Morning Headlines 2/19/13

Speech Recognition Tools Look to Play a Crucial Role within EMR

KLAS reviews front-end and back-end speech recognition systems including Nuance, Agfa, Dolbey, and MModal. The latter saw a significant increase in satisfaction with its back-end solution, but a significant decrease in satisfaction of with its front-end solution.

Obama Seeking to Boost Study of Human Brain

The Obama administration is planning to announce plans for a decade-long scientific effort to build a comprehensive map of the human brain, seeking to do for the brain what the human genome project did for genetics.

A sensational breakthrough: the first bionic hand that can feel

Researchers announce a prosthetic hand that will receive command instructions from the brain and send back tactile information about the environment in what will be the first prosthetic capable of bi-directional communication with the brain.

Morning Headlines 2/18/13

Veterans Affairs CIO Roger Baker Plans to Resign

VA CIO Roger Baker announces his resignation in an internal VA memo, leaving as his legacy a reputation for accountability and oversight. However, as he walks away, he leaves behind a faltering VA/DoD iEHR program, a $260 million GI Bill claims processing project which has grown to double its original budget and has yet to achieve its desired result, and a separate $500 million disability claims process automation project that has slowed the approval process for disability claims to a rate slower than when the work was done manually on paper, pushing an already ballooning backlog of disability claims to historic levels.

Monitor blasts Rotherham’s EPR programme

Rotherham General Hospital halts its Meditech 6.0 implementation due to issues with coding, patient booking, staff acceptance, and usability. Rotherham, one of the first NHS sites to select an EHR system outside of the National Programme for Information Technology, went live on the system last summer, two years behind schedule.

Hospital ready to ditch £30m computer system

The Royal Berkshire Hospital is preparing to walk away from its $46 million Cerner Millennium install due to a higher than anticipated TCO after budgeting $2.5 million per year but spending closer to $8.5 million. CEO Edward Donald has announced plans to meet other NHS trusts using Millennium to form a united front.

Bellevue Hospital Reopens Trauma Service After Brief Computer Outage

Two weeks after reopening from damage sustained during Hurricane Sandy, Bellevue Hospital was again forced to close its doors and divert trauma patients due to an electrical problem that briefly shut down its computer systems.

Morning Headlines 2/15/13

QPID Launches EHR Search Engine

QPID, an EHR search engine, analytics, and real-time reporting tool for EHRs, launches appropriately enough on Valentine’s Day. The venture is a Massachusetts General Hospital spinoff and will be led by CEO Mike Doyle, formerly of Medsphere.

North Memorial Health Care Reduces Unnecessary Early-term Deliveries by 75 Percent with Adaptive Data Warehouse from Health Catalyst

North Memorial’s use of Health Catalyst technology reduces its rate of elective pre-39 week deliveries by 75 percent in just six months, from 1.2 percent to 0.3 percent of all births.

TeraMedica Signs Agreement with Vanderbilt University Medical Center for its Evercore Vendor Neutral Architecture

Vanderbilt University Medical Center will implement TeraMedica’s Evercore Clinical Enterprise Suite to archive radiology and cardiology images across the health system.

PeriGen, Inc. Names American Journal of OBGYN Editor-In-Chief Thomas J. Garite MD, Chief Clinical Officer

Perinatal clinical decision support vendor PeriGen appoints Thomas J. Garite, MD as chief clinical officer. He is editor-in-chief of the American Journal of OBGYN.

Morning Headlines 2/14/13

Kaiser Permanente Wins Prestigious Eisenberg Award for Patient Safety and Quality Efforts

The National Quality Forum and The Joint Commission present Kaiser Permanente with the Eisenberg Award for work Kaiser did integrating implant registry databases and trending implant-specific outcomes across more than 300,000 patients.

Baylor University Medical Center activates Allscripts electronic health record system

Baylor University Medical Center goes live on Allscripts Sunrise Clinical Manager at its 1,065-bed Dallas campus.

