Monday Morning Update 6/25/07

From CIOShawn: “Re: Mirth Project. Searched your site for any post on the Mirth Project, an HL7 open source interface engine, but found none. Interesting concept, just can’t find much independent info. You always seem to get the scoop. Any interest in getting info on this project and whether anyone has used it successfully?” I hadn’t heard of it. It’s sponsored by WebReach, which offers services and even a Mirth Appliance. And this teaser: “If you think Mirth is cool, wait until you see Azzyzix.” Sounds awfully close to Azyxxi, doesn’t it? (lawsuit news to follow, no doubt.) That company’s site says little about the company. I’ll see what I can find out. If anyone knows, chime right in.

From The PACS Designer: “Re: more 2.0. The 2.0 trend is growing in leaps and bounds. Scott Shreeve, MD is calling the trend a ‘Bandwagon,’ while TPD likes to  call it ‘The 2.0 Train’. Whatever you want to call it, the genie is already out of the bottle! TPD was in a bookstore last week and right near the front door was a book with 2.0 tacked on the end of the title. It was the second edition for the book and what better way to attract the readers attention? Since mainstream media is jumping on this Bandwagon/Train, are we going to see movies with the 2.0 extension?” We almost did in 2003, when the working title of the sequel to The Matrix was The Matrix 2.0, later changed to The Matrix Reloaded. Since some of the worst movies ever made have been Roman numeral-bearing sequels, maybe a 2.0-type naming convention would fool potential moviegoers for about five minutes. In fact, is Health 2.0 just a badly planned sequel to what we have now?

New Kaiser Permanente CIO Philip Fasano is interviewed. Nuggets: (1) Kaiser will be developing home care monitoring tools; (2) HealthConnect availability was 99.57% last quarter and the new goal is 99.999%; (3) the IT department will reorganize yet again, swing the never-stopping pendulum back to regionalization vs. centralization; (4) the annual IT budget is $1.7 billion. Justen Deal is critical: “Lastly, the article says that Carol Rizzo, who specializes in ‘establishing offshore business processing operations and IT development,’ has (apparently) replaced poor David Watson as chief technology officer. Indeed, Ms. Rizzo, like Mr. Fasano, has a nifty LinkedIn profile. Like Fasano, she also has held a bunch of quick jobs over the past few years, and she also comes from the financial sector.”

athenahealth announces IPO plans. Big name companies are taking them out, with a maximum share offering of $86 million. Mentioned: the company lost $9.2 million last year on revenue of $75.8 million.

Reminder: sign up for the new mailing list in the box to your right (on HIStalk2). The old one’s being phased out, so that will assure your getting e-mail updates when I write something new. It seems inevitable that HIStalk2 will become the primary site, so consider reading there (another reason to get on the new list: the link from the new e-mail will point to the new site.) Also, the new site has capabilities the old one doesn’t, so I admit that I read only there these days (but appreciate having the original site as a backup in case something goes wrong.) Type www.histalk.com into your browser and you’ll end up there.

McKesson and JPMorgan will work together on a fully electronic claims and payment system.

Based on stock price, the market doesn’t like Nuance’s $265 million acquisition of a developer of embedded software for mobile devices, the latest in a handful of similar acquisitions.

Interesting, free newsletter: VistA & Open Healthcare News (warning: PDF).

Unfortunate hospital lawsuit in the making: a hospital agrees to perform a $100,000 brain surgery for free on a Russian teen, warning of possible complications. He died. The family has hired a lawyer. They claim the hospital offered the free surgery only because they wanted to use him in a commercial. The doctor says the teen was dying already and he did the best he could.

NHS IT contractor Atos Origin launches a healthcare consulting business.

Medsphere announces OpenVista Appliance, a preconfigured demo package. Great idea, although from the instructions, you’d still need to borrow a geek to get it running. That always seems to be an open source limitation: it’s never a Windows-like straightforward installation. 95% of casual tire-kickers will move on.

News, rumors, blasphemy: e-mail me.

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