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February 14, 2013 News 12 Comments

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2-14-2013 9-55-50 PM

Massachusetts General Hospital spinoff and EHR query platform vendor QPID chooses a timely Valentine’s Day launch. I interviewed President and CEO Mike Doyle earlier this week about the company.


Reader Comments

2-14-2013 10-12-54 AM

inga_small From DrLyle: “Re: LinkedIn. Looks like I have more stalkers than you.” DrLyle and a few other folks sent me notes saying they were among the millions in the top five or even one percent of LinkedIn users with the most viewed profiles in 2012. DrLyle, by the way, posed an interesting question: is there value in paying LinkedIn for one of the professional versions? I defer to readers since I have no interest in paying $20 to $75 a month for premium options.

inga_small From Geographically Challenged: “Re: HIMSS13. Will you be attending this year’s HIMSS13 Annual Conference in Las Vegas from March 3-7?” Note to vendors and PR firms pitching for media time: messaging is far more effective when you get the name of the city correct. Not to mention that we already suspected that HIMSS13 would be held this year. Maybe it was a trick question.

2-14-2013 7-49-34 PM

From Skunk Baxter: “Re: Stanford Hospital CIO. She is out.” Carolyn Byerly’s LinkedIn profile shows that she just started a new job as managing partner with Platinum Advisory Services, LLC.


HIStalk Announcements and Requests

inga_small A few highlights from HIStalk Practice over the last week: CMS provides guidelines for EPs for avoiding the 1.5 percent PQRS penalty in 2015. CVS dominates the retail medical clinic market. Athenahealth earns a spot on FastCompany’s list of the World’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Healthcare. SRS CEO Evan Steele discusses Thoma Bravo, EHR usability, and Meaningful Use. Thanks for reading.

inga_small Coming soon: HIStalk’s Guide to HIMSS 2013, which includes essential details on over 100 vendors, all of which in a remarkable coincidence happen to be our lovely sponsors. You won’t want to miss it if you need the scoop on who to contact to schedule meetings or where to find the best booth giveaways.

2-14-2013 6-28-12 PM

The always-creative folks at Vonlay steered me to a humorous Dear Abby-type blog post they’re running in honor of Valentine’s Day, but I was more amused by the graphic on their main page.

I’ve been getting several calls at the hospital each day from vendors pitching their HIMSS presence, more than I remember in previous years. They’re easy to spot on Caller ID, so I just let them go to voicemail and delete them later. Today a company (I’ll be nice and not name them) left a lengthy voice mail, with the rep (badly) reading a canned script that ended with, “we’re scheduling meetings with people” (nothing like making a prospect feel special). Worst of all, she was reading it over her speakerphone. I pictured her as a bored phone sex operator.

2-14-2013 8-18-45 PM 2-14-2013 8-26-44 PM

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Halfpenny Technologies. The Blue Bell, PA company specializes in data interoperability, such as laboratory information systems communicating with EHRs, health plans, or each other (reverse reference labs). Point-to-point interfaces push data around inefficiently and without normalization, making them a sitting duck for Halfpenny’s ITF-Hub, which serves as air traffic controller to manage the flow of orders and results among all participants (hospitals, independent labs, HIEs, health plans, practices, and public health). Everybody knows you can’t do much of anything for a patient without lab results. The company has been around since 2000, having worked with more than 200 EHR vendors since then and embedded its technology into some of their products as well. They offer portal and mobile access, which of course makes docs happy, especially the ones who aren’t using EHRs. Their CMIO will tell you how Meaningful Use Stage 2 affects the clinical lab. Drop by HIMSS Booth #5223, tell the folks you read about them here, and drop subtle hints about signing you up for some swell prizes. Thanks to Halfpenny Technologies for supporting HIStalk.

On the Jobs Board: Project Manager – Government, Business Intelligence Architect, Software Product Development Manager, Requirements Engineer.


