Morning Headlines 8/22/13

Allscripts Announces Winners of the Open App Challenge

Allscripts announces the launch of the Allscripts App Store along with the winners of its Open App Challenge during Wednesday’s kickoff of the 2013 Allscripts Client Experience. The contest challenged developers to create a revolutionary app that integrates with the Allscripts EHR. The winning app is healthfinch Refillwizard, which automates prescription renewal requests.

The Highway to Better Healthcare is Open: Missouri Health Connection Rolls-Out Statewide Health Information Network

Missouri launches its statewide health information exchange network, providing services to more than 7,000 physicians, 62 hospitals, and 350 clinics. Missouri contracted with InterSystems in July 2012 to design and deploy the network.

Emergency Clearance: Public Information Collection Requirements Submitted to the Office of Management and Budget

A Federal Register post by CMS calls for an emergency review of its recently proposed rule that would require breach reporting for health information exchanges to be capped at a one-hour limit between the time an HIE breach is discovered and the time it is reported, stating that the proposed rule is essential to public security and failing to approve it quickly would likely result in public harm.

Morning Headlines 8/21/13

First Databank Acquires Design Clinicals

First Databank announces the acquisition of Seattle-based Design Clinicals, the developers of a clinician-friendly medication reconciliation software.

Intuit sells Intuit Health Group back to Raleigh entrepreneur Steve Malik

Intuit Health Group, which went by Medfusion before being acquired by Intuit in 2011, has been sold back to its original founder Steve Malik for an undisclosed sum.

Say Hi To Oscar: The New Kid That May Change Health Insurance

New York City-based health insurance startup Oscar is trying to re-engineer the relationship between insurance companies and patients. Oscar’s goal is to leverage technology, like telehealth visits, patient portals, and mobile wellness apps, to be such a value adding insurance company that patients chose them before they chose a doctor. Oscar will formally launch when New York’s health insurance exchange launches on October 1st.

Allscripts Introduces Population Health Analytics

Allscripts launches its new population health management solution which provides point of care interventions to reduce readmission rates and help control costs associated with chronic disease management.

Morning Headlines 8/20/13

Patient Engagement: Blockbuster Drug Or Snake Oil?

A recent Forbes article discusses patient engagement strategies along with some of the notable success stories reported thus far.

Delaware considers statewide ACOs

Delaware Governor Jack Markell is working with policy advisors and CMS to draft plans that will bring all of Delaware’s payment and provider systems under the ACO model.

Greenway Reports Fourth-Quarter and Fiscal 2013 Results

Greenway reports its Q4 and 2013 year-end results: -$0.08 EPS on the quarter, which missed analysts estimates of -$0.02. The company ended the year in the red, reporting a net loss of $5.1 million. Shares traded flat during after hours activity.

Morning Headlines 8/9/13

Allscripts announces second quarter 2013 results

Allscripts announces Q2 results: revenue of $344.8 million and $0.05 EPS, compared to $370 million and $0.16 EPS for the same period in 2012. Paul Black is optimistic, based on strong bookings for the quarter driven primarily from its population health solutions.

Nuance Gains as Icahn Builds Stake in Software Maker

Investment billionaire and hostile takeover specialist Carl Icahn has increased his percent ownership of Nuance from nine percent to 16 percent, according to an SEC filing.

CDS Surveillance Significantly Impacts Patient Outcomes

A KLAS survey of 140 providers evaluates clinical surveillance systems which as a whole seem to be delivering on promises of improved outcomes, as 79 percent of customers report that utilizing the technology has a moderate to significant impact on clinical outcomes.

Inova Translational Medicine Institute and GNS Healthcare Partner To Advance Diagnosis and Prevention of Preterm Birth

The Inova Translational Medicine Institute and GNS Healthcare will partner on a commercial project aimed at developing software that will use sophisticated algorithms and datasets to create personalized prediction of preterm birth risk and more accurate gestational length estimates.

Morning Headlines 8/8/13

Federal policymakers to develop EHR testing program for behavioral health, long-term care facilities

ONC will announce a voluntary program for the testing and certification of EHRs used by long-term care, post-acute care, and behavioral health providers.

Principles and Strategy for Accelerating Health Information Exchange

ONC releases the results of its March 2013 RFI on interoperability and health information exchanges, and publishes its broad, long-range strategy on accelerating HIE adoption.

