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Monday Morning Update 12/24/12

December 23, 2012 News 18 Comments

From The PACS Designer: “Re: 802.11ac wireless. As we approach 2013, our wireless technology infrastructure will bring a key change that will excite users. The 802.11ac wireless specification is an upgrade to the new communications band called the 5 Gigahertz frequency spectrum. The currently crowded 2.4 Gigahertz frequency spectrum in 802.11n will still be usable as most of the new 5 Gigahertz routers being designed are backward compatible. The 802.11n routers installed everywhere today can remain in place, and the new 802.11ac routers can be placed at key points in the network to improve the overall speed of communications. The 5 Gigahertz spectrum is new and unused with a 1 Gigabit per second speed upgraded from 450 Megabit per second in 802.11n. This faster network technology will bend nicely with 1 Gigahertz Ethernet switches in use today.” The article brings up an interesting fact: the maximum theoretical 802.11ac speed is 3.5 Gbps, meaning that your 4G LTE smartphone could eat up your monthly bandwidth allocation in about two seconds.

12-23-2012 5-00-48 PM

Don’t be startled – you’re in the right place. I’ve given HIStalk a much-needed update. Even its formerly smoking doctor celebrity endorser has received a makeover, surrendering his reader-polarizing pipe while refusing (like a doctor clinging to paper charts) to abandon his favorite reflector headband thingy. I wanted to make the site easier to read, with the design itself being less of a distraction. We will all need a week or so to get used to it, I predict, at which time I may run a screenshot of the old design just to illustrate how much cleaner the new one is.

12-23-2012 4-49-24 PM

Speaking of the reformed smoker doc, thanks to the folks at Dodge Communications for designing the new logo. I asked CEO Brad Dodge if he could recommend someone for logo design and he volunteered to have the company create one, with SVP Brian Parrish taking the lead. I really appreciate that, and I think Brian did a really nice job in creatively accommodating my requests: (a) retain the doc figure and reflector; (b) use a typewriter-like font as a nod to reporting (c) keep it simple; and (d) come up with variants that work for HIStalk Practice and HIStalk Connect.

12-23-2012 11-00-18 AM

Allscripts is further damaging its beaten-down public image by suing NYCHHC for choosing Epic, at least according to 57 percent of poll respondents. New poll to your right, another Allscripts-related one since they’re making all the pre-Christmas headlines:  can Sunrise successfully compete with Epic and Cerner, giving its reps something to wear other than a lapel pin featuring a white flag?

12-23-2012 4-24-26 PM

ONC posted its Patient Safety Action and Surveillance Plan for public comment late Friday afternoon. This is the report that address IOM’s November 2011 recommendations. The proposed requirements challenge vendors to regulate themselves in more structured ways as providers are encouraged to report the patient safety problems they observe. Some highlights:

  • Add certification criteria requiring EHR vendors to include in their products the capability for users to submit EHR-related safety problems using AHRQ’s Common Formats, which includes a new category of “Device with Health IT.”
  • Develop a code of conduct for EHR vendors that will hold them accountable for problems and require them to report their IT-related safety events through a Patient Safety Organization.
  • Require vendors to maintain records of complaints for review by certification bodies.
  • Train CMS surveyors to identify IT-related safety problems.
  • ONC will monitor events submitted to FDA’s MAUDE medical device problem database.
  • Use ONC’s standards and certification criteria to enhance patient safety, including incorporation of human factors and user-centered design.
  • Potentially add NIST-developed usability testing tool results as a certification requirement.
  • IOM’s recommendation for an investigative body such as the National Transportation Safety Board is acknowledged without a specific commitment, but CMS plans to advise state and accreditation surveyors on health IT-related adverse events and HHS may issue public notices for EHR-related safety problems.
  • Establish an ONC Safety Program to coordinate activities and analyze data.

