Morning Headlines 6/28/13

Update On the Adoption Of Health Information Technology and Related Efforts To Facilitate the Electronic Use and Exchange Of Health Information

ONC publishes its annual report to Congress on health IT adoption as required by the HITECH act. The report addresses EHR adoption, health information exchange adoption, and the general state of the nation as it pertains to health IT.

Created in the Corridor: Geonetric

Geonetric, a Web developer specialized in creating patient portals for hospitals and health systems, is profiled in the local Cedar Rapids, IA media for its unusual HR policies. None of its 70 employees have managers; instead, work is done collaboratively. Dress is casual, Fridays are bring your own meat for the office barbecue, and the company CEO calls its staff "probably one of the most advanced software teams in Iowa." The company’s own website is notably underwhelming considering that description, but the product must be top notch because it has plans to add 130 employees over the next year.

Sprint Launches Secure Messaging Solutions to Enable HIPAA Compliance

Sprint announces the availability of two HIPAA-compliant text messaging platforms, a functionally rich solution called TigerText and a less expensive, stripped down option that still delivers person-to-person HIPAA-compliant texting.

Cerner supports Blue Button + to engage individuals for better health

Cerner announces that it will support the Blue Button + initiative, which means that Cerner clients can now securely deliver information to any personal health record participating in Blue Button +.

Morning Headlines 6/27/13

VA envisions an app-based future for health IT

Kathleen Frisbee, director of web and mobile solutions at the VA, hinted that an iEHR compromise is in the works that will result in the collaborative development of integrated mobile apps for clinicians rather than a full integrated EHR. It’s an interesting concept, but one that’s sure to leave a lot of the problems that initially inspired the iEHR program unsolved. One benefit of approaching integration through a series of small projects, like apps, is that the likelihood of failure is lower, and the capital investment at risk is similarly lower. Also, developers should be able to zero in on effective integration points because smaller projects will allow them to be more responsive to early adopter feedback.

New CEO Signals Growth at Healthland

Healthland, a Minneapolis-based EHR vendor focused on the rural and critical access market, announces the appointment of Chris Bauleke as CEO effective July 8. He will replace Angie Franks, who will now serve as Healthland’s president and lead the company’s strategy and market development efforts.

Cloud could save health industry $11B, study says

In a survey of 109 CHIME members, respondents estimate that they could reduce IT costs by nine percent, or $11 billion, over the next three years by switching to a cloud-based service model.

Morning Headlines 6/26/13

For McKesson’s CEO, A Pension of $159 Million

The record-breaking pension owed to John Hammergren, chief executive of McKesson, is discussed in a Wall Street Journal article. Had he left on March 31 this year, Hammergren would have walked away with $159 million, the largest pension in corporate American history.

Hawaii Health Systems revises upward its estimate of electronic conversion of medical records

Hawaii Health Systems Corp revises the estimate for its EHR conversion. The health system originally budgeted $58 million to implement Siemens across 14 hospitals, but is now saying that the cost will likely fall north of $100 million.

1,900 new jobs, $9.5m tax break for Athenahealth

Athenahealth has pledged to hire an additional 1,900 employees to its Watertown campus by 2022 in exchange for $9.5 million in state tax credits under a tentative deal worked out with Massachusetts economic development officials.

Quality and Safety Implications of Emergency Department Information Systems

Contributors from the American College of Emergency Physicians published an article in the Annals of Emergency Medicine that discusses the patient safety related benefits and dangers associated with the use of emergency department information systems. The article concludes with seven recommendations for patient safety.

Morning Headlines 6/25/13

The Impact of Electronic Health Records on Ambulatory Costs Among Medicaid Beneficiaries

A study published in the Medicare and Medicaid Research Review followed the implementation of ambulatory EHRs in three communities, concluding that the adoption of EHRs in community practices does not consistently impact Medicaid costs either positively or negatively.

