Giving a patient medications in the ER, having them pop positive on a test, and then withholding further medications because…
News 9/18/13
Top News
Here’s a news item that Judy Faulkner probably won’t mention when addressing the Epic masses in Verona this week. She earns the #243 spot on the annual “Forbes 400 Ranking of the Richest Americans” with an estimated net worth of $2.3 billion. Terry Ragon of InterSystems, which sells the Caché database that runs Epic and other healthcare IT systems, also makes the list, tying Cerner’s Neal Patterson in the #352 position with a net worth of $1.5 billion.
Reader Comments
From Spacey: “Re: Epic UGM. Over 15,000 people in attendance including 8,500 customers and 6,600 Epic employees. They now cover over 50 percent of US patients!” We reported in 2010 that attendance was 5,500 versus 3,800 in 2009. At the rate the Epic UGM is growing, it could surpass the HIMSS conference in a few years.
From GomiesGone: “Re: Nuance. Dropped the ball by failing to release Dragon Medical Network DM360 v2.0 as promised on September 16. Word is upper management is arguing over logistics.” Unverified.
From Curious: “Re: Epic. Looks like they’re no longer hiring project managers / installers for their US locations. Does anyone know why?”
From Reluctant Epic User: “Re: HIStalk. If you’re ever in my town and willing to blow your anonymity, I’d be thrilled to buy you a beer or two for the great work you do. People in my health system routinely think I’m a genius simply because of knowledge I have gained by reading your site faithfully for the last six years.” I appreciate both the nice comment and the six years of reading. I do like beer, so that just might sway me.
Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock
In England, Emis, which provides physician practice systems, will buy hospital systems vendor Ascribe for $95 million.
A UK report says that CSC will pay $98 million to settle a class action suit in which shareholders claim the company knew its Lorenzo EMR, developed by iSoft, could never be implemented in the NHS’s NPfIT program long before a Department of Health breach of contract charge sent shares down sharply. Meanwhile, a watchdog’s report says costs continue to pile up for the failed NPfIT project because of ongoing liabilities and vendor termination fees, leading it to conclude that the project is “one of the worst and most expensive contracting fiascos in the history of the public sector” as updated cost estimates are revised upward to $15.5 billion vs. an estimated benefit of $6 billion.
Sales
Hunt Regional Healthcare (TX) will implement T-System PerformNext Care Continuity.
Tift Regional Medical Center (GA) will deploy RelayHealth’s RelayClinical platform for its HIE.
NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation selects Elsevier’s ClinicalKey to provide electronic medical reference and knowledge-based information to its clinicians.
CentraCare Health (MN) selects Strata Decision Technology’s StrataJazz for costing accounting, operating budgeting, capital planning, and rolling forecasting.
People
The Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council names athenahealth CEO Jonathan Bush CEO of the Year and Nuance Communications CTO Vlad Sejnoha CTO of the Year.
Voalte hires Kenda West (Johns Hopkins Medicine) as COO.
Amazing Charts names John Squire (Microsoft) president and COO.
Coastal Healthcare Consulting hires Gay Fright (Pivot Point Consulting) as EVP of business development.
Virtual Radiologic names Shannon Werb (Acuo Technologies) as CIO.
Bill Keyes (Allscripts ) is named SVP of sales of CoCENTRIX.
HIMSS recognizes Farzad Mostashari, MD, Congressman Tim Murphy, CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner, and Rhode Island State Representative Brian Patrick Kennedy with HIT Leadership Awards in recognition of their work to improve health with IT initiatives.
WHITEC, the Wisconsin REC, provides a bow tie tribute to outgoing National Coordinator Farzad Mostashari, MD.
Announcements and Implementations
Mid Coast Hospital (ME) implements Gemalto’s Sealys MultiApp ID smart cards and LifeMed ID’s SecureReg solution to enable secure patient authentication.
Children’s Medical Center Dallas (TX) launches its TeleNICU, which will provide regional hospitals with access its neonatologists.
HIMSS awards the University of California-Davis Medical Center its 2013 Enterprise HIMSS Davies Award of Excellence.
