a system. If it were me, I’d look at how long it takes to document the same activity on each system, then spend time walking with nurses and write down every single time they need a piece of information and where they were at that time. That will give you some idea of how much navigation they will have to do, which may be what your boss is really asking. Perhaps readers can help.
From 143: “Re: digital checklists. Electronic medical records are mentioned.” A detailed article on patient safety checklists mentions Holy Cross Hospital (MD), which has seven employees who review electronic patient records to see if doctors and nurses are following safety standards, which one doctor calls an “in your face” checklist that works even when she is tired or busy.
From SCCM Nurse: “Re: Cerner. Epic must be hurting sales – they just had Domino’s pizza delivered to a high-end Houston steakhouse. They were promptly asked to remove it. How do I know it was Cerner? A very large group of them were wearing their Cerner shirts.” Unverified and hard to believe, but I’ve learned not to argue with someone seeing something first hand (no pun intended.)
From Guillaume-Robert Montagne: “Re: Quebec EMR. Québec is set to expand its Dossier de santé du Québec EMR project to Montréal. The project, almost $1 billion over budget and ‘on track’ to be six years late, was called a ‘failure’ by the province’s auditor general in a report last year. The expansion will create a basic digital record for about 40% of the regional population, and will initially allow for electronic prescribing and the exchange of lab results and radiology data.” I notice they use the tired “unconscious patient in the ED” story to make it sound attractive.
From Woz: You Are Not in Cupertino Any More: “Re: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak’s visit to Perceptive Software. He talked for about 15 minutes at an all-employee meeting where the software engineers especially just ate it up. He told the engineers that ‘to be a software engineer, have passion … repetition is always helpful to be better than anyone else … and you should mix pleasure and entertainment with your work.’ Having lured away a number of what Perceptive Software believes are some of Cerner’s best and brightest, and a very different culture that includes having a dodge ball court on-site (he autographed one of their dodge balls), it was not surprising that someone quipped ‘we really appreciate his insight, but that advice would have been especially helpful 20 miles to the southeast (the Cerner software engineering center)’.” I should mention that this comment came from an old friend of HIStalk who has no connections to Perceptive Software or Cerner other than having a family member who was there for the visit. Woz’s talk to the employees was captured on a YouTube video.
Speaking of Apple, this newly published Steve Jobs photo comes from the collection of original Mac team member Andy Hertzfeld. If you’re reading this on one of Steve’s smaller-screen devices, I’ll provide a hint as to why the picture is fun: he’s not pointing at the IBM logo, at least not in a polite way.
HIStalk Announcements and Requests
Your HIMSS prep to-do list:
- Gather up shoes to donate for the Souls4Soles shoe drive.
- Mentally and physically prepare yourself for the HIStalk Booth Crawl, where you have a good shot to win one of 55 iPads. You will need to schedule a couple of hours in the exhibit hall Tuesday or Wednesday to gather up the details, so make room on your calendar.
- Find the perfect outfit that will put you in the running for HIStalk King, HIStalk Queen, Best Elvis Impersonator, and Best Left-in-Vegas attire. Fabulous prizes for the winners!
- Pack your suitcase with shoes that will make you a winner in the Inga Loves My Shoes contest. Categories include the Poker Face (you can’t tell this one works in healthcare); the Russian Roulette (you won’t wanna mess with this shoe); Off to the Races (best boot in town); What Happens in Vegas… (this shoe should stay in Vegas); and the High Roller (this shoe always wins BIG.) The generous Mr. H is throwing in great prizes for shoe fashionistas as well. Dr. Jayne, by the way, tells me she is a shoe-in for one of these five categories.
Welcome to DrFirst, sponsoring HIStalk and HIStalk Practice at the Platinum level. The 12-year-old Rockville, MD company is an e-prescribing pioneer, offering Rcopia-MU, the ONC-ATCB certified modular EHR for practices that aren’t ready to commit to an EMR, who need to attest, or who need basic technology that doesn’t require a lot of implementation headaches or workflow changes in order to qualify for HITECH incentives. The company also offers solutions for hospitals, such as an acute care medication management system that gives hospital EDs the ability to create an immediate 12-month patient medication history by collecting e-prescribing data, along with a discharge module that performs clinical and eligibility / formulary checking of discharge prescriptions before sending them via Surescripts to retail and mail order pharmacies. A brand new offering is its EHR Advisor tool for choosing solutions from among its 200+ EHR vendor partners. Thanks to DrFirst for supporting HIStalk and HIStalk practice.