Vanguard deal would bolster Tenet in key markets

Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare Corp. will acquire Vanguard Health Systems in an all-cash $1.8 billion deal. The acquisition also requires that Tenet assume $2.5 billion of Vanguard’s debt, bringing the true price to $4.3 billion. The new health network will include 79 hospitals across 30 markets. The deal also brings ACO expertise to Tenet as the organization prepares to move toward a value-base purchasing reimbursement model.

Disruptions: Medicine That Monitors You

The New York Times covers the rise of ingestible "smart pills" after a recent FDA decision to ease their regulatory requirements. The pills contain sensors that monitor a variety of conditions, powered by electrical current within the human body. They can send an alert to the patient and their physician should they detect an abnormality.

Today at DIA: Deloitte, Intermountain Launch OutcomesMiner Solution

Just four months after embarking on a collaborative big data partnership, Deloitte and Intermountain unveil the first tangible result of their efforts. This week at Drug Information Association’s 2013 Annual Meeting, the organizations unveiled OutcomesMiner, an analytics tool that help researchers evaluate treatment options and predict likely outcomes specific to unique sub-populations.

Morning Headlines 6/24/13

Experts tout Blue Button as enabling information exchange between medical provider and patient

The Pittsburgh Post Gazette covers the federal government’s Blue Button initiative, calling for its expansion into the private sector and citing it as a key concept to moving forward in an EHR-enabled healthcare system.

Creative Skills For Life – Creative England Competition Fund

In England, the NHS and Creative Skills for Life announce a $154,000 contest that challenges developers to create apps that will help young people with life-threatening or debilitating medical conditions explore their creative potential.

Optometry EHR Breached in Florida, 9,000 Notified

An optometrist’s office in Gulf Breeze, FL is notifying 9,000 patients that their personal health information has been compromised after hackers break into the practice’s EHR and copy the medical records data.

Morning Headlines 6/21/13

Cone Health to lay off 150 workers

Greensboro, NC-based Cone Health will lay off 150 workers, or about three percent of its workforce, to help cut $30 million from its annual budget. Terry Akin, Cone Health president and COO, said that its Epic implementation has been a big short-term expense.

Cerner Launches Pilot Program To Offer Personalized, Quality Care Aligned For Better Health 

Cerner launches a Kansas City area pilot program to test new health delivery model in which retail locations serve as patient access points. Nurses will perform wellness screenings and provide tailored patient education and recommendations.

New Technology in Place for Electronic Submission of Veterans’ Disability Claims

The VA has launched a new Web portal that will allow veterans to submit disability claims electronically. The system is integrated with the VA’s paperless claims processing system VBMS, creating a nearly paperless end-to-end process. Medical records are one of the few claims elements that will still need to be scanned or mailed on paper.

The Regional Extension Center Program in Texas Met the Scope of Services in Their Cooperative Agreements With the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology

The Office of the Inspector General audits four Texas Regional Extension Centers that were cumulatively awarded more than $30 million in federal funds. The goal of the inspections was to verify that the RECs had meet the requirements outlined in their cooperative agreements with ONC. OIG auditors concluded that the REC programs had meet all requirements and were successful in supporting health IT adoption across their territories.

Morning Headlines 6/20/13

Atul Gawande, Renowned Surgeon And Writer, Launches Innovation Lab

Surgeon Atul Gawande, MD, once named by Time magazine as one of the world’s most influential thinkers and author of The Checklist Manifesto, launches the Adriane Labs health innovation center. It will conduct research focusing on childbirth and death.

Health Law Won’t Bring Prices Down For Patients

At a Capitol Hill hearing Tuesday, Time magazine journalist Steven Brill told Senate Finance Committee members that President Obama’s healthcare law will do little to lower prices for consumers. Brill covered health care costs in a heavily circulated recent Time article titled, "Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us."

Healtheway Announces Founding Members for Groundbreaking Public/Private Health IT Exchange

Healtheway, the nonprofit organization that supports the eHealth Exchange, today announced its nine founding organizations, of which Epic is the only EHR vendor and Kaiser Permanente is the only health system.

