Morning Headlines 1/29/13

Computer Programs and Systems, Inc. Announces Formation of TruBridge, LLC

CPSI announces the formation of TruBridge, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary which will provide business services, consulting services, and contracted IT services.

Siemens Healthcare’s Q1 profits jump 38%

Siemens posted quarterly profits of $1.62 billion, or $1.89 per share, on sales of $24.15 billion.

Request for Information on Hospital and Vendor Readiness for Electronic Health Records Hospital Inpatient Quality Data Reporting

CHIME comments on CMS’s request for information on EHR-based quality reporting readiness, raising concerns over how discrete data should be extracted from narrative physician notes for reporting.

5 findings in ONC HIE research

ONC publishes new research highlighting the types of high-impact services that can sustain HIE organizations.

Health chief wants big telemedicine network across Georgia

Brenda Fitzgerald, MD, public health commissioner for Georgia, reports that every public health center across the state will be able to put patients in front of top specialists via telemedicine within three years, citing grant applications as the primary means of paying for the program.

Morning Headlines 1/28/13

Athenahealth to lay off 36 in Birmingham area

A spokesperson with the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affair reports that athenahealth has filed notice to announce the layoffs of 36 Birmingham-based employees, effective March 6.

Compuware turns down Elliott offer, Covisint unit IPO still on

Compuware turns down hedge fund Elliot Management Corp’s proposal for a $2.3 billion buyout.

2 Chesco companies report combined 168 layoffs

MEDecision will lay off 83 workers effective February 1, representing more than 25 percent of its total workforce.

Hospital’s electronic records system goes off line after AT&T outage

New Hanover Regional Medical Center went to paper downtime procedures when a regional AT&T outage cut access to its Epic system.

Why Do Patients Derogate Physicians Who Use a Computer-Based Diagnostic Support System?

A survey focusing on why patients have a negative perception of physicians who use clinical decision support concludes that it may not be related to seeking the physician external advice, but rather that the physician is turning to a computer rather than a colleague.

Morning Headlines 1/24/13

Quality Systems, Inc. Reports Fiscal 2013 Third Quarter Results

Quality Systems, Inc, known to most as the parent company of NextGen, reports Q3 earnings, with revenue up two percent and EPS $0.26 vs. $0.36, missing analyst estimates for both.

Huron Consulting Group Bolsters Huron Healthcare with Strategy and Supply Chain Experts

Huron Consulting Group announces that Jim Agnew (Navigant Consulting) and Jeffrey McLaren (VHA) have joined the company as managing directors in its Huron Healthcare practice.

Vermont becomes first in nation to implement accountable care organization

Officials from Fletcher Allen and Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center announce the creation of the nation’s first statewide accountable care organization (ACO), called OneCare Vermont.

GE Healthcare Announces Centricity Practice Solution 11

GE Healthcare announces the release of the next Centricity Practice version, which provides enhancements to help facilitate ICD-10 transitions.

SB 1275 Medical data in an electronic or digital format; limitations on use, storage, sharing, & processing

Republican Senator Stephen H. Martin introduces a bill to the Virginia State Senate which mandates that providers cannot be penalized for refusing to implement an EHR, analytics cannot be performed across multiple patients to manage population health, and organizations are not permitted to participate the Nationwide Health Information Network.

Morning Headlines 1/24/13

All the Tools in the Toolbox: How ONC Delivered Value In 2012

Farzad Mostashari, MD responds to a Boston Globe article that characterizes the ONC as “an office whose primary role has been cheerleader” by publicly outlining how the ONC delivered value in 2012.

Prison Time for Health Data Theft

An emergency department registration clerk from a Florida hospital was sentenced to 12 months in federal prison for inappropriately accessing 760,000 electronic health records and then selling contact information of about 12,000 motor vehicle accident patients to a co-conspirator, who used the data to solicit legal and chiropractic business.

Medicare Program; Request for Information on Hospital and Vendor Readiness for Electronic Health Records Hospital Inpatient Quality Data Reporting; Extension of Comment Period

CMS has extended the deadline for public comments on EHR inpatient quality data reporting until February 1.

Association Between Quality Improvement for Care Transitions in Communities and Rehospitalizations Among Medicare Beneficiaries

A JAMA study quantifies the result of implementing evidence-based post-discharge interventions and concludes that while hospital readmissions dropped six percent, so did hospital admissions, resulting in an unchanged percentage of readmissions among overall admissions.

