Morning Headlines 5/23/13

Doctors and hospitals’ use of health IT more than doubles since 2012

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius reports that HHS has exceeded its goal of transitioning 50 percent of eligible providers and 80 percent of eligible hospitals onto EHRs by the end of 2013.

Hagel says DoD to adopt commercial EHR 

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel testified last month before a House Appropriations Committee to report that DoD had fallen behind on its plans to implement an integrated EHR with the VA; that much of the allocated money for the project had been spent with little to show for it; and that when the decision to launch a vendor search for a commercial EHR was made, he "didn’t think we knew what the hell we were doing." At the conclusion of that hearing, Hagel promised that he would halt the commercial vendor search and report back within 30 days with DoD’s new plan for delivering an integrated DoD/VA EHR. This Wednesday, bending to internal DoD pressure, Hagel reversed course on nearly all that he had said before the House Committee, reporting in a memo that DoD would resume its commercial EHR vendor selection rather than develop an integrated solution with the VA or adopting VA’s VistA.

All Maine hospitals sign on to electronic health records exchange

All of Maine’s acute-care hospitals have agreed to participate in HealthInfoNet, Maine’s statewide query-based HIE. Thirty-four of Maine’s hospitals are already connected to the network, and the last four are scheduled to go live by the end of the year. HealthInfoNet is also connected to 376 ambulatory practice sites.

Practice Fusion Continues To Reach Beyond Digital Health Records, Adds Free Expense Tracking To New Booking Engine

Free Web-based EHR vendor Practice Fusion launches a patient-facing site that allows patients to compare doctors and book appointments. After the appointment, patients can review their spending history across the entire history of their medical visits.

Morning Headlines 5/22/13

Local Health IT Firm Healthland Acquires Software Co.

Healthland acquires Jackson, MS-based post-acute care EHR vendor American HealthTech for an undisclosed sum.

Change in Directors or Principal Officers, Financial Statements and Exhibits

NextGen Healthcare board member Ahmed Hussein resigns after multiple failed attempts to take control of the company through proxy fights. He currently holds more than $100 million in company stock, which means that he can reinstate himself to the board in the future through cumulative voting rules.

Healthcare Innovation Council Calls Out CMS’ EHR Program as "Emperor Has No Clothes"

The Healthcare Innovation Council, an independent group of healthcare experts, has called upon Congress to reconsider the CMS Meaningful Use program since it is not furthering Congress’s goal of improving patient care. The group calls for a reboot of Meaningful Use before all of the money is spent. They are asking for a shift in focus away from hospital adoption of technology and toward improving the design and implementation of the EHR systems.

VMC’s electronic medical records system will increase efficiency, reduce medical errors

A Silicon Valley editorial praises Santa Clara Valley Medical Center’s $220 million Epic implementation, calling it a robust system that should lead to more efficient billing and significantly improve quality of care.

Morning Headlines 5/21/13

MyMedicalRecords Files Patent Infringement Complaint Against Jardogs, a Subsidiary of Allscripts

MMR Global files a patent infringement suit against Jardogs, recently acquired by Allscripts. The suit references Jardog’s FollowMyHealth patient portal as infringing on an MMR Global patent. Prior to this suit, MMR Global had been predominantly targeting hospitals and health systems in its string of lawsuits, but it appears that patient portal vendors will now be targeted as well.

WEDI announces ICD-10 best-practices initiative

Organizations from California, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Wisconsin announce the formation of a new collaborative initiative with the goal of documenting and sharing best practices guidance to help hospitals prepare for ICD-10 conversion.

Computer error releases 8,330 LSU Health patients’ personal info

Louisiana State University and Siemens Healthcare have informed 8,000 patients that their personal health information was exposed after a bug in a Siemens system associated visit information with incorrect billing addresses. Siemens had been contracted to print and mail patient bills on behalf of LSU. The issue was discovered when patients began calling the hospital reporting incorrect names and treatments on their bills. No Social Security numbers, birthdays, or account numbers were exposed in the breach.

ONC’s Mostashari to Open HIMSS ICD-10 Forum with Insights on Interoperability, Testing & Big Data

National Coordinator for Health Information Technology Farzad Mostashari, MD, will deliver the opening keynote speech during the ICD-10 Forum on June 17-18.

Business Strategy: Accountable Care Maturity Model

IDC Health Insights has published a guide to ACO formation, detailing five stages of what it calls ACO maturity. The report emphasizes the importance of introducing new technologies, like data analytics and mHealth apps, to support post-acute care, but only after key maturity levels are reached.

