Home » News » Currently Reading:

Monday Morning Update 1/11/10

January 9, 2010 News 7 Comments

haiku

From Situation: “Re: little Epic app. Haiku available now. Get it from iTunes.” I like that it even has tallman lettering on the drug names. The one mention I found says users need a Haiku license and Epic Summer 2009. It works on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

submit

From Colleen: “Re: Meaningful Use. Looks like the comment period has opened.” It sure does, even though ONCHIT just told be it would be Wednesday. You can submit comments electronically on the Meaningful Use criteria. The link to the larger reimbursement document isn’t working yet.

From SniffSniff: “Re: RHIOs. I’m working with RHIOs in various locations. A large vendor is not playing nice — won’t share data, won’t participate, and is pushing its hospitals to not be part of the health exchange. It’s apparently coming from the top. Yep, you guessed it — Epic. I’m going to the client in two weeks to explain this and advise them against the EHR, solely based on this reason.”

From Proust: “Re: HIMSS Analytics Stage 7. University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics got its designation on January 7, another Epic facility.” Do you suppose its outcomes and costs showed improvement and are superior to its lesser-staged competitors? My guess: no.

 ct

Ingenix will announce that it will offer interest-free loans to practices who buy its CareTracker PM/EMR. In addition to guaranteeing that CareTracker will meet meaningful use technical requirements, Ingenix says it will also help providers qualify for CMS incentive payments. Here’s their best pitch, though: the Web-based CareTracker EHR costs only $23,500 over five years, less than the ARRA reimbursement of $44,000 over five years.

Revenue cycle management vendor Origin Healthcare Solutions of Windsor, CT announces that Technology Crossover Ventures has made a “significant growth equity investment” in the company.

US CTO Aneesh Chopra, speaking at the CES show in Las Vegas, emphasizes healthcare IT:

“We don’t have a lot of innovation yet about how consumers can communicate with our electronic health record systems and smart meters and frankly education technology. We need more innovation. If you ask how many people receive an electronic record of their health information after they visit a physician or a hospital… I would be shocked if it was more than five percent. It’s probably more like two percent. That’s one of the provisions we’re calling for — the ability of patients to get records within 48 hours of their request. We should have a fairly open standard that will allow entrepreneurs to make that a low-cost product that physicians and hospitals could acquire.”

I’m not sure anything about HITECH encourages innovation, low-cost products, or entrepreneurs, but that’s what he said.

Listening: reader-recommend Hey Marseilles, an unsigned Seattle indie folk/pop band with orchestral backing. They’re good, reminding me a little of R.E.M.

medstracker

Myrtue Medical Center (IA) chooses MedsTracker Enterprise Medication Reconciliation from Design Clinicals, which the hospital’s CEO says will increase patient safety while qualifying it for ARRA funding.

poll010910 

Above are your responses to my last poll on the proposed Meaningful Use criteria. New poll to your right: if providers meet the Meaningful Use criteria, will the average patient benefit?

Ninety-four of the 100 University of Missouri Health Center IT employees who were offered a chance to transition to the Tiger Institute the hospital created with Cerner take the offer, with six passing. Those 94 are now Cerner employees, bringing their seniority along and keeping their current salaries plus $1,000. Some of them think that’s unfair given that they are now Cerner employees working for state employee wages. “We have a ton of experience, so we don’t want young whippersnappers coming in making $10,000 or $15,000 more than we are.” Did he really say “whippersnappers?” I’d bet the number left in a year is a good deal less than 94.

Elsevier acquires NurseSquared, which offers an EHR simulation product for nurse training.

Christopher Thompson MD, chief medical officer of ED documentation system vendor Touch Medix, is sentenced to five years in prison for his role in a road rage incident involving bicyclists.

An Arkansas county jail will make prisoners responsible for paying a co-pay for medical treatments and prescriptions. The ordinance was approved by justices of the peace, who also passed a “pay for stay” ordinance that bills convicted prisoners for their room, board, and transportation to and from jail.

Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie, ON launches its TELUS Sourcing Solutions HR systems as it begins recruitment for over 1,000 new employees to staff its expansion.

SAIC gets up to $14 million over five years to support the VA’s blood bank software.

Wales announces The Welsh Clinical Portal.

Odd lawsuit: a man trying to determine if his surgeon made mistakes sues University Community Hospital (FL) when the hospital tells him the search through decades of paper information will cost him more than $1 million. The hospital explained that its employees would have to manually search patient charts and redact privacy-related information. The lawsuit demands that the hospital prove its actual cost of producing the records.

E-mail me.



HIStalk Featured Sponsors

     

Currently there are "7 comments" on this Article:

  1. “Cerner spokeswoman Kelli Christman said the new employees have nothing to worry about. Of course they’ll be treated the same as other Cerner associates,” she said.”

    Yes, nothing to worry about.

  2. Tiger Institute – well – color me not a whippersnapper as I seem to recall from my ancient mind that not one of these vendor/customer “partnerships” has ever been a truly good thing for either the vendor or the customer. Isn’t the best way to stay innovative to remain close to ALL your customers and to actively engage them in your development efforts??

  3. “Cerner spokeswoman Kelli Christman said that the new employees have nothing to worry about” Personal experience: I worked for a company Cerner swallowed up. “We want you for your product, your customers and your technical people”. That was a lie on all three counts. Also just wait on your years of service that you “get to take with you”. After about five or six years, they take it away from you even though it is in the contract. I would worry if I were these Tiger Institute employees.

  4. If Epic isn’t “playing nice” in your HIE project, you should contact IT leadership at UPMC (Pittsburgh) to find out how they were able to get Epic to participate in their HIE. Not an easy thing to do but it has been done in the past.

  5. sort of shocked that HAIKU can’t be used with demo data. allscripts really was savvy in that regard with allscripts remote.

  6. John Klickna, long-time HIT salesman for Eclipsys, died last week. He battled cancer for a number of years. Those who worked with him will remember him for his energy…and his bad jokes, many of which he got from Bert Reese of Sentara, one of his early customers. John will be fondly remembered by friends and colleagues.

  7. I don’t get it…

    Epic won’t play nice on interoperability?
    Hey Judy was on the HITECh advisory Committe and CMS just issued their recommendation for MU criteria- and one key critieria is INTEROPERABILITY !

    If I were you, I’d send Judy and CMS a big flamming email! Oh, and be sure to put a nice note on the CMS MU comment website.







Text Ads


RECENT COMMENTS

  1. It seems that every innovation in the past 50 years has claimed that it would save money and lives. There…

  2. Well, this is predicting the future, and my crystal ball is cloudy and cracked. But my basic thesis about Meditech?…

  3. RE Judy Faulkner's foundation wishes: Different area, but read up on the Barnes Foundation to see how things work out…

  4. Meditech certainly benefited from Cerner and Allscripts stumbles and before that the failures of ECW and Athena’s inpatient expansions. I…

  5. Yes, Meditech will talk your ears off about Expanse. There are multiple factors at play here which undercut both Meditech…

Founding Sponsors


 

Platinum Sponsors


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gold Sponsors


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RSS Webinars

  • An error has occurred, which probably means the feed is down. Try again later.