4 potential candidates to replace Mostashari

Government Health IT speculates on ONC internal and external candidates that may take the helm after Farzad Mostashari, MD, moves on. The list includes current Principal Deputy National Coordinator and former Baylor Health CIO David Muntz and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center CIO John Halamka, MD.

The Pros and Cons of Electronic Health Records

This month’s issue of The Hospitalist explores the EHR cut-and-paste dilemma through a fictional clinical scenario told from a physician’s perspective.

Morning Headlines 8/7/13

Farzad Mostashari, M.D., ONC Chief, Stepping Down

Farzad Mostashari, MD will step down this fall after serving two years as the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.

Reduction in federal funding will result in job cuts at many Vermont hospitals

Fletcher Allen Health Care (VT) will add 280 jobs over the next 10 years despite an expected $200 million operational loss. The job growth is attributed to its recently implemented Epic system.

Nuance cuts forecast on delayed deals, move to subscription

Nuance lowers its year-end forecast from $1.33 to $1.45 EPS to a revised $1.27 to $1.35 EPS, due largely to contract delays from mobile customers and a migration to a subscription-based revenue model. The news led to a six percent drop in stock price during after hours trading.

Morning Headlines 8/6/13

Can plagiarism detection tools catch EHR upcoding?

A Government Health IT article explores the idea of combating copy-and-paste documentation in healthcare by adopting anti-plagiarism software popular in many academic settings.

CACI wins VLER contract

The Department of Veterans Affairs has awarded CACI International a $14 million contract to build a data exchange platform that will consolidate EHR data and benefits information across the VA, the Defense Department, and other agencies in support of the Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record program.

EMR Impact: How Patients Are Connecting To The Future Of Healthcare

A study of 1,000 insured US health consumers finds that 52 percent are interested in using a patient portal, but are not currently doing so. Patients indicating that they are using a portal reported higher than average patient satisfaction scores and stronger network loyalty.

St. Elizabeth Hospital Recognized as Leader in Electronic Medical Records

Thirty-eight bed Saint Elizabeth Hospital in Enumclaw, WA achieves HIMSS Stage 7 recognition.

Morning Headlines 8/5/13

Maine hospitals disband remote ICU program, citing costs

MaineHealth announces that it will stop offering its tele-ICU service in October after several participating hospitals drop out. The program connected nine rural hospitals across the state with a 24-hour-a-day ICU command center at Maine Medical Center in Portland.

Whistleblower suit: Hospitals defrauded Medicaid

A whistleblower lawsuit filed by the former CFO of Health Management Associates charges HMA and Tenet Healthcare with paying kickbacks to clinics that referred pregnant illegal immigrants to their hospitals where emergency care claims were then submitted for their deliveries. The report says that the scheme has been operating for more than a decade.

More doctors avoiding Medicare patients

According to CMS, the number of doctors opting out of Medicare has tripled since 2009, with 9,500 physicians opting out in 2012.

Morning Headlines 8/2/13

Cerner to redevelop Bannister Mall site as office park with as many as 15,000 workers

Cerner has purchased a 236-acre former mall outside Kansas City that it will use to house its growing workforce.

EDCO Awarded Patent for Medical Record Scanning Technology and Process

Frontenac, MO-based EDCO Health Information Solutions has been granted a patent for a scanning solution capable of identifying a document type by analyzing its content, rather than requiring a bar code.

Hospitals Face Challenges Using Electronic Health Records to Generate Clinical Quality Measures

The American Hospital Association reports that hospitals are struggling to adopt automated clinical quality reporting following a study that tracks the implementation of electronic clinical quality measures across four hospitals.

Quality Systems Seen Luring Bids Amid Pressure: Real M&A

According to Bloomberg, NextGen parent company Quality Systems, Inc. could attract buyout bids from Siemens and McKesson.

Morning Headlines 8/1/13

CareCloud Surpasses Record Revenue Growth, Secures Funding for Expansion

CareCloud reports that it has achieved sustained growth for 14 consecutive quarters and beaten its all-time quarterly revenue record with its latest Q2 results. The company also announced that it has closed a $20 million Series B financing round.

EHR Contracts: Key Contract Terms for Users to Understand

ONC publishes a guide that explains EHR contract terms for healthcare providers shopping for a new EHR.