12-23-2012 4-47-16 PM

Aprima announces that the first customer of its Aprima Rescue Plan has successfully moved from Allscripts MyWay and gone live on Aprima’s EHR. The announcement says that Crystal Community ENT (FL) had used MyWay for less than two months when it received notice from Allscripts that the product would not be enhanced to meet Meaningful Use and ICD-10 requirements.

SPi Healthcare names Louis Grujanac, DO (Accretive Health) as VP of HIM solutions.

12-23-2012 6-01-54 PM

Melissa Cruz, CFO of Progress Software and former CFO of Picis, announces her retirement.

12-23-2012 6-21-21 PM

RTLS vendor Versus Technology announces Q4 results: revenue up 77 percent, net income of $3,121,000 vs. $704,000.

12-23-2012 6-07-51 PM

In Singapore, Changi General Hospital develops an iPad-based “patient care communicator” that allows intubated patients to communicate with caregivers.

12-23-2012 5-10-40 PM

RelayHealth acquires Ahi Software, whose AHIQA patient access system is rated #1 in KLAS. It offers applications for registration, wait time tracking, eligibility, demographics verification, and patient responsibility estimation.

12-23-2012 5-35-43 PM

Park Place International recently participated in Meditech’s Adopt-a-Family program, which delivered food, gifts, and supplies to 53 families.

12-23-2012 5-50-55 PM

Weird News Andy is off on a sunny vacation, so I’m happy to step in. The Social Security Administration formally reprimands an employee for excessive workplace flatulence, saying he hasn’t supported his claim of an unspecified medical condition.


Vendor Clinician Compensation

I received the following responses from Vendor Middle Manager’s request relating to what vendors pay their clinical people. Some of those below were reported first hand, while others came from readers asking around. I appreciate the responses.

  • Epic subject matter experts developing clinical content: $150 per hour.
  • Informatics-certified RN: $70K.
  • RN consultant: $90-$120K with bonuses raising the potential to $110-160K. Stock options same as other employees receive.
  • EHR clinicians: $130-180K for work that’s 50 percent consulting and 50 percent design.
  • Demo team physicians and nurses: $150-180K with half of the 20 percent bonus tied to sales success.
  • RN doing demos: $85K base with compensation structure than puts them over $125K on the low end.
  • Vendor CMO/CNO: $300K salary plus bonus of up to 40 percent.
  • Master’s degreed RNs in product management or consulting: $150-185K base with 20 percent bonus.

People celebrate a variety of holidays this time of year. Like most readers, I’m a Christmas and New Year’s guy, but I sincerely hope that whatever holidays, customs, and practices you and your family are observing bring you love and satisfaction. Business and IT stuff is important, but let’s face it, it’s not exactly inspiring material for your tombstone. I appreciate the people who are involved with HIStalk, my hobby of 10 years. That includes everyone who reads, e-mails, writes one-time or recurring guest posts, sponsors, and otherwise provides the many kinds of support that I need to keep it going when I’m questioning exactly why I’m spending most of my free time on the computer. On my side of the monitor are the people I trust with my most valuable asset – my reputation. That would be Inga, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Travis, Dr. Gregg, Lt. Dan, and Donna, all of whom work week in and week out to bring you the information you need. I’m so busy between my hospital job and my HIStalk job that I don’t always express appreciation to everybody involved in this thrilling and totally illogical 10-year run, but they don’t mean a bit less to me just because I don’t say so often enough. Enjoy your holidays, whatever they may be.


Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk Practice, HIStalk Connect.



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Currently there are "18 comments" on this Article:

  1. ONC’s Health IT Patient Safety plan is too little and too late.

    The promise of Health IT is badly needed, but the shite on the market is mostly poorly developed, incompletely tested and rife with bugs, usability issues and poor alignment with clinician workflow.

    Of course better reporting and the other recommendations in the ONC report are OK but much, much, much more is needed to push this industry to improve itself.

