Morning Headlines 8/16/13

Investor digital-health darling CareCloud raises another $9M

The additional funding raises the company’s total to $55 million.

Penn State Employees Protest Wellness Effort

A professor’s petition calls for the university’s wellness program to be cancelled, saying employees shouldn’t have to answer health questions and commit to receiving an annual physical exam in order to avoid a $100 per month insurance surcharge. The university says it’s trying to hold down healthcare costs in the face of a projected 13 percent cost increase in the next year alone and voluntary health and wellness programs have drawn minimal participation.

EHR costs outweigh financial benefits, doctors say

An athenahealth physician survey finds that while only 18 percent of them have an unfavorable opinion of EHRs and 68 percent of them say EHRs improve patient care, 51 percent say EHR costs outweigh their benefits. The survey also found that fewer physicians plan to buy an EHR in 2013 since 98 percent of them already have one.

Morning Headlines 8/15/13

Why EHRs are not (yet) disruptive

According to the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, EHRs aren’t disruptive because they were designed to simply replace paper and users aren’t motivated to change their business model.

Affinity Health Plan Fined $1.3 Million for Photocopier HIPAA Violation

AHP failed to erase the hard drive of a leased photocopier containing PHI of 345,000 patients.

Quality Systems slips on a less-than-stellar initiation at KeyBanc

Analyst’s report suggest that Quality Systems / NextGen and presumably other practice EHR vendors may be losing ground as hospitals acquire physician practices and replace their systems with those of enterprise vendors such as Epic and Cerner. 

Morning Headlines 8/14/13

Surescripts Adds 19 Healthcare Organizations to National Network

Surescipts adds 19 state HIEs and health information service providers to its national health information network, including Cerner, ICA, and Quest Diagnostics.

As its Farm Campus opens, Epic Systems prepares for even more workers

Epic Systems prepares to open its third campus, built to resemble a working farm, as the company also completes a fourth campus that will open in the fall.

CareFusion Reports Fourth Quarter And Fiscal 2013 Results

Revenue was down six percent, adjusted EPS $0.49 vs. $0.55, in line with expectations.

Scripps Launches Study To Assess Role Of Mobile Health Devices In Lowering Health Costs

Scripps Translational Science Institute launches a clinical study that will determine if wireless technologies and the use of social media can reduce healthcare spending.

Morning Headlines 8/13/13

Marlin Equity Acquires Health Care Software Firm

Marlin Equity Partners acquires long-term care software vendor 6N Systems.

Doctor lost control of patient records

A physician in Canada is cited for failing to exercise control over health records when she tries to obtain the electronic medical records of her patients to start a new practice and is denied by the EMR vendor because she had never registered as the official contact with the vendor.

Report: Apple will reveal new iPhone next month

Apple will reportedly announce a new model of the iPhone, rumored to be named either the iPhone 6 or iPhone 5S, on September 10.

Morning Headlines 8/12/13

Draft – FDASIA Committee Report

HIT Policy Committee’s FDASIA workgroup, tasked with determining now to address patient safety concerns with electronic health records, call for leaving healthcare IT unregulated by FDA, but encourages reporting,  post-implementation safety testing, and allowing customers to publicly rate their applications. They also call for national standards for quality process and interoperability and encouraging vendors to publicly share patient safety information.

WattsUpDoc looks at medical device power usage to spot malware

University of Michigan researchers develop WattsUpDoc, which detects malware in biomedical devices by looking for changes in the power they consume.

Merge Healthcare CEO resigns

Merge parts ways with CEO Jeff Surges after a disappointing quarterly report.

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 7/29/13

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.