Affinity nurses seek delay on electronic records 

Unionized nurses at Massillon, OH-based Affinity Medical Center call for a delay in its Cerner implementation scheduled for this weekend, citing insufficient training and patient safety concerns. The nurse’s union is using the issue to demand contract negotiations.

Morning Headlines 6/19/13

Robert M. Wah, MD, Elected President-Elect of AMA

Retired Navy medical officer Robert Wah, MD has been elected as the next president of the AMA. Wah is a reproductive endocrinologist and OB-GYN in Washington, DC and serves as chief medical officer of Computer Sciences Corporation. He is also a healthcare IT expert, having previously served as ONC’s first deputy national coordinator.

CareCloud Raises $20 Million to Support Continued Record Growth of Company’s Cloud-Based Clinical and Financial Platform for Physician Practices

CareCloud, a cloud-based EHR vendor, raises $20 million in a Series B funding round which it will use to enhance its EHR platform and to increase pressure on competitors like athenaHealth and Practice Fusion. CareCloud has been competing with athenaHealth on all fronts lately, fighting off a patient infringement lawsuits filed by them one day and then head hunting their executives the next.

Computer problems force docs back to paper charts at Memorial Hospital

Computer problems have forced Belleville, IN-based Memorial Hospital into downtime procedures after its Meditech EHR went down late on Tuesday, June 11. It is not expected to be fully restored until at least Monday, June 24.

First of 4,000 Cerner employees move into new KCK offices

Cerner employees begin moving into the first of two new towers being built at the company’s Kansas City, KS campus. The towers will eventually hold 4,000 employees.

Morning Headlines 6/18/13

Vitera Healthcare Solutions Announces Acquisition of SuccessEHS

Vitera announces the acquisition of Birmingham, AL-based SuccessEHS. Both vendors operate in the ambulatory EHR space. The acquisition expand Vitera’s user base to 10,500 organizations, 415,000 medical professionals, and 85,000 physicians. Financial details were not disclosed.

Mostashari asserts no more ICD-10 delays

Farzad Mostashari, MD gave the keynote address at the HIMSS Media ICD-10 Forum this week, during which he reiterated that there would be no additional deadline extensions for the ICD-10 switchover on October 1, 2014.

Apollo to scale up IT’s role in services 

Apollo Hospital is the first in India to be named a HIMSS (Asia Pacific) Stage 6 hospital, going live with CPOE and physician documentation on its Med-Mantra EHR.

Smooth move to electronic records in PT

Jefferson Healthcare, a Port Townsend, WA-based 25-bed critical access hospital and nine supporting clinics, goes live with Epic on Saturday morning at 2 a.m. The project was reportedly on time and on budget. Jefferson Healthcare is part of the Swedish Health Network.

Morning Headlines 6/17/13

Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT Tackles Pressing EHR Issues

Farzad Mostashari, MD is interviewed by AAFP News, the news outlet representing the American Academy of Family Physicians. The discussion broached a number of topics including EHR usability, return on investment, the recent copy/paste debate and resulting Medicare audits, the future plan and timeline for national interoperability, and the future of the HITECH act beyond 2015.

Review of the final benefits statement for programmes previously managed under the National Programme for IT in the NHS

In England, a final cost-benefit analysis of the now dismantled National Programme for IT shows that the program ended up costing more than twice the value it had delivered at the time it was shut down. Analysts hesitantly forecast a 2024 break even point, but warn that long-range future benefits are nearly impossible to predict with any real accuracy.

11 medical schools earn AMA grants for education innovation

The American Medical Association announces that 11 medical schools have each won $1 million, five-year grants to reshape medical education by implementing innovative programs. NYU and Indiana University plan to create virtual EHRs using de-identified patient data to train students on EHR and population health systems that are becoming the norm in practice.