Breach Report 2012: Protected Health Information

Redspin publishes its annual PHI breach report, which shows a 21 percent increase in number of large breaches but a 77 percent decrease in total number of patients impacted. Sixty-three percent of the records compromised were a result of the top five events of the year.

HIEs top hiring need: IT pros

A recent analysis of HIE staffing shortages shows that there is strong demand for health IT professionals, specifically in the areas of data integrity, software support, reporting, security, and technical project management.

Morning Headlines 2/13/13

Greenway Reports Fiscal 2013 Second-Quarter Results, Revises Outlook for Fiscal 2013

Greenway announces Q2 results: revenue up 12 percent, EPS $0.00 far short of analyst estimates of $0.05.  Greenway has adjusted FY13 earnings guidance to $0.21-$0.28 EPS, with analysts predicting $0.27. Shares were down eight percent in Tuesday’s after-hours trading.

RazorInsights Secures $11 Million from Bluff Point Associates

Following a strong reception into the critical access and community hospital EHR market, RazorInsight closes an $11 Million in Series A funding round.

Branzell named CEO of CHIME

Russell Branzell, CEO of the Colorado Health Medical Group, has been named president and CEO of CHIME.

Electronic Medical Records at The Mount Sinai Medical Center Shown to Greatly Improve Quality of Care

Mount Sinai’s ongoing $120 million Epic implementation is credited with improved core measure performance and a reduction of readmissions by 56 percent.

Morning Headlines 2/12/13

National Association of ACOs (NAACOS) is founded in Washington, DC.

Out of the 258 accountable care organizations recognized by CMS, 60 of them across more than 15 states have joined together to form the Washington, DC-based National Association of ACOs.

IBM supercomputer takes on new role in health arena

After a year spent internalizing 600,000 pieces of medical evidence, 1.5 million patient records, 2 million pages of texts from medical journals, and 1,500 lung-cancer cases, IBM’s Watson will be implemented at the Maine Center for Cancer Medicine and WestMed in Westchester County, NY, where it will analyze patient data and recommend care plans for lung cancer patients. Watson will sort treatment options based on what is most likely to succeed and which are covered by the patient’s insurance.

Is iEHR really dead?

The Department of Veterans Affairs CIO Roger Baker responds to last week’s widespread reports that the iEHR project has been shut down. Mr. Baker, along with other C-level executives within the VA, clarify that the project is not defunct and that reports suggesting otherwise have been greatly exaggerated.

Launch of Connect 4.0 – An HIE Advancement Driven by Federal Collaboration

ONC’s Federal Health Architecture announces the release of CONNECT 4.0, an open source data-sharing system built on NHIN standards that enables secure electronic exchange of information to support related Meaningful Use Stage 2 objectives.

Morning Headlines 2/11/13

Paragon, Horizon Clinicals, Revenue Cycle, and Managed Services to combine in a new organization called Enterprise Information Services

McKesson Technology Solutions EVP/Group President Pat Blake says Paragon, Horizon Clinicals, Revenue Cycle, and Managed Services will be combined in a new organization called Enterprise Information Services, with Jim Pesce from the Paragon business serving as president.

athenahealth’s CEO Discusses Q4 2012 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

athenahealth holds its Q4 earnings call, during which CEO Jonathan Bush reports a reduction in physician documentation time to less than five minutes per encounter and hints at a possible venture into the inpatient EMR business.

Computer chaos costs RBH £3.7m

Royal Berkshire Hospital reports implementation overages of $5.8 million (USD) in conjunction with a Cerner implementation that was originally budgeted at $47 million.

Meningitis outbreak prompted State Health Department to gain electronic access

After struggling with federal privacy requirements and other barriers to data collection during last year’s national meningitis outbreak, the Tennessee State Health Department considers proposing legislation that would provide its workers with quicker access to EHRs during a medical emergency.

Morning Headlines 2/8/13

Nuance Shares Stumble After Hours As Guidance Disappoints

Nuance reports a Q1 loss of $0.07 per share vs. a positive $0.03 last year, falling short on revenue and earnings estimates. The company says reduced transcription volume, spurred by increased usage of EMRs and its own Dragon Medical transcription software, is constraining its healthcare revenue.