    Until a few of the 900+ vendors are frog-marched off of the certification list for having POS products, we’ll know that ONC is not serious about this.

    R

  2. Thanks for the thanks, Mr. H. Back atcha, for all you do for all of us!

    And a happy holiday season and wonderful New Year to everyone!

    (Thanks to the folks at Jello Pudding for their gods-appeasing offering, we’re now safely onto the 14th Mayan Baktun. Let’s hope its 144,000 days are filled with lots more HIStalk!)

  3. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to Mr. and Mrs. H and all the HIStalk family! You rock! We rock!

    PS – LOVE the new website look. Nice present!

  4. Maybe you can do some temporary arm tattoos of the old ‘Smokin Doc’ for the next HIMSS convention? It was a wonderfully subversive logo.

    [From Mr. H] They’re easily made and inexpensive. I don’t know if anyone would actually apply one, and I’m not sure there will be adequate bare armage to show them off, but I’m willing if there’s an interest. I’m sure I could find a sponsor to dispense them.

  5. Am I alone in bare;y noticing the new format other than the pipe went away & the ads swtiched sides? And was that the point?

  6. Merry Christmas & Happy New Year Mr. H!

    For everything you, Inga, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Travis, Dr. Gregg, Lt. Dan, and Donna do every day – thank you!

  7. I’m an epic consultant and just AC builders cost organizations 150 an hour. I don’t understand why MD’s would cost the same for an organization as someone who has a BS and a fair degree of system knowledge. Most consultants seem to make ~100 an hour and watch their companies take 33% off the top. That’s never made much sense to me, I cheer on everyone starting their own independent LLCs.

  8. Miss the old logo. Was much more edgy and accurately captured the tone/personality of the site. Unfortunately the new one doesn’t communicate much about the histalk brand.

  9. I like the new look, much cleaner and less clutter. Well done.

    Now with the obligatory compliment out of the way, my only gripe would be the link to the comments is at the top of the post, instead of at the bottom like it was before. Typically, I would think readers would peruse all the updates and then run into the comment link at the bottom, at which point they would have the context to understand what the comments were about… Now you have to scroll back up to click the comments after reading the updates. Not a big deal but a tad unintuitive.

  10. 802.11ac – the geek nit-picker in me screamed at the several inaccuracies present:
    – there is no such thing as “1 Gigahertz Ethernet”, it is Gigabit Ethernet (with 10 Gigabit Ethernet being state of the art, and 40 and 100 Gigabit Ethernet the bleeding edge)
    – the 5 GHz spectrum is not new at all, in fact 802.11ac brings together and expands upon some of the characteristics of both 802.11a and 802.11n specifications, both of which operate in that spectrum,although it is less “crowded” than the 2.4 GHz band
    – an LTE enabled cell phone will never eat up its 5 GB bandwidth allocation in 2 seconds, as 802.11ac is a WiFi capability, not cellular data capability. It is the same nonsense as saying that your LTE mobile data-enabled laptop “could eat up your monthly bandwidth allocation in about 5 seconds” using it’s Gigabit Ethernet connection.

    Merry Christmas to the crew of HIStalk, the contributors, and all the readers!

  11. Eddie

    Thanks for highlighting the incorrect information in my post! I failed to proof read my post before sending it, thus the errors were posted on HIStalk. On 5GHz band, it’s true, it is not a new band but an unused band added to 802.11ac to speed up communications by having dual bands.

    TPD!

  12. I prefer the old logo. Not that this new one is bad, but the former had an amateurish look to it that I felt contrasted nicely with the professional logos of all the sponsors. Bottom line, all I care about is the content, and as long as it remains unchanged, I am one loyal reader! All of you perform such a great benefit to the HC community, and for that I am very thankful! Happy Holidays and on to 2013!

  13. I love the new layout. Merry Christmas and thank you for the chuckle on the SSA weird news article. Who monitored and reported the times of flatulence for this case??? Tax dollars at work.







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