HIMSS Conference Social Events

Send us your event details if it’s a good one (i.e, free food and drinks at minimum) and you promise that all HIStalk readers are welcome to attend, even if they work for your most hated competitor as a given reader might well do. Don’t blame us if throngs eat you out of cocktail weenies and tortilla roll-ups. I would be especially interested in companies serving really good beer as I ran across a couple of conferences ago.

2-14-2013 6-03-40 PM

Jardogs will host a happy hour on Monday, March 4 and Tuesday, March 5 from 5:00 to 6:00 pm in Booth 4659. Dr. Jayne and Inga have noted this in their schedules.


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Allscripts adopts a majority voting policy for directors and announces that its annual stockholder meeting is set for May 21. We’re not astute financial analysts who actually know what that accomplishes, so Ben Rooks of the Investor’s Chair has promised to render his opinion.


Sales

2-14-2013 11-50-52 AM

Vanderbilt University Medical Center (TN) will implement TeraMedica’s Evercore Clinical Enterprise Suite for vendor neutral archiving. 

SCL Health System selects the technology platform of Lumeris for its accountable care initiatives.

Community Memorial Hospital (CA) contracts with Cymetrix for revenue cycle services.

2-14-2013 5-58-55 PM

DeKalb Health (IN) selects e-MDs Solution Series for its 19 providers.

2-14-2013 6-00-03 PM

Bali Royal Hospital in Indonesia selects Wolters Kluwer Health’s UpToDate as its evidence-based clinical decisions support system.

2-14-2013 6-01-29 PM

Mee Memorial Hospital (CA) will use Access-eforms on demand and e-Signature technology with its Meditech Magic Scanning & Archiving system .


People

2-14-2013 6-04-31 PM

PeriGen names Thomas J. Garite, MD (American Journal of OB/Gyn) chief clinical officer.

2-14-2013 8-04-55 PM

Nancy Ham (McKesson / MedVentive) is named CEO of Aetna’s Medicity subsidiary. She replaces Brent Dover.

2-14-2013 8-07-17 PM

Brent Dover (Aetna / Medicity) is named president of Health Catalyst, which will announce his hiring on February 19. Brent says the irony isn’t lost on him that he left an HIE company to lead an analytics vendor, while Nancy Ham left an analytics vendor to replace him at the HIE company.


Announcements and Implementations

2-14-2013 6-16-08 PM

Baylor University Medical Center (TX) goes live on Allscripts Sunrise Clinical Manager.

North Memorial Health Care (MN) reports a 75 percent reduction in unnecessary early-term deliveries using Health Catalyst’s Adaptive Data Warehouse technology.

2-14-2013 6-18-03 PM

Integration and data management services provider Liaison Technologies announces that its healthcare division grew 83 percent and its headcount more than doubled in 2012.

The CalHIPSO Regional Extension Center launches service offerings that include Meaningful Use tracking, EHR readiness, and eligibility registration attestation.

Cleveland Clinic (OH) signs up for the CliniSync HIE, joining the previously announced University Hospitals Health System.

Perceptive Software announces an upgrade to its Perceptive Search applications, the first since it acquired the technology last year. It searches documents, e-mail, websites, intranets, databases, social networking sites, and local computers.


Government and Politics

2-14-2013 10-09-38 PM

President Obama calls out patent trolls in a Thursday afternoon Google Hangout session dubbed Fireside Hangout. “They don’t actually produce anything themselves. They’re just trying to essentially leverage and hijack somebody else’s idea and see if they can extort some money out of them.”


Innovation and Research

2-14-2013 6-24-26 PM

NeuroCare Tech launches BrainAttack, a $5.99 decision support app for evaluating ED stroke patients as candidates for tPA.

2-14-2013 7-47-20 PM

The free Qpid.me service allows potential romantic partners to share their sexually transmitted disease status directly from the medical records of their doctors. Concerns about the site are that practices won’t have the time to send patient records if it really takes off, not to mention that once those records arrive at the company’s servers, patients are no longer protected by HIPAA.