“OK Glass”: Improve Health Care. Now!

New Google Glass owner Rafael Grossmann, MD discusses the ways the technology might influence his approach to rounds, surgeries, and teaching.

Morning Headlines 6/14/13

Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital notifying 12,900 after laptop stolen from secured badge-access area

Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford is reporting a stolen laptop with unencrypted personal health information affecting nearly 13,000 patients. This is Stanford’s fifth data breach since 2010. In 2011, Stanford was sued over a data breach in a suit that sought $20 million in damages. In 2010, they were fined $250,000 for failing to report a breach.

‘Jeopardy’-winning supercomputer helping Maine doctors in cancer research

IBM’s Watson supercomputer has completed its installation at The Maine Center for Cancer Medicine and is now helping doctors create individualized care plans for lung cancer patients. Watson is being beta tested while engineers continue to enhance its ability to interpret clinical information and weigh treatment options.

Indian Health Service sets ambitious plan to upgrade health record system

The Indian Health Service is spending $10 million upgrading its EHR system to one integrated platform. Indian Health Services EHR was the first federal agency to have its EHR certified for Meaningful Use and received more than $50 million in EHR incentive payments thus far. They are first focusing on integrating across their network, and then will tackle larger interoperability projects with the VA and CMS.

Sonora Regional Medical Center Embarking on Major Technology Upgrade

Calif-based Sonora Regional Medical Center, an Adventist Health System hospital, has been selected as the pilot site for Adventist’s system-wide Cerner implementation. Sonora will go live September 4th, with Adventist’s remaining 18 hospitals scheduled to go live by the summer of 2014.

Morning Headlines 6/13/13

GE Healthcare To Spend $2 Billion On Data Analytics And Other Tools

GE Healthcare has announced that over the next five years, it will spend $2 billion creating data analytics and patient population tools that will enable hospitals to effectively shift to a performance-based payment system.

Mostashari: Slow but steady interoperability progress

National coordinator for health IT Farzad Mostashari, MD discussed interoperability and the path moving forward at the HIMSS 2013 Government Health IT Conference this week where he summarized the current state of interoperability in saying, "Today, my last visit doesn’t contribute to my next visit in healthcare. Most discharge summaries don’t get to the primary care provider; most referral summaries don’t get back to the provider who ordered them.”

Marshfield Clinic to launch new information services company

Wisconsin-based Marshfield Clinic, a two-hospital health system, announces that it will begin offering health IT support services through a wholly-owned spinoff business, Marshfield Information Technology Services .

Maine Medical Center moves closer to $40M expansion

Maine Medical Center has won approval to move forward with a $40 million expansion project that will add five new operating suites, in addition to preparation and recovery areas. The news comes just a month after MMC announced a hiring and travel freeze in an effort to plug a $13.4 million deficit in the hospital’s operating budget.

Morning Headlines 6/12/13

EHR Developer Code of Conduct

The HIMSS EHR Association, a trade group representing more than 40 EHR vendors, publishes its long-awaited EHR Developer Code of Conduct. The document focuses on truth in advertising principles, patient safety guidelines, data security standards, and a vendor agnostic commitment to interoperability.

Some companies pay executives extra to fly on their own private jets for vacation

Cerner is profiled in an investigative reporting piece on private jet usage by large corporations. Cerner spent $193,759 last year on flights leased through a company controlled by Cerner’s own vice chairman Clifford Illig.

ROI Calculator for Heart Failure Monitoring

The Center for Technology and Aging and the Partners Healthcare Center for Connected Health have developed a return on investment calculator to help health care organizations assess the intrinsic financial benefits of implementing remote patient monitoring technologies.

Sutter Health patient information turns up in drug bust

A recent drug bust in Alameda County, CA turned up more than sheriffs were expecting as officers found the personal health information of about 4,500 patients from Sutter Health.