I checked YouTube for DrFirst videos that describe the company and ran across this one, which we’ve mentioned before. If you’re a “what’s in it for me” type and are going to the HIMSS conference, the company is free offering foot massages and a grand prize for commenting on the video over on YouTube.
Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Health Data Specialists, LLC. The company offers competitively priced consulting services to hospitals that use Cerner, Epic, Meditech, and Siemens, as well as offering assistance with project management, ICD-10, and Meaningful Use. Their consultants are highly experienced, with its Cerner consultants, for example, averaging 10 years of experience with Cerner applications and 21 in healthcare (even its Epic consultants average eight years of Epic experience and 23 in healthcare.) Their long list of clients includes Spectrum, VCU, Carolinas, and North Broward (Cerner); Children’s Omaha, Driscoll, Cleveland Clinic, and Sentara (Epic); and Alegent, KUMED, BayCare, and Yakima Valley (Siemens.) You may know CEO Bob Hayden since he’s been in the industry for 38 years, including serving as a large health system CIO and founding and running First Choice Consulting. Thanks to Health Data Specialists, LLC for supporting HIStalk.
Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock
Revenue cycle solutions vendor Recondo Technology acquires Trilogi, Inc., a revenue recovery firm.
Health Evolution Partners and Verizon Enterprise Solutions form a relationship to encourage companies to develop technologies related to mobile health, telemedicine, and health data management. Health Evolution partners chairman David Brailer is quoted in the announcement as saying:
The next generation of health IT will not be anchored to a desk. Clinicians and patients will expect technologies that support mobility and virtual care. Advanced broadband, video-based technologies and wireless devices that incorporate geo-location capabilities and sensors will change the landscape of health care from development to delivery. Our relationship with Verizon demonstrates the importance of bringing these innovations to market.
Radiology center operator Foundation Radiology closes on a $2 million offering led by Chrysalis Ventures. The healthcare IT connection is that the company’s CEO is former Misys Healthcare CEO Tom Skelton and one of its directors comes from David Brailer’s Health Evolution Partners.
Mediware reports flat Q2 earnings of $0.21 per share, despite an 18% increase in revenues to $15.6 million.
As part of its Q4 earnings report, HCA reveals that it received $306 million in EHR incentives for 2011 and spent $77 million in EHR-related expenses.
University of Washington spins off TransformativeMed, which uses Cerner’s MPages mobile data access technology to create add-ons to Cerner PowerChart. Modules include a rounding application and a quality dashboard.
Sales
Advocate Christ Medical Center (IL) selects PerfectServe’s clinical communication and information delivery platform.
Memorial Hospital of Converse County (WY) chooses Summit Healthcare’s Express Connect interface engine technology to connect Meditech with Avera Health’s eICU solution.
Southern California Hospitalist Network purchases PatientKeeper Charge Capture solutions for its network of physicians.
Radiology Ltd. (AZ) selects Merge Healthcare’s suite of radiology solutions for its nine imaging centers. Also, Southern Illinois Healthcare will implement Merge Healthcare’s cardiology suite across its six hospitals and clinics.
People
HIMSS honors Carol Bickford PhD, RN-BC, CPHIMS and Kathleen Smith MScEd, RN-BC, RHIMSS with its Nursing Informatics Leadership awards. Russell Leftwich MD is awarded its Physician IT Leadership award.
John Calabro joins Cognosante as managing director of HIT offerings for state and federal clients. He most recently served as HIT coordinator for the State of Oklahoma.
CSC names Misys PLC CEO Mike Lawrie as president and CEO.
Don Bauman (Isabel Healthcare), Andre duPlessis (Tulane Medical Center), and Gary Ferguson (TIBCO) join VoiceHIT’s board of directors.
Announcements and Implementations
Presbyterian Healthcare Services (NM) implements MRO Corp.’s release of information and audit tracking software and services.
Geisinger Community Medical Center (PA) will move to Epic as part of a five-year, $159 million capital improvement project funded by its new owner, Geisinger Medical Center.
T-System introduces T-System Performance eRX, an e-prescribing solution for EDs and urgent care clinics.
CarePartners Plus announces Wellby, a kiosk that collects patient perceptions immediately after their encounter to allow timely intervention and education.