Technology

Four Rivers Total Maintenance Systems integrates Versus Technology’s RTLS within its asset management software.

A study’s questionable conclusion claims that Microsoft’s Kinect videogame controller could reduce healthcare expenses by $30 billion by replacing expensive telemedicine systems (which of course Skype and other video chat tools can do for free). Kinect’s advantage is that it can be used hands-free in a sterile field, but I haven’t seen a lot of telemedicine originating in the OR. One of the study’s two authors works for Microsoft.


Other

Patient Privacy Rights provided links to its federal Form 990 for 2010 and 2011 in response to the inquiry from Alert Reader. They’ve been there all along on the “Why Donate” page. UPDATE: my mistake, they apparently were just added from the reader’s inquiry. I didn’t see any smoking guns if that was the expectation – the organization took in around $105K in donations in 2011 (half what it received in 2007-2009), spent a small amount on its one FTE, and the rest went to professional fees and office and travel expense. Deb Peel was paid nothing.

2-14-2013 10-12-25 PM

Froedtert Health (WI) warns that a virus that penetrated an employee’s computer may have exposed the information of 43,000 patients to unknown parties.

2-14-2013 9-46-05 PM

A San Diego publication profiles Chris Van Gorder of Scripps Health, a former beat cop turned hospital security guard and now CEO who is determined to reduce unnecessary variation to cut costs. According to the article, “Van Gorder trusts that sharing financial information, especially on costs, along with data on treatment and outcomes, will usually lead doctors to the best-outcome-at-lowest-cost decisions.”

People always send me funny stuff because they know I’m a sucker for it, and the video above from customer engagement and total cost of ownership services vendor PeerIntel is good one, with the smarmy doc playing it straight all the way. I notice the hospital name is actually that of the company’s R&D VP, described on its site as a “scruffy Armenian.” The other bios are pretty funny, too, with the marketing guy’s saying that he came to the company due to “a series of (now-broken) promises” by the top guys. The company used to be called Katalus Advisors. I interviewed Chairman Jeremy Bikman in October 2011.

A laid off MedQuist director shares her experience in “losing my job to technology” as speech recognition technology replaces transcriptionists.

2-14-2013 8-12-27 PM

The second spokesperson for Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas dies of, you guessed it, a heart attack. He weighed only 180 pounds, a wisp compared to his 575-pound predecessor. The restaurant fries in pure lard, sells beer and cigarettes, offers a 10,000 calorie burger, and  provides free meals to patrons weighing over 350 pounds. Their employees are scantily clad “nurses” that critics say places it in the Hooters-created category known in the trade as “breastaurants.”

I see that passengers on the Carnival Triumph are suffering bad food, long lines, and rude fellow passengers. Sounds about like our experience on a week-long cruise on Triumph a few years back, except ours was just a normal cruise. Everybody’s fretting about underfed passengers, but nobody seems worried about the 1,000 foreign crew members working around the clock in miserable conditions trying to keep passengers safe, comfortable, and norovirus-free for their princely wages of maybe $150 per week, not to mention that tips will be few this time. As the ambulance chasers and sensationalistic news reporters line up to prod the vacationers into a state of righteous indignation (even though they’re already receiving a nice package of reparations from Carnival), someone should raise some money to help the crew, who will probably get nothing for what they’ve been through.

Scotland’s NHS hospital employees, like ours, share passwords, post questionable information in Facebook, curse in e-mails, and install unauthorized software on their hospital devices, according to disciplinary records.

Weird News Andy says this woman really did have a HERnia, in the form of a baby girl. A 44-year-old woman complaining of bloating is X-rayed by hospital doctors, who are startled to find a full-term baby in her womb. They did a C-section and she’s now a first-time mom.