Morning Headlines 1/23/13

Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska Connect via Direct Secured Messaging

The Nebraska Health Information Initiative, Kansas Health Information Network, and Missouri Health Connection announce that they are now connected and able to exchange Direct secure messages across state lines.

Naperville’s Edward Hospital to merge with Elmhurst Memorial

Edward Hospital & Health Services of Naperville, IL and Elmhurst Memorial Healthcare announce plans to merge, forming a three-hospital health system with revenues of more than $1 billion.

Providers Get Help From Clinical Decision Support Evidence Vendors but Still Face Obstacles

KLAS evaluates clinical decision support strategies and roadblocks for providers and concludes that third-party order sets, care plans, and drug dictionaries lead the pack in CDS plans but notes that a lack of integration with EHRs is hindering the utilization of these tools.

King Saud University Signs a Strategic Agreement With Cerner for Two Major Hospitals in Saudi Arabia

King Saud University signs with Cerner to implement EHRs for two academic facilities in Saudi Arabia.

Morning Headlines 1/22/13

Rex Hospital Selects Merge Hemo to Image-Enable Enterprise EHR

Rex Hospital, a member of UNC Health Care, has implemented Best in KLAS cardiology solution Merge Hemo to automate their cath lab and integrate data with their Epic EHR.

Physician EHRs emerge as hot advertising venue for drugs

Cloud-based EHRs are increasingly working with drug manufacturers to deliver point-of-care advertisements embedded within the EHR.

49 community health centers win grants to boost HIT infrastructure

Neighborhood Health Plan and Partners HealthCare award $4.25 million in grants divided among the 49 members of the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers. The grants will help fund the implementation of practice management systems and provide meaningful use training.

Shareable Ink Achieves Substantial Growth and Expands Team

Shareable Ink, a cloud-based clinical documentation vendor, announces that during 2012 it grew 300 percent and doubled its workforce.

Morning Headlines 1/21/13

athenahealth and MedOasis to Provide Comprehensive, High-Value Anesthesia Billing Solution for Hospital Departments and Independent Practices

athenahealth and MedOasis will partner to provide an anesthesia-specific billing solution that combines athenahealth’s claims processing solution with MedOasis’ anesthesia coding, charge-entry, contract management, and compliance capabilities.

UCSF Medical Center throws a great outside curve ball, keeps EMR rollout under wraps

The local paper profiles University of California San Francisco’s $160 million Epic implementation, which quietly reached its completion one year overdue and $100 million over budget. In May of 2011, then CIO Larry Lotenero was shown the door after implementation costs ballooned to three times expectations.

Identifying Personal Genomes by Surname Inference

A group of fifty men who anonymously donated DNA to genome research have been positively identified by scientists who were able to identify the patient, their address, and their relatives by taking the little demographic information maintained on the donors, and supplementing that with the wealth of information extracted from the donors genome.

Allscripts to Announce Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2012 Financial Results on February 19

Allscripts announces that it will report year-end financials during a February 19 investor call.

Morning Headlines 1/18/13

New rule protects patient privacy, secures health information

HHS announces modifications to HIPAA that substantially expand privacy, security, enforcement, and HITECH breach notification rules. The final rule is effective March 26, 2013 and is expected to require an initial economic cost of $114 million to $225 million.

Department of Veterans Affairs Selects HP to Help Improve Operations, Healthcare Services

HP wins a 5-year, $543 million contract to implement RTLS across 152 VA medical center.

Hospital Board Discusses Grade Change By the Leapfrog Group

The Leapfrog Group has retracted the "F" grade it gave 25-bed Texas County Memorial Hospital after an investigation found that the research methodology used was questionable and relied on inaccurate data sources.

A centralized research data repository enhances retrospective outcomes research capacity: a case report

Researchers at Columbia University find that using a data repository to conduct outcomes research significantly enhances overall workflow efficiency.

Morning Headlines 1/17/13

AHA, AMA, CHIME Challenge Stage 3 Meaningful Use Proposals

The advocacy groups representing hospitals, doctors, and health IT professionals have all submitted comments criticizing Stage 3 MU.

Accuracy of Electronically Reported “Meaningful Use” Clinical Quality Measures: A Cross-sectional Study

A cross-sectional study published by Annals of Internal Medicine measuring the accuracy of electronic reporting as compared to manual review concludes that the quality measurements outlined in MU have wide accuracy variations that should be further investigated.