CHIME Weighs In on Federal Health IT Safety Plan

The CIO organization calls for more consistent matching of patients to their data, expresses concerns about the time providers may need to spend filing federal patient safety information, and urges that control of the patient safety plan be moved outside of the federal government to an independent organization.

Mayor Bloomberg Announces Expansion of Electronic Health Records Result in Major Health Care Improvements

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the city’s EHR use has improved outcomes for hypertension, diabetes, and smoking-related complications. New York’s Primary Care Information Project was started in 2005 by then-Assistant Commissioner Farzad Mostashari, MD, now National Coordinator.

ECRI Institute PSO Uncovers Health Information Technology-Related Events in Deep Dive Analysis

The non-profit patient safety organization identifies five problem areas with healthcare IT: inadequate data transfer between systems, entering data on the wrong patient, making data entry mistakes, HIT system bugs, and configuration errors.

Morning Headlines 2/7/13

Remarks by Secretary Panetta and Secretary Shinseki from the Department of Veterans Affairs

A Department of Defense meeting transcript indicates that the DoD and VA will pursue interoperability and a common user interface rather than creating a single EHR to meet the President’s goal of a joint system. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta says the VA and DoD have aligned their data elements and will start a pilot project this summer on a common VistA/AHLTA user interface for physicians. He says that project, plus the recently expanded Blue Button initiative, will meet the President’s directive faster and cheaper than creating a single EHR. The departments announced in March 2011 that they would create a common joint EHR platform, saying then that their respective systems were outdated and lacking functionality.

The Advisory Board Company Acquires 360Fresh

360Fresh products use natural language and text processing to analyze information from electronic medical records and other sources, adding real-time predictive analytics capabilities for The Advisory Board Company’s Crimson customers.

Physician Satisfaction with Best-of-Breed EDIS 59% Higher than Enterprise Systems

A new KLAS report on emergency department information systems finds that ED physicians give best-of-breed ED systems higher scores because of clinical decision support, usability, and accuracy of documentation, while enterprise systems provide advantages in interoperability, continuation of care, and communication with other hospital systems.

New Children’s Electronic Health Record Format Announced

AHRQ and CMS release a guide for EHR developers that includes a minimum set of data elements and data standards for children.

Morning Headlines 2/5/13

Geisinger launches xG Health Solutions

Geisinger Health System (PA) forms for-profit xG Health Solutions, backed by $40 million in financing from venture capital firm Oak Investment Partners. The new company will offer healthcare IT optimization, consulting, population health data analytics, care management, and third-party administration services.

ZirMed Launches Clinical Link

ZirMed launches provider-to-provider communication for the 100,000 EMR users connected to its network.

A National Action Plan To Support Consumer Engagement Via E-Health

A HealthAffairs article by Farzad Mostashari and ONC colleagues explains ONC’s “Three As” strategy (access to electronic patient information, apps, and attitudes) to improve consumer e-health.

HIStalk Connect Interviews Bob Zollars, CEO, Vocera

Vocera CEO says being publicly traded “has made us a better company,” the end of the hospital pager is near, and “trying to fight the BYOD movement is like fighting a religious war.”

New technology helps doctors link a patient’s location to illness and treatment

Epidemiologists develop a GPS-equipped inhaler to correlate asthma flare-ups with location. “Place should be a vital sign,” says a spatial epidemiologist in a field now known as geomedicine.

Morning Headlines 2/4/13

HHS Secretary Sebelius Address National Health Policy Conf.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, National Coordinator Farzad Mostashari, MD, Paul Tang, MD of Palo Alto Medical Foundation, and David Blumenthal of The Commonwealth Fund will deliver addresses at the National Health Policy Conference in Washington, DC February 4-5. Portions of the event will be broadcast live on C-SPAN2 beginning at 9:00 a.m. Eastern today.

