I realize it's been quite a while since I taught - or was in school myself - but I'm distressed…
Morning Headlines 5/13/16
GPs told to review patients at risk as IT error miscalculates CV score in thousands
Doctors in England are being asked to reconsider statin prescriptions for thousands of patients after experts discover that the widely-used SystemOne EHR had been miscalculating cardiovascular risk for the last seven years.
An Unintended Side Effect of Transparency
ProPublica notices that drug seekers have been using its Prescriber Checkup tool, a national database containing the prescribing habits of doctors, to find providers most likely to prescribe narcotics.
Fitch Rates Memorial Hospital at Gulfport’s (MS) 2016 Revs ‘BBB’; Downgrs Outstanding
Bond ratings of the city of Gulfport, MS issued on behalf of Memorial Hospital at Gulfport has been downgraded due to a sharp decline in liquidity and an EHR implementation (Cerner) that lead to “an unfavorable increase to accounts receivable.”
Zocdoc announces that it will integrate its patient self-scheduling software with Epic via an API.
How does a Cerner site get a bond downgrade from a crappy AR install and no one comments???
If this were an Epic site that had their profit (yes profit) marginally impacted, there’d be comments galore.
Industry Observer – Why was mentioning profit so important? If a hospital has to gut their support staff post go live to maintain profit how is that beneficial to the ultimate goal of the best patient care possible?
The reason Epic gets more slings and arrows is they have dominated the market to their credit and such comes with the teritory. However when you are the highest priced as well asking for cost justification is simply the prudent thing to do especially when there is a steady stream of stories like these and almost all of them are Epic.
Industry observer: the Cerner news comes from a who the heck cares hospital. An Epic client getting downgraded is bigger news because it’s a larger site the employs more people and sees more patients than nearly any Cerner client.
Anon: While I really have no dog in the fight of Cerner vs Epic (both have their good and bad qualities), lets look at the facts when it comes to issues like this. The reason Epic gets more negative press with regards to when their hospital’s are down graded is a direct result of the cost of Epic. Far and away, Epic is the more expensive product, and that isn’t really debatable.
As for the size of Epic clients, it is true that for stand along Facilities/Organizations, Epic has done better. But lets not discount Cerner either as Cerner is very competitive in that Large Facility Market. Hospitals such as Florida Hospital Orlando, Jackson Memorial, UPMC Presbyterian, IU Health Methodist, Memorial Hermann, UAB are always on the list of Largest Hospitals in the US and those are all Cerner sites. Also, note that Cerner has the larger IDN’s in the US as well such as Ascension Health, Trinity Health, Tenet, Banner, Dignity, Iasis, Community Health Systems, Catholic Health Initiatives (about a 50/50 split Cerner vs Epic), Adventist Health, Intermountain Health, UPMC, UHS, and of course this little organization called the Department of Defense…
What we should really talk about rather than downgrades or who is better or who’s CEO is more brash (would love to see a cage match of Judy vs Neal), is why we put so much money and investment into these EMR’s and they are running on 20 year old technology………