HealtheLink connects three other New York state RHIOs to provide sharing for 5.4 million patient health records and links to 44 hospitals.
VitalWare introduces VitalCoder, a coding and compliance resource that includes real-time, automatic updates for organization-specific coding, regulatory, and financial data.
Nuance Communications announces an Epic-optimized version of its Dragon Medical 360 | Network Edition that contains 1,000 customized commands to enhance physician productivity in a Citrix environment.
PDR Network launches PDR+ for Patients, which incorporates drug information into EHRs so that prescribers can discuss proper use with patients during the encounter.
Government and Politics
ONC releases online tools for providers and HIEs to educate patients about the electronic sharing of health information.
ONC also publishes models for Notices of Privacy Practices for healthcare providers, which reflect the Omnibus Rule regulatory changes that go into effect September 23.
CMS commissions the National Academy of Sciences to study how best to add social and behavioral factors to EHRs without compromising privacy.
GAO identifies 12 potentially duplicate investments at three federal agencies that over the last five years have accounted for $321 million in IT spending, including $256 million for four HHS information security systems.
The House of Representatives is considering the TELEmedicine for MEDicare (TELE-MED) Act of 2013, which would allow Medicare providers to treat patients across state lines using telehealth technology without requiring them obtain medical licenses in multiple states.
Innovation and Research
A study published in The Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine finds that neonatal depression can best be predicted not only by common excessive uterine contractions, but also the concurrent presence of fetal heart rate deceleration. The study used tracing data from PeriGen’s PeriCALM system, which allows real-time detection of the condition.
Technology
PatientPoint releases PatientPoint Tracker, a patient engagement tool for tracking patients across the care continuum.
Caradigm releases Care Management, a population health management tool developed in partnership with Geisinger Health Plan.
Other
Canada becomes the thirteenth country to issue a patent to MMRGlobal’s MyMedicalRecords subsidiary for its online medical records technology. In an MMR press release, the company notes it is negotiating an agreement with an investment fund specializing in financing the enforcement and licensing of global intellectual property rights which would “maximize MMR’s ability to exploit its global health IT patent portfolio.” “Exploit” sounds like an appropriate term to describe MMR’s apparent modus operandi.
An Accenture survey finds that 40 percent of Americans would switch doctors to gain online access to their electronic medical records. That sounds like a suspiciously high number and no doubt it is – Accenture conducted the survey online.
CHIME President and CEO Russ Branzell pens a National Health IT Week piece called “HIT Capabilities – They Are Personally Important to Me.”
MU Stage 2 is accelerating EMR-specific patient portal adoption, though the trend is negatively impacting best-of-breed vendors that are not as well equipped as EMR offerings, according to a KLAS report on patient portals. Athenahealth, Epic, and Allscripts were the top-performing vendors.
A population health management report created for institutional investors by equity research firm JAAG Research concludes that the big PHM market opportunities are at least 10 years away; that lack of data standardization, timeliness, and completeness makes a “Big Data Mess;” and on the CommonWell Alliance “Maybe it’s just us, but all of this soft, ‘.org’ alliance, love-in, ‘we’re in this together for the good of the patients’ blather sounds more like a plan for each vendor to appear collegially engaged from a public policy perspective while keeping the government from forcing a solution on the market. Meanwhile, each ‘member’ works on its own, potentially more profitable solution, outside of the auspices of the happy ‘.org’ shell.” It concludes that “PHM will require a reengineering – almost a complete rebuild – of the healthcare payment and delivery process as we know it.” It’s an excellent report and a tremendously fun read.
R&D spend by major EHR vendors. #Epic #UGM2013 pic.twitter.com/wMfMREgfmx
— Jon Palma (@jonpalma) September 17, 2013
Me & 15,300 others. #UGM2013 pic.twitter.com/AwFx59cFu2
— Melissa MT (@LissaMinnesota) September 17, 2013
I found the Epic UGM tweets and photos above using the cool page that Vonlay built to curate the event. Look carefully and you’ll see Judy in her Avatar outfit.
