Hard agree, and not just because I'm a spreadsheet nerd. Why are we all here? Isn't it in the service…
News 8/19/09
From Just wondering: “Re: Eclipsys. More Professional Services leadership cuts at Eclipsys, VP Linda Lockwood and RVP Gaye Fright.” Unverified.
From Lucky13: “Re: Healthland. A letter from our account rep today – we are a Healthland (formerly Dairyland). Thanks! Love the blog … I have learned so much about our industry through it.” Healthland (the former Dairyland) announces that it has acquired small hospital HIS vendor American Healthnet. A snip from the letter: “Not only are we staying the course with Healthland solutions and our product roadmap, we expect to continue improvements across the board in how we support and service your hospital and staff. This includes launching new modules and enhancements you’ve been waiting for — like Emergency Department, Long-Term Care, Home Health, and others.” Thanks for sending it over.
From Kyle: “Re: conference. I’ve been a reader for a little bit now and found out about an event through my school. Loma Linda’s School of Public Health is hosting the Southern California Health Care Summit on October 29 at the Ontario Convention Center. The conference will be a chance to earn FACHE credits and learn about some the latest trends in HIT. They are billing it as the West Coast’s version of the World Health Care Congress.” Thanks.
Listening: Tindersticks, British and obscure, a lush mix of dark vocals, lounge music, and jazz. Kind of like Leonard Cohen or Nick Cave, rainy night music.
She’s not a doctor, but she plays one on TV: an Obama campaign volunteer admits that she claimed to be a doctor in praising Obama’s health reform plan at the town hall meeting of Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas.
A Congressional Budget Office report (warning: PDF) gives the VA’s VistA good marks (above), although it cites conclusions from elsewhere that EHR adoption incentives should specifically require quality improvements.
Picis announces an enhanced ED PulseCheck: more clinical rules, alpha paging, and standard integration with bed management systems.
Former A4/Allscripts executive David Bond gets out of healthcare to develop a social networking site for teen athletes, earning kudos from former boss John McConnell (who did the same, now running his string of high-end golf courses).
El Camino Hospital goes live on the first phase of its Medicity-powered HIE. The Medicity Novo Grid is delivering real-time information to physicians, depositing ADT, insurance information, lab results, and transcribed reports into their EHR systems.
Mercy Medical Center (IA) will implement PatientKeeper’s Physician Practice Connector to give doctors a view of inpatient data, connecting the PatientKeeper Physician Information System with Sage Intergy EHR.
A couple of readers wisely suggested that I not consider running nondisclosure language from vendor contracts. Reasons: (a) it might identify the client since terms are often customized; (b) it might violate vendor privacy requirements and get a client or me in trouble; (c) clients might not want to share anyway since they may like the idea of being prohibited from sharing patient safety information. A couple of vendors e-mailed to say they don’t include such terms. I’d be very surprised if Cerner and Epic don’t based on my limited history with them.
Jobs: QA Engineers, GE Centricity CPOE Project Manager, Strategic IT Consultant, Eclipsys SCM Systems Engineer.
A hospital in Taiwan implements a PBX-to-Skype gateway that allows free calling between nursing stations and its computers-on-wheels. Each COW has a USB handset tied into the hospital PBX so that employees can make and take Skype calls on regular phones. I Googled around and the four simultaneous calls version of the VoSKY appliance costs $1,500.
API Healthcare announces availability of its Business Analytics solution, which covers Staffing Solutions (staffing ratios and schedules) and Overtime Cost Control. MemorialCare (CA) is running it now.
The federal government rolls out a very Web 2.0-ish IT Dashboard that gives a quick green-yellow-red report like that of the VA above.
Chicago hospitals spent $32.4 million on advertising in 2008.
German HIT vendor CompuGROUP’s Q2 numbers (warning PDF): revenue up 61%, earnings up 19%.
In Australia, iSoft reports a 50% increase in revenue and 143% increase in profit, also predicting 10% sales growth for 2010.
Oracle’s Larry Ellison made $557 million in compensation in 2008, but was still #2 to the CEO of Blackstone Groups, who took home $702 million.
David Bond is a really great guy who was very loyal to his employees. The employees at A4 were loyal to him (and John) in return. It is unfortunate that the culture that existed at A4 is not present in the land of Allscripts/Misys – they sure need it.
You could always gather contract information from organizations that fall under the Freedom of Information Act (most University Medical Centers, County Hospitals, etc. Maybe Fletcher CSI would let you peek at their database in exchange for a mention…
The push for non-disclosure of the non-disclosure agreements is typical. They should never exist if patient safety is involved. And patient safety is always involved unless it’s something like HIT vendor sent too small or too large a bill to the hospital or doctor’s office.