Morning Headlines 6/11/13

Stanford Hospital Trims Use of Blood Supplies 

Stanford Hospital reduces its use of red blood cells by nearly 25 percent after building a pop-up window into their CPOE system which outlines the guidelines on blood use and asks the physician to explain the reason for the request.

IBM Partner Puts Big Data To Work At Seattle Children’s Hospital

Seattle Children’s Hospital reports significant performance improvements after integrating ten disparate data sources into a single, analytics-driven business intelligence system running in an optimized big data environment.

Doctors embrace the digital workplace

In Canada, 56 per cent of physicians have switched to electronic medical records, up from 23 per cent in 2006.

HIMSS Analytics Honors Legacy Health’s Hospitals and Ambulatory Clinics with Stage 7 Award

Six Legacy Health hospitals and their ambulatory clinics in Portland, OR and Vancouver, WA have achieved HIMSS Stage 7 designation. Legacy Health runs Epic in both the acute and ambulatory environments.

Morning Headlines 6/10/13

When e- stands for enemy: Installing e-medical records systems costly, frustrating

An office manager from a solo practice in North Carolina discusses the growing cost and frustration HITECH is having on managing a small practice.

Parkland researchers develop system to flag those in danger of death

Researchers at the Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation are profiled by a Dallas newspaper for their work with  predictive surveillance and population health management.

Olympic Medical Center: Progress made in digital conversion

Port Angeles, WA-based Olympic Medical Center CEO Eric Lewis discusses the hospital’s recent Epic go-live, describing the experience as “kind of like going from a landline to an iPhone.”

April 2013: EHR Incentive Program

According to a monthly update released by CMS, $14.6 billion has been paid to hospitals and providers since the EHR incentive program started in 2011.

Morning Headlines 6/7/13

Ambulatory Physician Leadership Reports a 30-Point Usability Gap between EMR Vendors

A new KLAS report looks at ambulatory EMR usability by measuring performance across various common tasks such as e-prescribing, physician documentation, and medication reconciliation. Athenahealth come out on top, followed by Epic.

China’s PLA Among Eight State-Sponsored Groups to Hack VA, Ex Official Says

Former VA chief information security officer Jerry Davis reports that eight different state-sponsored organizations have been hacking into VA networks and databases that contain millions of veterans patient information. The continued breaches are due to weak user authentication and a lack of encryption of VA databases.

Cleveland Clinic Making Electronic Medical Records More Transparent To Patients Online

Cleveland Clinic will add physician notes, images, and results to its MyChart patient portal. A recent Robert Wood Johnston trial concluded that giving patients unrestricted access to physician notes led to increased patient engagement rates.

Dozens of health groups to create massive gene database

More than 70 medical, research, and advocacy groups are joining forces to create a massive databases of genetic and clinical data that will be accessible to doctors and researchers worldwide.

Morning Headlines 6/6/13

States’ Hospital Data for Sale Puts Privacy in Jeopardy

State public health departments have been selling access to hospital patient data that is de-identified, but investigators were able to identify anonymous patients in 35 of 81 cases involving stories mentioned in local media.

Systems move to doc-led treatment standardization

At Washington-based Everett Clinic, clinical decision support tools have reduced overall MRI and CT scans by 30 to 40 percent. Required questions were added to the test orders within the clinic’s CPOE system ,and if the doctor’s answers did not demonstrate that the patient met the criteria for the test, the physician was alerted that the test could not be ordered.

HP captures $220M Indiana Medicaid contract

HP Enterprise Services lands a $220 million contract with the state of Indiana to build a new Medicaid management information system.

House votes to cut salaries, deny bonuses to Veterans Affairs officials

The House passes its 2014 spending bill for the VA with a unanimously approved provision that imposes a 25 percent pay cut for senior VA officials if the VA benefits claims backlog is not reduced by 40 percent before July 1, 2014. A separate, unanimously approved provision strips executive leadership of all scheduled bonuses. The bill also provides funding to continue the implementation of an automated claims processing system and a medical records scanning system.