Weird News Andy titles this story as “Doctor Gives Patient the Finger.” A Florida doctor grows back a man’s amputated finger by using a pig’s bladder as a mold.
Sponsor Updates
- CCHIT certifies that Wellsoft’s EDIS v.11 is compliant with the ONC 2014 Edition criteria and certifies it as an EHR Module.
- NCQA awards Case Management Accreditation to Alere and OptumHealth.
- Quantros hosts its first annual Pharmacy Quality and Safety Summit September 25-26 in Sarasota, FL.
- Valence Health launches its Pathfinder Accelerator Grant program, which makes $1 million available to hospitals and health systems to apply towards Valence Health’s Pathfinder services for transitioning from volume-based to value-based care.
- Vocera Communications CMO Bridget Duffy, MD will discuss improving the patient experience at two upcoming industry events.
- 3M Health Information Systems will offer its suite of ICD-10 and CDI consulting services and software integrated with MedPartners HIM’s credentialed and clinical documentation improvement staffing resources.
- Consulting magazine recognizes Aspen Advisors, Cumberland Consulting, and Impact Advisors on its list of “Best Small Firms to Work For 2013” and Deloitte Consulting on its list of “Best Firms to Work for 2013.”
- Frost & Sullivan presents Vitera Healthcare Solutions its 2013 North American Customer Value Enhancement Award for outstanding performance and success, which recognizes the company’s focus on implementing strategies to create customer value.
- ReadyDock partners with IT provider Red River.
- Managed Health Care Associates will launch MHAuthorizeRx, a solution powered by CoverMyMeds and designed to streamline the drug prior authorization process for pharmacies.
Contacts
Mr. H, Inga, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Gregg, Lt. Dan, Dr. Travis.
More news: HIStalk Practice, HIStalk Connect.
It’s entirely possible I am missing something but I think Cerner got short-changed on that R&D slide…Cerner’s FY13 YTD R&D spend is ~$241 million if you add the $78 million in capitalized software development from the statement of cash flows to the amount that was expensed on its income statement ($163 million). That would be consistent with the method that was apparently used to calculate Allscripts’ YTD R&D expense of $122 million ($102.8 + $19.5). Just sayin.
Re Judy and Terry’s income.
Obviously customers are paying too much for their salaries… Umm, products. Ehem.
RE: R&D Spend by Major EHR Vendors
Epic spending 46% of operating costs on R&D sounds great but sounds a little high to be believable in the true sense of R&D spending.
I would be interested in whether that figure simply includes the coding for the next platform or if it really represents investment in finding and prototyping truly new modules.
Epic always claimed some questionable numbers… I remember at a staff meeting how Judy told the company that the official turnover rate was 15 percent. I’m not sure how many people believed that.
They’ve probably stopped hiring implementers since they foresee a slowdown in installs. I know of several implementers that have switched to a new role internally.
I am surprised that Judy hasn’t cracked down more on people taking photos during the executive address at UGM. She tells us to not post these online and yet people keep doing it year after year.
Not to get too accountant-sy on you guys but…
R&D expense is % of Operating costs. Epic’s Operating costs as % of sales are far lower than Cerner or Allscripts (no sellex, minimal marketing, etc.).
Besides all employees in technical support are required to share what % of their time was spent on developing new things for customers. Tweaks to reports, new programming point, everything is included. Most other companies probably include that in Cost of Sales, not R&D.
Do you have a link to the JAAG PHM paper? I couldn’t find it on the site based on the URL you provided. I’d love to read it!
[From Mr H] Sorry for the delay in responding. The company isn’t distributing it except to their institutional investor clients since that’s the business they are in. I wanted to clear that with them before publishing the report, so I’m glad I asked. Sorry! It’s a really good report.
Any chance of getting a link to the full JAAG report? The link takes us to a site that’s under construction.
Looks like the EPIC chart comparing their R&D expenses to Allscripts and Cerner is no longer available on the twitter link. Someone forced Jon Palma to remove it ???