News 6/27/12

Top News

ONC’s Director of Meaningful Use Joshua Seidman, PhD resigns to take a job as managing director of quality and performance improvement with Evolent, the ACO services provider spinoff of The Advisory Board Company and UPMC.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Atlantic Health Solutions acquires fellow medical billing company DataSolv Services.

Sales

Lehigh Valley Health Network (PA) chooses MedAssets to provide RCM technology and consulting services, including MedAssets Charge and Reimbursement Integrity solutions and Collections Management product.

Bradley County Medical Center (AR – above), Ellis Hospital (NY), and Jamaica Hospital Medical Center (NY) sign contracts with QuadraMed for the ICD-10 compliant version of Quantim Coding and for QuadraMed’s 3-Learning and Education program.

The West Coast Regional Office of VHA and Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center (PA – above) sign agreements with Avantas for the company’s healthcare enterprise labor management technology.

The VA awards Ray Group International a $4.9 million contract to support the Open Source EHR agent project, which allows developers to contribute software code for the VA/DoD integrated EHR.

The Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR) signs a contract with PatientOrderSets.com to use its solutions in public and DIR-eligible hospitals.

Summa Health System (OH) selects PatientKeeper Charge Capture software for its 300 physicians.

Lenco Diagnostic Laboratories, a New York reference lab, implements EMRHub from Lifepoint Informatics, which allows it to distribute lab data to an unlimited number and variety of EMRs through a single connection.

People

RCM provider Recondo Technology names Major General (Ret.) Elder Granger, MD (TRICARE) to its board.

GetWellNetwork appoints Beth Martinko (Avid Technology) SVP of client experience and Hugo Borda (NeighborBench) VP of enterprise architecture.

Medsphere Systems adds Mike Morotti (Validus Medical System) as VP of sales.

PerfectServe appoints George Pace (Verisk Health) RVP of sales.

Ernest & Young names The Advisory Board Company CEO Robert Musslewhite a winner in of a 2012 Entrepreneur of the Year award for the Greater Washington Region. Ernst & Young also names T-System CEO Sunny Sanyal a finalist for the 2012 Southwest Area North Entrepreneur of the Year.

Beacon Partners names Jon Mello (EMC) as EVP.

Greenway reseller iPractice Group names Monte Ruder (Integrated Healthcare Solutions) its VP of sales and adds three additional account executives. Last week iPractice announced that an undisclosed California company is investing $32 million in the company.

Announcements and Implementations

Kaiser Permanente and the Social Security Administration announce a pilot program to exchange electronic health information using the NHIN.

The Kentucky HIE, St. Elizabeth Healthcare, and HealthBridge announce their successful secure exchange of patient health information.

McPherson Hospital (KS) implements Meditech.

OTTR Chronic Care Solutions announces the arrival of its OTTR 6 release.

Merge releases its eClinical OS Platform for capturing any type of data from any source and over any modality.

Former BayCare Health System (FL) critical care nurses Cynthia Davis and Marcy Stoots form CIC Advisory, which offers strategic consulting services specializing in EMR-driven clinical process improvement. They were involved in BayCare implementations in executive roles.

Government and Politics

ONC releases a new version of its online Certified Health IT Product List that lists 1,700 EHRs and modules and includes several new features, including functionality to identify hybrid certified EHRs.

Other

Winter Haven Hospital (FL) says it has pushed backed the full implementation of its EHR system from last spring until October 1 in order complete physician training. Cerner, I believe.

KLAS takes a look at Epic consulting firms and ranks Impact Advisors highest in enterprise implementation leadership and advisory, Encore highest for team implementation leadership and advisory, and Nordic Consulting highest for staffing implementation and support. KLAS identified 45 firms with Epic consulting engagements and found that nearly every firm received good marks for consultants. Thanks to KLAS for allowing us to quote their report and include the graphic above.

The Wall Street Journal covers the failed EMR implementation of 25-bed Girard Medical Center (KS), which says it paid Cerner $1.2 million and still can’t quality for Meaningful Use money (we reported its lawsuit against Cerner back in January). The hospital claims that Cerner didn’t include quite a few items in its $2.9 million agreement, but also admits that it didn’t understand the contract it signed and relied on Cerner to tell its executives what it covered. According to the CIO of the IT department (which had only two employees when the hospital signed with Cerner), the additional costs were only $100,000 over the term of the five-year agreement, but the hospital decided to stop paying Cerner to get their attention over poor service. They did – Cerner e-mailed the hospital to say it was walking away. Based on the skimpy description in the article, I’m siding with Cerner – the hospital didn’t do its due diligence, bought way more system than it needed or could maintain, and then tried to play tough over a price discrepancy of less than 4% of the total contract value. Granted some vendors (Epic) wouldn’t have sold a deal like that knowing the chance of success was minimal, but it’s not Cerner’s job to advise the hospital as a neutral party. If someone deserves blame other than the hospital, it’s the federal government for financially baiting providers into buying systems they otherwise had been wisely avoiding as a bad fit.

The president of CVS Caremark’s MinuteClinic says its retail clinics support continuity of care by giving every patient a copy of their medical record, sending their physician a copy if the patient approves, and integrating with practices by either sending them electronic information or (for the large number of practices that don’t have an EMR) a nightly batch fax.

An article by early Epocrates executive Michelle Snyder observes that despite all the technology being thrown at physicians, they’re less productive now than 10 years ago. She urges the use of simple technologies that, like Epocrates, are easy to use and save individual doctors time – no more, no less. Examples: HealthFinch (lets doctors delegate prescription refills to staff); ImagingCloud (Webex-like medical image collaboration); and Doximity (LinkedIn-like physician referrals and consultation).

Sponsor Updates

• NextGen changes the name of its Practice Solutions Division to NextGen RCM Services. 
• Bulletin Healthcare Briefings partners with the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners to publish and electronically deliver its members-only daily electronic news briefing PNP Daily News.
• ZirMed and DoctorSites offer a free webinar entitled, “Online Marketing and Payment Secrets That can Make – or Break – your Practice.”
• Mowery Clinic (KS) selects NextGen’s EHR/PM and portal solutions for its 33 physicians.
• Imprivata scores a score of 88.4 on KLAS’s 2012 mid-term performance report.
• Emdeon announces that three of its RCM solutions have received HFMA Peer Reviewed designation.
• Allscripts reminds developers that the deadline for its Million Hearts Clinical Decision Support Challenge is July 13. The company is offering a $50,000 prize for the best publicly available app that optimizes cardiovascular disease care through clinical decision support.
• Passport Health adds its PatientTrack and PatientRisk modules to the Care Cycle Suite.

More news: HIStalk Practice, HIStalk Mobile.