Monday Morning Update 7/23/07

From Hamrick: “Re: Misys. Misys will announce the sale of Misys CPR to QuadraMed on Monday, July 23.” QuadraMed already has a clinical product that nobody’s buying, so I’m not sure why they’d want another one. However, since Misys was making big changes Friday (supposedly), maybe the timing was intentional if this is true.

From Wompa1: “Re: CHI. Christopher MacManus, Sr. VP of IS at Catholic Health Initiatives, has moved on.”

From Duuude: “Re: Mayo and Cerner. I’m wondering if Mayo feels left out of with Intermountain being the development partner. They used to hold IDX by the gonads when they were truly a development partner. In my experience with Mayo, even though they can be a big pain in the derriere, they did know their stuff. Even with all of that holding and pain caused by Mayo, they are worth keeping, even just for the perks of having them as a named client. When will GE take notice and stop the bleeding? If I was GE, I would be trotting out Hogan, the executive GE Healthcare board, and whatever is left of Seattle management to keep Mayo.”

From The PACS Designer: “Re: iPhone clones. TPD wants HIStalk readers to know that the iPhone is not the only choice when it comes to ‘combo phones’. The iPhone is getting all the attention, but there are other all-in-one phones to consider. There’s the RIMM Curve, the Motorola Q9, and the Helio Queen. They aren’t truly clones, but they offer more traditional functionality. I’m sure we’ll be hearing about more companies jumping on the bandwagon.”

From TwoDogMom: “Re: Mediware. What does anyone out there know about the Mediware vs IHC lawsuit?” They’re suing each other, it appears. Intermountain bought Mediware’s blood blank system in 2004 with a three-year support agreement ending June 30, 2007, with rights reverting back to Mediware on expiration. Mediware told Intermountain it wouldn’t renew the agreement, so Intermountain is arguing it should be able to keep using the system. Intermountain had already sued Mediware in April for breach of contract. An unhappy, high-profile customer is just the icing Mediware’s cake needs.

Rumor: physician practice vendor AcerMED has abruptly ceased operations.

Jon Philips of Healthcare Growth Partners asked me to clarify that the number of deals I quoted the other day was of the principals, not the company itself. They’re doing great, of course, but he didn’t want anyone to think they were trying to mislead.

iSoft couldn’t even get a date a few weeks ago, now it has two marriage proposals: Germany’s CompuGroup trumps IBA’s bid with a $329 million cash offer of its own, a 19% premium to IBA’s offer that iSoft’s management is urging shareholders to accept. Part of their offer: CompuGroup will sell off the NPfIT business to CSC and both companies will own the Lorenzo product line.

Mediware shuts down its OR business line and fires 20 employees under the new COO. They announce their focus on so-called closed loop systems. Well, good luck with that. That’s bad news for GE: Mediware’s exit frees up the dead-last KLAS surgery spot for Centricity Perioperative. Doh!

I didn’t hear first-hand about the scheduled Misys bloodletting on Friday. Did it happen? Maybe you’ll be offered another position, like this one: Misys needs a PR specialist. Desperately, some might say. Guess the layoffs freed up some salary dollars.

CPSI announces Q2 results: revenue down 3.5%, EPS $0.31 vs. $0.38, falling short of expectations.

Emergin sent over their latest newsletter. It includes an Emory neuroscience CCU case study on alarm integration.

My editorial this week in Inside Healthcare Computing: “‘Best’, ‘Most Wired’, and Other Hospital Surveys: Good for Selling Stuff and Not Much Else.” I won’t spoil the suspense by revealing my opinion.

Speaking of the Most Wired BS, even H&HN had to punt when it came to the obvious: “The analysis shows an association between IT adoption and key quality measures, but association is not causality.” That wasn’t on the cover, of course. Those paying for the survey: the magazine, Accenture, AHA, CHIME, and McKesson. All but AHA have a vested interested in encouraging the “buy more stuff” bandwagon. Just another meaningless award given to customers by their vendors.

eScription announces the release of a new version of its speech recognition software, AutoScript. They casually mention in the second paragraph that it’s twice as fast at processing dictation as the prior version. I’m thinking there was little debate about whether that justified a new version number.

El Camino Hospital creates a CMIO position and recruites Eric Pifer from the University of Pennsylvania Health System.

Charles Wagner leaves IBM/Healthlink to become SVP of professional services for Eclipsys.

Discuss today’s news here. Lots of you have registered for HIStalk Discussion, so why not use it? I rented the hall and brought the band, but I can’t make you dance.

E-mail me. But only if you want to.