Government and Politics
AHRQ announces a new Questions are the Answer public education initiative that encourages patients to talk to their healthcare providers. Practices can get free materials, including a video, brochure, and notepads. Above is a fun public service announcement that got me wiggling in my chair in time with the music.
A USA Today article says that Newt Gingrich’s Center for Health Transformation hired lobbyists and some of its employees used their experience there to land lobbying jobs, although Gingrich insists the organization performed no lobbying for its clients.
The British Government releases a mobile app to help citizens find hospitals and clinics.
Other
Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative president and CEO Micky Tripathi is featured in a Bloomberg Businessweek segment on healthcare data security. He first discussed the data breach on HIStalk Practice.
Alpha Financial Solutions files a $1.6 million breach of contract lawsuit against Wheeling Hospital (WV), claiming the hospital’s termination notice for the company’s billing services contract was not delivered in writing as required. The company also claims that the hospital made copies of its intellectual property, locked out its managers, and improperly hired 20 of its 24 on-site employees. It also says that he hospital “seized” its servers that contained the PHI of other customers.
Hospitals are using patients’ clinical and financial information stored in their systems, along with databases sold by consumer marketing firms, to selectively pitch profitable services to patients with private insurance. St. Anthony’s Medical Center (MO) spent $25K on targeted mailings for mammograms, personalizing each piece with a photo of a person of similar age and gender to increase response rates, and brought in 1,000 patients and $530K in revenue.
Sponsor Updates
- Kern Medical Center (CA) selects McKesson Revenue Management Solutions to interface with its existing Horizon Practice Plus.
- Healthcare IT professionals say that disaster recovery is their top priority for investment, according to a BridgeHead Software survey.
- Elsevier releases SimChart, a simulated EHR designed for nursing students.
- CareTech Solutions added 22 hospital service desk clients in 2011 and grew its revenues 22%.
- iSirona announces its successful interoperability testing at the IHE 2012 North America Connectathon. iSirona will also participate in the HIMSS12 interoperability showcase.
- Practice Fusion earns a nomination for “Biggest Social Impact” in the fifth annual Crunchies Awards.
- Campbell Clinic (TN) selects SR for its 43 orthopedic physicians.
- Mac McMillan, CEO of CynergisTek, will serve on the faculty of the inaugural Canada-United States Healthcare IT Summit.
- Barbara McNeil MD, PhD of Harvard Medical School joins Humedica’s Scientific Advisory Board.
- A Billian’s HealthDATA and Porter Research Webinar on healthcare business intelligence and analytics is now available for on-demand viewing.
Contacts
Mr. H, Inga, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Gregg.
More news: HIStalk Practice, HIStalk Mobile.
It is nice to see someone bring the actual data to bear on the frequent and incorrect claims of Epic beating MEDITECH in number of meaningful use attestations on the in-patient side.
I hope now that the data has been presented clearly that the fantasy of Epic having more in-patient attestations than MEDITECH does not continue.
Mr H,
Where’s the pun?
[From Mr. H] As I was writing that, I realized that Cerner’s charity is called First Hand.
re: MU Jackie
Each time I try to download the CMS attestation stats via your link (and a prior one) I get a 37500 line spreadsheet that lists all of the vendors and products by state. I cannot find a column that lists the number of successful attestations (which, of course, is what I want to see)! Am I doing something wrong?
Maybe this is why there are only 120 downloads…
Cerner steak house and pizza. It is a common, perhaps “old school” sales contest that used to be called “steak and beans”. The winners of the sales contest get to eat steak in front of the losers who eat beans. In Cerner’s case I would guess that the winners got steak while the losers got pizza in the steak house. I would not conclude from that, that Cerner is doing bad. In fact, there latest financial results suggest otherwise.
So far as I can tell that is the data for total attestations.
“his new dataset enables systematic analysis of the distribution of certified EHR vendors and products among those providers that have attested to meaningful use within the CMS EHR Incentive Programs. The data set can be analyzed by state, provider type, provider specialty, and practice setting.”
I appreciated the link and used to for a vendor analysis school project due Friday.
“As part of its Q4 earnings report, HCA reveals that it received $306 million in EHR incentives for 2011 and spent $77 million in EHR-related expenses.”
I’m surprised this hasn’t received more attention. That’s quite a ROI. I realize you can’t exactly compare the outlays and the incentive payments since the former expenses began before the incentives and will continue once the incentives are gone, but at least it shows that the incentives are rewarding health systems for going electronic and helping with the cost of EHR deployment.