I'd never heard of Healwell before and took a look over their offerings. Has anyone used the products? Beyond the…
Monday Morning Update 3/8/10
HERtalk by Inga
From: HIS user “Re: Rumor. (The CEO for the HIT business unit) of a (large, international technology company) has resigned. Heard from multiple direct sources at the company. Was announced there Friday.” The CEO was at HIMSS and had a press conference as recently as Monday. I sent a note over the weekend to the company but not heard back. If it’s true, I suspect the company will share the news Monday.
From: Bean Town Gal Re: Highlights. “We attended the HIStalk party and it was a highlight of HIMSS. Nice to be in the fishbowl; surrounded by friends and competitors — and truly enjoying it. Great vibe — thank you to the sponsors — the spinach & artichoke dip was yummy, GREAT to sit down and rest the paws after a very long day …. but most of all, the intrigue and credibility that you & Mr. HIStalk create, will keep us coming back again. Truly appreciate what you both do. Kudos and …. Love the shoes.”
From: Beastly “Re: Press Releases. As PR professionals we are compelled to issue press releases when our companies bring new products to the market that are worthy of acknowledgment. A true PR professional knows the difference between newsworthy and wasting a journalist’s time. We also have an ethical responsibility to advise our clients if and when their perception of news doesn’t merit coverage. Issuing press releases about non-news compares to the ‘boy who cried wolf,’ syndrome. For many within the healthcare industry, HIMSS is our Super Bowl. The opportunity to showcase the products we developed, believe in and are proud of. The media and most importantly our customers expect to see us with our best game. Companies don’t indiscriminately issue press releases – they plan product releases so that they coincide with HIMSS. If a product is ready two months before HIMSS, the HIMSS exhibitor companies traditionally wait for HIMSS to show and announce it. And if the product won’t be consumer ready until a few months after HIMSS, the exhibitor will often develop a mock-up or engineering sample so it can be shown to the audience at HIMSS. The majority of us aren’t trying to waste your time; we’re inviting you to share our exuberance.”
From: Pat Avatar “Re: HITmen event. I was unimpressed with the “boys club” HITmen event. I think it was very unimaginative. Same people named over and over. A while back, Colin Powell was quoted along the lines of if any area was in need of imagination, it was healthcare. If we keep trotting out the same handful of people – we are truly in trouble. Enough of Tullman, Bush, the government appointees who are elevated only by title and not by progress, Halamka, and the usual short list. Why not have someone meet the challenge of recognizing the worker-bees – the ones really getting the job done – while the same people are the headliners. Besides, Inga and I are going to take over the world of healthcare and get something done.”
Note sure that I am going to take over the world of healthcare (or that I want to) but I am taking over HIStalk for the week. An exhausted Mr. H is taking took some well-deserved time off and hopefully cleansing his mind of the HIT world. If you have any news to share, be sure to send it my way since Mr. H is avoiding e-mail this week.
Last week MS HUG and Microsoft announced four winners of its annual Innovation Awards. SingHealth earned honors for the best use of inpatient clinical records use for levering its implementation of Eclipsys Sunrise Patient Flow and CADI Scientific. Other winners included Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Doylestown Hospital, and Premera Blue Cross/Get Real Consulting.
Former McKesson Charles McCall is sentenced to 10 years prison and ordered to pay a $1 million fine for his part in a $8.6 billion fraud scheme.
Medicity and Emdeon collaborate to create the first “converged national HIE, leveraging Emdeon’s network of payers, providers, and pharmacies and Medicity’s iNexx Health 4.0 platform.
The Advisory Board Company enters an agreement to acquire Concuity, the healthcare-focused RCM software and services division of Trintech Group. Price: $34.5 million.
The Wall Street Journal reports that shares of Nuance Communications rose 5.7% Friday on rumors that Google is interested in buying Nuance Communications. There are lots of reasons why such a marriage would not make sense, but an acquisition of Nuance would certainly help Google increase its presence in the healthcare space.
McKesson is named the “World’s Most Admired” company in healthcare wholesalers sector in a survey by FORTUNE magazine and the Hay Group. McKesson also made Corporate Responsibility Magazine’s list of 100 Best Corporate Citizens.
Start queuing up at your local Apple store: the Wi-Fi-enabled iPad goes on sale April 3, with pre-ordering starting March 12th. Suggested retail prices will range from $499 for the 16B model to $699 for the 64GB. The 3G equipped models will hit the market in late April, though you can also pre-order starting March 12th.
Lumetra PSO agrees to provide iSOFT’s AIMS incident management software to US healthcare organizations.
Bridgehead software unveils preliminary results of its Data Management Healthcheck 2010, reporting that only 6.5% of respondents use cloud storage as the destination media for their organization’s data. Only 33% say they are planning to adopt a cloud storage strategy for any data over the next 12-24 months. The biggest concern is security and availability of data using a cloud strategy.
A couple HIMSS education sessions I missed: “A Big, Hairy Audacious” CPOE Goal, and, It’s More than Pizza! Improving House Staff Adoption of CPOE. I wonder if the presenter for the second one got any snack tips from Mr. H.
Former RelayHealth COO Jeff Bairstow joins Journal Register Company as CFO.
RWJF awards over $2.4 million to five research teams studying how patient-recorded observations of daily living can be captured and integrated into clinical care.
Wellmont Health System (TN) names Kent Perry CIO and VP and Dr. Troy Sybert chief medical information.
Verizon Business launches The Verizon Medical Data Exchange, a platform that gives transcriptionists an interoperable tool for sharing digitized patient notes.
A fan files suit against the Kansas City Royals after being hit in the eye – by a hot dog. The team’s mascot (Sluggerrr) regularly fires hot dogs into the crowd, but one last year hit John Coomer in the eye, resulting in a detached retina and cataracts.So far his medical costs have exceeded $25,000. It’s unclear whether Cooner actually ate the errant hot dog.
Regarding Verizons foray into an HIE… It took 3 store visits, three device replacements, three software upgrades and over $100 dollars to get my daughters “free” Verizon cell phone to actually work properly! I would like to see Verizon actually get their phone services working before they add to the others attempting to solve our HIM challenges!!
Oodles of Google Giggles! – Remember the “trouble with tribbles”?
D
I read that March 7 – March 13 is Patient Safety Awareness Week (PSAW)
Let’s hope the HIMSS EHRVA vendors remember this as they peddle their product(s) to hospitals and physician practices. They should put the Patient first and remove the gag clauses in their contracts.
Patients except to not be harmed when they visit their physician’s office. They also assume all products have been tested for safety, not just certification. If only they knew the truth…