Go-live gone wrong

Recent high-profile implementation failures are profiled in an article that points a finger at Meaningful Use for forcing a culture of big bang implementations.

Mount Sinai Lands $3.7M for Genomic Medicine Project in Kidney Disease

Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai receive a $3.7 million grant from the National Human Genome Research Institute to find out if incorporating genome data and genome-related alerts into EHRs can improve treatment of kidney disease in patients who are of African ancestry.

Hospital Board — Two Profitable Months

Twenty-five-bed Fulton County Hospital (AR) closes its fiscal year on two profitable months, projecting a 2013-2014 net loss of $53,000 compared to the previous year’s loss of $380,000. Fulton’s accounts receivable days jumped to 66 after a Healthland EHR implementation, which caused short-term financial hardships.

Morning Headlines 7/31/13

Community Health Agrees to Buy H.M.A. for $3.6 Billion

Community Health Systems agrees to buy Health Management Associates for about $3.6 billion. Including the assumption of debt, the merger is valued at about $7.6 billion.

Catholic Health Initiatives Optimizes Nursing Care Delivery in Collaboration With Cerner Clairvia

Catholic Health Initiatives has increased patient satisfaction scores, saved $1.5 million from reduced overtime, and and saved another $3 million from reduced length of stay after completing a three-year project that included analyzing nurse processes and implementing Cerner Clairvia to measure and streamline them.

Give the public access to the Medicare database

Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Wyden call for the release of Medicare’s claims database, arguing that research potential and transparency trumps both the privacy concerns of the patients receiving care and the business concerns of providers uncomfortable with their reimbursement rates being made public.

Fitch Rates Catholic Health Services of Long Island, NY’s 2013 Revs ‘BBB+’; Outlook to Negative

Catholic Health Services of Long Island, NY has its bond rating downgraded and outlook revised to "negative" due in part to a $144 million Epic implementation that led to a $18 million operating loss for the interim period.

Morning Headlines 7/30/13

GAO: Fed IT projects need aligned management

The Government Accountability Office releases a report chiding several government agencies for their failed IT projects and project management methods, including the VA/DoD iEHR project and the FDA’s MARCS program. The report says, "the federal government has achieved little of the productivity improvements that private industry has realized from IT” despite $600 billion in federal IT spending in the past ten years.

Oregon Health & Science University notifies patients of ‘cloud’ health information storage

Oregon Health and Science University is notifying 3,000 patients of a data breach after IT staff discover that medical residents have been using Google spreadsheets to help track patient care. The spreadsheets were password protected, but because Google was not a business associate with a contractual agreement to store OHSU patient health information, patients are being notified.

In leaving, Siemens CEO seeks to take down chairman

Seimen’s CEO Peter Loescher has reportedly agreed to step down from his position four years before his contract is up, but only if board chairman Gerhard Cromme is fired with him. Loescher is being forced out because of consistent weak financial performance.

HCA’s Bracken to Retire from CEO Role, Will Remain as Board Chair

Richard Bracken, CEO of HCA, will retire from his position at the end of the year and continue on as chairman of the board. He will be replaced by current president and CFO R.Milton Johnson. Nashville-based HCA is the nation’s largest hospital chain.

Morning Headlines 7/29/13

The Hidden Surcharge Americans Pay for Hospital Errors

The Leapfrog Group releases a free online calculator that estimates how much hospitals end up adding to medical bills to account for their medical error-related losses.

Slow Ideas

Atul Gawande, renowned surgeon and public-health researcher, writes a piece in the New Yorker that discusses the inconsistent pace that innovation and technology is adopted in healthcare.

Barnaby Jack Dead: Celebrated Hacker Dies At 36

Barnaby Jack, the San Francisco-based hacker who grew famous exposing security vulnerabilities within medical devices, passed away late last week. Barnaby Jack’s work led to countless security improvements in the medical device field.

Aintree NHS saves £1m a year with electronic patient records

In England, Aintree University Hospital HNS reports that after implementing CCube Solutions’ document scanning and management system they were able to save $1.5 million per year in costs associated with maintaining a paper-based system.