Sponsor Updates

  • NextGen Healthcare adds ITelagen as a VAR.
  • VersaSuite participates in this week’s Rural Health Care Leadership Conference in Phoenix.
  • TrustHCS representatives will speak on ICD-10 readiness during the April AHIMA ICD-10 CMS/PCS and CAC Summit in Baltimore.
  • SuccessEHS sponsors a February 28 Webinar on the patient-centered EHR and quality improvement.
  • CIC Advisory offers suggestions on implementing and adopting a health IT safety program.
  • CardioNet and AirStrip partner to develop and co-market an integrated solution for mobile patient monitoring.
  • Agilum Healthcare Intelligence publishes a case study on business intelligence strategies for small and mid-sized hospitals.
  • AdvancedMD offers a guide to improve patient experience with EHRs.
  • Intellect Resources posts a  Gotye parody video about recruiters.
  • Imprivata adds Aura Healthcare as a VAR to resell its single sign-on solution.
  • Best of Staffing recognizes CSI Healthcare for its outstanding reviews from clients and job-seekers.
  • Data Trade Solutions will offer nVoq’s SayIt speech recognition technology to its physician clients.
  • NorthWise Services (UK) partners with Merge to offer clinical trial services.
  • Wellcentive participated in the 2013 IHE North America Connectathon earlier this month.

EPtalk by Dr. Jayne

The Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange survey remains open through next Wednesday. Any individual associated with health care organizations (vendors, health plans, providers, etc.) may participate. I’m a little offended that they listed providers last and even after health plans, but I took the survey anyway.

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Speaking of surveys, a senior at Washington University in St. Louis conducted one on hip replacement prices. As part of a research project on healthcare costs, Jaime Rosenthal called 100 hospitals (two in every state) and asked for cash prices for a hip replacement surgery for her fictional grandmother. Despite pushes for transparency, only half the hospitals could provide an estimate and those that did ranged from $11,000 to $125,000.

A related commentary discusses the disparities in “sticker price” of health care and tells the story of the automobile window sticker, stating, “A 2013 hip replacement looks a lot like a 1954 Buick.”

2-14-2013 6-35-00 PM

Just when I thought I had seen it all, Dr. Mostashari’s bow tie opened its own Twitter account yesterday. You can follow its exploits @FarzadsBowtie while “Putting the Bow-Tie in Health IT.” I’ve had crushes on some famous people, but never on one whose apparel had its own social life. What’s next: @IngaHistalksShoes?

Speaking of shoes, Inga beat me to the punch with the chocolate shoes, but they’re too good not to mention here as well. My favorite is the red stiletto with the dark chocolate filigree, although the pink with white polka dots is cute too. Maybe a certain someone will take the hint.

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If not the shoes, I’m definitely liking this lovely ring from MF Jewelry, created from your own EKG tracing. 

2-14-2013 6-37-44 PM

Considering my recent piece on handwritten thank you notes at the hospital, Inga sent over this ER doctor’s note that’s been circling the Internet. Now this is meaningful use of a handwritten note. Kudos to New York Presbyterian’s fine and caring staff member.

I’m starting to put together my serious (i.e. “non-cocktail party”) agenda for HIMSS. I was a little bitter to see that Inga and I were not invited to the #HITchicks Tweetup event on Monday. I can’t think of more fun #HITchicks than us. I’m hoping to see some new and innovative things rather than more of the same. Have something that I shouldn’t miss? E-mail me.

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Contacts

Mr. H, Inga, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Gregg, Lt. Dan, Dr. Travis.

More news: HIStalk Practice, HIStalk Connect.



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Currently there are "12 comments" on this Article:

  1. Patient Trolls or Patent Trolls.
    Patient is “funner”

    [From Mr. H] I can never type “patent” correctly on the first try — it always comes up “patient.” Same with “clinician,” which usually ends up as “clinical” until I catch it. I can tell I was tired yesterday as I edit my mistakes this morning. Nine hours at work, an eight-mile run, and then five hours of HIStalk might have been too much.