Are providers ripe for a massive medical records heist?

More than 50 percent of healthcare organizations report medical identity theft among their patients. The World Privacy Forum estimates the street value of a single medical record at 50 times that of a financial record.

The Rise of Electronic Health Record Adoption Among Family Physicians

A study published in the Annals of Family Medicine predicts EHR adoption rates among family physicians increasing to 80 percent in 2013.

Morning Headlines 1/16/13

Primary Partners and AMC Health Team Up to Provide Telemonitoring for High-Risk Patients

Primary Partners, a physician-owned ACO, enters into an agreement with AMC Health to provide telemonitoring services for patients managing diabetes, heart failure, COPD, and other chronic conditions.

HealthEast Care System Employs RelayHealth for Enterprise HIE for Care Coordination Across its Network

HealthEast Care System, a four-hospital health system, selects RelayHealth to manage its network-wide HIE. HealthEast announced a $135 million Epic deal this past December.

Healthcare Leaders Join KLAS Advisory Board

John Halamka (CIO, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center), Denni McColm (CIO, Citizens Memorial Hospital), and Wright Lassiter (CEO, Alameda Medical Center) are appointed to the KLAS advisory board.

HIMSS Analytics: Data Show that Meaningful Use is Affecting EHR Adoption

Hospitals achieving HIMSS analytics Stages 5 and 6 increase more than 80 percent since the start of Meaningful Use in 2011. Stage 7 hospital attestation increased 63 percent.

Morning Headlines 1/15/13

HIT Policy Committee: Request for Comment Regarding the Stage 3 Definition of Meaningful Use of Electronic Health Records

In a letter to ONC, the AMA expresses concern with the pace of Meaningful Use and asks for a full evaluation of existing EHR and health IT problems before moving on to Stage 3.

Cloud-based EHRs create medical privacy risks

Patient Privacy Rights calls on the government to issue guidance on how cloud-based EHRs should be implemented to minimize the risk of data breaches.

The Rand Study and the impact of EHRs on Healthcare Costs

John Halamka, MD, CIO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, weighs in on the recent Rand study that suggests EHRs may not reduce healthcare costs to the levels originally expected.

CMS: Method II physicians eligible for Medicare EHR incentives

CMS announces that physicians providing outpatient services from Critical Access Hospitals that bill under Method II are eligible to participate in the EHR incentive program. However,they will be unable to attest until 2014 due to CMS system limitations.

Morning Headlines 1/14/13

2014 Testing and Certification

ONC announces that certifying agencies may begin testing EHRs for MU Stage 2 certification.

In Second Look, Few Savings From Digital Health Records

The New York Times covers the recently published RAND study that acknowledges a lack of evidence for calling EHR implementations a cost-cutting initiative.

US Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health

The Institute of Medicine, in conjunction with the National Research Council, publishes a study measuring overall population health and concludes that the US is dead last of the 17 developed nations and that, among many problems, our healthcare IT is categorized as "worse than average.”

Blue Health Intelligence Creates an “Informatics Center of Excellence” Through Acquisition of Intelimedix

BCBS acquires Intelimedix, a data analytics company specializing in employer group reporting, mass customized communications, and medical cost containment. BCBS manages care for 110 million patients.

Morning Headlines 1/11/13

VA Launches Challenge.gov Contest for Scheduling Appointments

A challenge.gov Medical Appointment Scheduling System contest sponsored by the VA will award $3M to as many as three winners for the creation of a scheduling system to replace the 25-year-old scheduling software in its VistA system.

After evaluating GE’s future EMR strategies, Intermountain will look elsewhere

Intermountain, the Salt Lake City-based 22-hospital health system, sends an internal e-mail notifying staff that it will part ways with GE Healthcare after the organization’s unfinished EMR system that it had been building with GE failed to produce enough functionality to meet MU requirements.

More Doctors, Hospitals Partner to Coordinate Care for People With Medicare

HHS announces the formation of 106 new ACOs, bringing the total to more than 250.

HL7 Announces a CCD to Blue Button Transform Tool and Early Adopters

HL7 releases an interface to allow organizations to send patient information stored in CCD format to the Blue Button Network.

Morning Headlines 1/10/13

Primary Care Physician Shortages Could Be Eliminated Through Use Of Teams, Nonphysicians, And Electronic Communication

Analysis from this month’s issue of Heath Affairs concludes that the anticipated primary care physician shortage could be resolved by moving to a team-oriented care model and expanding the use of non-physicians. The study was conducted jointly by Columbia and Wharton Business Schools and included no clinicians on the research team.