McKesson Management Discusses Q3 2013 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

Technology Solutions revenue was flat, margins impacted by revenue recognition changes for a UK acquisition. Legacy conversion to Paragon has been better than expected, while the company states that Horizon will support future Meaningful Use stages.

MyMedicalRecords Files Patent Infringement Complaint Against Walgreens

MMR, which has threatened a flurry of lawsuits claiming infringement on patents it recently acquired, files suit against Walgreens. MMR claims that displaying a list of prescriptions to a patient infringes on its intellectual property.

Meditech Files Annual Report

The privately held company reports that revenue increased by 9.7 percent for the year, with earnings per share improving from $3.41 to $3.55.

Morning Headlines 2/1/13

McKesson Q3 Profit Misses Estimate; Cuts FY13 Adj. EPS View

McKesson reports Q3 results: EPS $1.41 compared to last year’s $1.40, missing analyst estimates of $1.63. Revenue was up one percent, ending the quarter at $31.2 billion. The company lowered its guidance for FY 2013 by 20 cents, to $7.10-$7.30. The stock closed down 0.4 percent on the day.

Computer Programs and Systems, Inc. Announces Fourth Quarter and Year-End 2012 Results

CPSI reports year-end results, with revenue up five percent at $183 million. Net income increased 16 percent to $30 million, but EPS missed the $0.88 analyst estimate by $0.05 and shares dropped nearly nine percent in after-hours trading.

Clancy stepping down as AHRQ director

After 10 years on the job, Carolyn Clancy, MD, is stepping down as the director of AHRQ.

Piedmont Newnan transitioning to electronic medical record system

136-bed Piedmont Newnan Hospital goes live on Epic this Friday, the first within the five-hospital Piedmont Healthcare system’s network-wide implementation.

Morning Headlines 1/31/13

Enhancing patient safety and quality of care by improving the usability of electronic health record systems: recommendations from AMIA

JAMIA publishes the recommendations of a year-long EHR usability task force that included representatives from academic settings and EHR design analysts.

Huron Valley Physicians Association IPA Selects eClinicalWorks

Huron Valley Physicians Association of Ann Arbor, Michigan, has selected eClinicalWorks as an ambulatory EHR solution for its 600 providers.

HIT 2012 Annual and Q4 Funding and M&A Report

A 2012 HIT market analysis shows significantly increased venture capital funding, with $1.2B in funding spread over 163 individual deals.

EHI and KLAS Partner to Improve NHS IT Measures

KLAS has partnered with EHealth Insider, a UK-based health IT news and research firm, to bring performance measures to the UK health technology market.

Morning Headlines 1/30/13

Medecision Completes Acquisition of Cerecons

Medecision announces the acquisition of California-based Cerecons, a software provider specializing in population management and quality outcomes tools. The acquisition will result in a care management entity that supports more than 90 healthcare organizations nationally.

University of Virginia Health System Selects MModal’s Speech Understanding Solutions

The University of Virginia (UVA) Health System will implement MModal’s speech recognition and natural language processing solutions to speech-enable its EHR across UVA’s 604-bed hospital, level I trauma center, cancer and heart centers, and primary and specialty clinics throughout Central Virginia.

HealthTech Names Tom Mitchell Vice President of Marketing

HealthTech Holdings, parent company of Healthcare Management Systems (HMS), MEDHOST and PatientLogic, hires Tom Mitchell (MModal) as vice president of marketing.

HL7 Names Two New Advisory Council Members

HL7’s Board of Directors names Joyce Sensmeier, RN-BC, Vice President of Informatics for HIMSS, and Walter Suarez, M.D., PhD, Director of Health IT Strategy of Kaiser Permanente, to serve a two-year term on HL7’s Advisory Council.

6 ways AHRQ will explore EHRs and workflow redesign

AHRQ will interview focus groups with clinical, non-clinical, and management staff about their experiences with electronic health records, stemming from a groundswell of complaints that EHRs create more work, new work, excessive system demands, and inefficient workflow.

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.