  2. “President Obama calls out patient trolls in a Thursday afternoon Google Hangout session dubbed Fireside Hangout.”

    I think you meant:
    President Obama calls out PATENT trolls in a Thursday afternoon Google Hangout session dubbed Fireside Hangout.

  3. Mr. H,
    I know you hate grammar errors as much as me. You have “an” instead of “a” in the Perceptive comment. Plus, in the Obama piece below it you say “patient trolls” instead of “patent trolls.” At least I assume that was a Freudian mistake by someone use to typing patient often. Although, I think there are plenty of patient trolls in healthcare. Maybe you’re on to something. If we could get rid of the patient trolls would healthcare costs go down?

    Also, as a Las Vegas resident, the Heart Attack grill is even worse than you describe. They force you to wear a hospital gown to enter the restaurant. They cut a slice of butter on to the top of their shakes. However, the best (or worst depending on your viewpoint) part is that if you don’t finish your burger they have a big wooden paddle that the nurses use to beat your backside. I asked the nurses…waitresses about it and they said it’s pretty rare that a guy complains about it. In fact, they said that many guys ask for it even when they finish their burger.

    I wasn’t invited to the #HITchicks event either (since no one was invited), but I may crash it anyway;-)

  4. Seen in HISTalk 2/15/13: “North Memorial Health Care (MN) reports a 75 percent reduction in unnecessary early-term deliveries using Health Catalyst’s Adaptive Data Warehouse technology. ”

    Being a neonatologist by background, this naturally caught my eye. A data warehouse vendor has found the magic sauce that eliminates premature birth? Caramba! Obstetricians, neonatologists, and public health professionals have been struggling with this problem for over a century.

    The lead on the press release and indeed pretty much the whole premise of the press release is rather misleading. What they did was reduce the rate of ELECTIVE pre-term deliveries from a very small number to an even smaller number. This was primarily accomplished through implementing and socializing some decision support in the scheduling process in their EMR, and backing that up with an approval process in their medical leadership.

    The data warehouse gets an assist on this sack, I guess, but nothing in the press release explained how Health Catalyst would have better for this than any other clinical data warehouse.

  5. As a patent attorney and spouse of an NP, I’m starting to fall for the term “patient troll.” My wife would describe them as those who roam from provider to provider, making up any conceivable (or inconceivable) tale about how folks just don’t understand what they are going though and they really, really need that script for narcotic x or other drug-of-the-week.

  6. ” is there value in paying LinkedIn for one of the professional versions?”

    Only if you want to add injury to insult. LinkedIn has a great business model: They get millions of people to divulge freely their personal details which LinkedIn then collects in a database and *sells* to others, especially recruiters. Even without the financial aspect, it’s truly incredible how so many people are happy to have their personal data published on the Internet.

    My suggestion: Instead of paying LinkedIn for a “professional” version, demand that LinkedIn pay YOU for the privilege of using your personal data.

  7. The free Qpid.me service allows potential romantic partners to share their sexually transmitted disease status directly from the medical records of their doctors. Concerns about the site are that practices won’t have the time to send patient records if it really takes off, not to mention that once those records arrive at the company’s servers, patients are no longer protected by HIPAA.

    – – –

    I’m betting Qpid is just one of many companies that will find clever ways to capitalize on patient consent & dodging HIPAA hurdles. (At least with those carefree folks Awake mentioned.)

  8. Ouch – This is what I get for waiting until the end of the day to read HISTalk …

    We welcome all genders, all persons (anonymous and otherwise) to the #HITChicks tweetup at HIMSS (http://ow.ly/hLlek). Dr. Jayne, please forgive the oversight, and I hope that you and Inga will do us the honor of attending, though your covers might be blown if two lovely ladies make everyone else green with envy over their chic shoes.







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