Benefits Consulting Firms Form Acclaim Health Analytics, LLC

Consulting firms Peel & Holland, Silberstein Insurance Group, and Virtus Benefits create a jointly owned data analytics company called Acclaim Health Analytics, which aims to aggregate health data to identify actionable health risks.

LifeBridge Health Names Tressa Springmann Chief Information Officer

LifeBridge Health, a Baltimore-based three-hospital health system, names Tressa Springmann as CIO.

Hottest IT jobs are in health care

Healthcare ranked as the fastest growing segment of the IT jobs market in 2012 and looks to repeat in 2013. Insurance and finance also outperformed the overall IT jobs market.

 At CES, staying healthy the high-tech way

The Boston Globe covers the growth of health IT startups representing the industry at this week’s CES tradeshow.

Morning Headlines 1/9/13

More Changes in Health Care Needed to Fulfill Promise of Health Information Technology

RAND releases a study that recognizes that the cost savings expected from EMR implementations have not been realized. The study points the finger at the cumbersome design of healthcare IT systems and the lack of integration across the systems.

NARMC Becomes First of Many Hospitals to Launch SHARE

North Arkansas Regional Medical Center (NARMC) announces that it is the first hospital to launch SHARE (State Health Alliance for Records Exchange), Arkansas’ fledgling health information exchange.

Guidelines Released for $10 Million Qualcomm Tricorder X PRIZE Reveal Health Condition Sets for Winning Solution

Qualcomm announces contest guidelines for a $10 million prize which will be awarded to the team that can produce a Star Trek Tricorder-inspired home medical device that can wirelessly monitor vital signs and accurately diagnose any five of the following conditions: anemia, UTI, type 2 diabetes, atrial fibrillation, stroke, obstructive sleep apnea, tuberculosis, COPD, pneumonia, otitis, leukocytosis, and Hepatitis A.

Why Athena Bought Epocrates

Travis Good of HIStalk Connect outlines the most viable ROI strategies that Athena will target after the Epocrates acquisition is finalized.

Health Catalyst Closes $33M Series B Investment From Norwest Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital and Sorenson Capital

Health Catalyst, a leader in healthcare data warehousing, announces it has closed $33 million in Series B funding. Norwest Venture Partners, which led the investing, will add managing partner Promod Haque to the Health Catalyst board as part of the deal.

Morning Headlines 1/8/13

Athenahealth to Acquire Mobile Health Leader Epocrates

Athenahealth agrees to terms on a deal to acquire Epocrates for $11.75 per share, in cash, for a total of approximately $293 million. The purchase price represents a 22 percent premium over the closing price per share of Epocrates on NASDAQ on Friday.

James Turnbull Named CHIME-HIMSS 2012 John E. Gall, Jr. CIO of the Year

CHIME names James Turnbull of the University of Utah Health Care System as CIO of the Year for 2012.

NextGen Healthcare and Medline Partner to Expand Integrated Solutions

NextGen has entered into an agreement with Medline Industries, the nation’s largest privately held manufacturer and distributor of medical devices. The agreement provides sales support to NextGen from Medline’s 1,100 sales representatives along with marketing access to Medline’s more than 100,000 customers.

Vast cache of Kaiser patient details was kept in private home

Kaiser Permanente is under federal investigation for violation of patient privacy in connection with a document storage firm it hired that was discovered to be storing more than 300,000 patient medical records in the private home of its husband and wife owners.

Morning Headlines 1/7/13

CMS Announces 90-Day Period of Enforcement Discretion for Compliance with Eligibility and Claim Status Operating Rules

CMS announces a 90-day reprieve for healthcare facilities not yet in compliance with ACA’s insurance eligibility and claim status checking mandate.

Wolters Kluwer Health Completes Acquisition of Health Language, Inc.

Health Language, a leader in the medical terminology management market, is acquired by Wolters Kluwer.

Copying common in electronic medical records

Reuters reviews the electronic progress notes of 135 patients, generated from an ICU in a Cleveland hospital, and finds that progress notes contained copied material about 75 percent of the time. Mr. H analyzes the report, its flaws, and its findings in greater detail below.

UNC cancer center computers hacked

Hackers have gained access to the personal information of more than 3,500 employees, visitors, and contractors of UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. No patient information was exposed.