Cerner Corporation (CERN) Management Discusses Q2 2013 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

Cerner hosts its Q2 earnings call, assuring investors that while Q2 revenue was down slightly due to lackluster results from its technology resale operations, the company is still forecasting a $2.95 billion to $3.05 billion full year revenue.

Morning Headlines 7/26/13

Healthcare Information Technology and Healthcare Information Services: 2013 Mid-Year Review

Healthcare Growth Partners releases its mid-year M&A review for the health IT market. Mergers and acquisitions were down 29 percent year to date due to a significant increase to capital gains taxes effective January 1, 2013. However, investment activity is up 16 percent and continues at a record pace.

Are We Asking Too Much of Our CIOs?

Harvard Business Review analyzes the expanding role of the modern CIO, asking if managing the mountain of new responsibilities is a realistic expectation from one person.

The World’s Most Outrageous Pension Deal?

McKesson CEO John Hammergren’s $154 million pension is scrutinized in a Forbes article that calls it "utterly absurd." Harvard Law School professor Jesse Fried, who notes that Hammergen is also the highest-paid CEO, says "Hammergren has pulled down hundreds of millions in compensation. Even without the pension, it would be very hard for him to spend all his money before he died."

McKesson beats on earnings, falls short on revenue

McKesson reports Q1 results: net income of $424 million on $32 billion in sales drove EPS to $1.83, vs. $380 million and EPS of $1.58 for Q1 last year. Revenue and EPS both fell short of analyst predictions.

Morning Headlines 7/25/13

CIOs Call on CMS to Extend Meaningful Use Stage 2

During a Health IT Standards Committee meeting this week, a group of CIOs calls for a one-year delay in MU Stage 2 requirements. They argue that EHR vendors will not deliver Stage 2-certified software updates in time to implement, validate, and train end users.

Partnership to tie LOINC and SNOMED

The Regenstrief Institute (which maintains the LOINC code set) and the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organization (which maintains SNOMED codes) announce a long-term agreement to link the two medical terminology code sets. The decision was made to bring more efficiency to the health information exchange process.

NIH commits $24 million annually for Big Data Centers of Excellence 

NIH commits $96 million to establish eight data centers of excellence, where researchers will develop innovative approaches, methods, and software solutions for data analysis and data sharing.

CommonWell Health Alliance Welcomes New Members CPSI and Sunquest to Support and Advance Interoperability Initiatives 

CommonWell Health Alliance announces the addition of CPSI and Sunquest Information Systems to the interoperability program.

Morning Headlines 7/24/13

Black Book’s Satisfaction Index Resolves Highest Ranked Vendors in the "State of the EHR Replacement Market" Study, Eight Firms Share Distinction of the Top 1%

In a recent poll of dissatisfied ambulatory EHR users, 81 percent of respondents reported that they will replace their original EHR solutions within the next 12 months. Practice Fusion, Care360 Quest, Vitera, Cerner, Greenway, ChartLogic, GE Healthcare, and athenahealth were the vendors respondents identified as most likely to win replacement business.

Federal Health IT Strategic Plan Progress Report

ONC publishes a progress report on its Federal Health IT Strategic Plan for 2011-2015. The report outlines the milestones ONC has accomplished thus far in pursuit of its original goals.

World first computer saving lives

In Australia, a new decision support system implemented in the ED of The Alfred Hospital results in a 21 percent reduction in medical errors during a 33-month trial period.

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles to Host 3rd Annual Symposium on the Meaningful Use of Complex Medical Data

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles will hold its third annual symposium addressing big data analytics and emerging use cases in medicine.

Morning Headlines 7/23/13

HHS auditors target upcoding of Medicare bills via EHRs
 
Federal regulators conduct targeted audits of hospitals following months of speculation that EHR usage may be contributing to fraudulent upcoding.

A Better Online Diagnosis Before the Doctor Visit

The Wall Street Journal covers the online symptom checker market, including a website called Isabel that was able to suggest the correct diagnosis in 48 of 50 complex cases.

Colorado HIE enlists more hospitals

Colorado’s health information exchange now connects 50 percent of the state’s hospitals, including all of those with over 100 beds.

2013 First Half Trends Report – Healthcare Industry

A report on mergers and acquisitions within the healthcare / pharma information technology industry finds that deals are down 16 percent overall for the first half of 2013. However, transaction values are up 58 percent compared to the second half of 2012, from $5 billion to $8 billion.