Morning Headlines 5/20/13

Mitochon Intends to Exit the EHR Market and Cease Physician Services

Free web-based ambulatory EHR vendor Mitochon Systems has announced that it will close its health IT business unit. Mitochon was a Meaningful Use Stage I certified vendor with 12 attestations according to the most recently released CMS data.

Tableau Software soars in trading debut

Seattle-based Tableau, a data visualization vendor popular in the healthcare space, raises $254 million on its IPO Friday and shares closed up 64 percent at the close of its first day of trading.

Wake Forest Baptist IT director stepping down

Wake Forest Baptist CIO Sheila Sanders will step down from her position effective May 31st. She leaves her position for personal reasons, unrelated to recent difficulties with Baptist’s Epic implementation.

DePinho: M.D. Anderson to freeze wages, curb construction

MD Anderson announces a wage freeze, a reduction in hiring, and the postponement of construction projects due to lower than anticipated operating income for FY13. President Robert DePinho reports that an increase in donations and investment income is the only reason the institution will finish the year with positive net income.

Morning Headlines 5/17/13

HHS Secretary Sebelius announces Senate confirmation of Marilyn Tavenner

The US Senate today confirmed Marilyn Tavenner as the new CMS administrator, making her the first to be confirmed to the position in over nine years.

Hospital can’t afford EMR contract, Assembly rejects funding request

City assemblymen from Juneau, AK rejects an $8.5 million budget request to pay for an already-signed Cerner contract for Bartlett Regional Hospital, saying that they were never consulted on the contract prior to its signing and that the $1.15 million in annual maintenance fees is more than they are willing to pay.

Health Care Innovation Awards Round Two

CMS announces Round Two of the Health Care Innovation Awards which authorizes up to $1 billion in awards to help fund innovative projects that will help deliver better care at a lower cost.

Marin General Hospital nurses warn that new computer system is causing errors, call for time out

Unionized nurses at Marin General Hospital are asking administrators to put its Paragon CPOE implementation on hold until glitches can be ironed out, claiming, "Orders are being inadvertently passed to the wrong patients. People have gotten meds when they’ve been allergic to them. This is dangerous.”

Morning Headlines 5/16/13

House Spending Panel Backs Joint Defense-VA Electronic Health Record

The House Appropriations Committee approves the VA’s requested 2014 budget line item of $252 million for an integrated electronic health record, then adds another $92 million, but mandates that no money be released except for an open architecture system that will serve as the sole EHR for the VA and DoD.

Physician adoption of health information technology: Implications for medical practice leaders and business partners

A Deloitte survey of US physicians finds that 75 percent believe that Meaningful Use holds promise for improved efficiency but that reduced costs resulting from the use of EHRs is inflated and that ultimately care will cost more, not less.

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center reports gain in excess revenue

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center reports operational income losses attributed to problems with its Epic implementation after spending $13 million directly on Epic and $8 million on implementation expenses. The hospital also reports $26 million in lost margin due to volume disruptions during initial go-live and post go-live optimization. Baptist was already scheduled to complete a staff reduction of 950 employees by June 30, but will now implement additional immediate cost-cutting measures. Moody’s has downgraded its long-term debt rating.

Expert predicts ‘meaningful use fatigue’ in 2015

Laura Kreofsky, principal at Impact Advisors and director of Sutter Health’s Meaningful Use program, discusses the need for organizations to operationalize Meaningful Use-related projects by moving them from small project teams to increasingly stretched IT departments. Due to this shift, she predicts widespread organizational "MU fatigue" by 2015.

Morning Headlines 5/15/13

Compuware subsidiary Covisint files for IPO to raise $100 million

Detroit-based Covisint, which provides cloud-based business platforms for a variety of industries including HIE technology for the healthcare market, files for a $100 million IPO.

Why VC’s Shortchange Healthcare IT—And How to Change It

Athenahealth’s Jonathan Bush contributes an article looking at funding trends in health IT and a perceived lack of opportunity for innovative startups in that space.

Medicare Fraud strike force charges 89 individuals for approximately $223 million in false billing

The Medicare Fraud Strike Force executes operations in eight cities that result in charges against 89 individuals, including doctors and nurses, for their alleged participation in Medicare fraud involving $220 million in false billings.

Exam Room Computing & Patient-Physician Interactions

The American Medical Association releases a study on the use of computers in the examination room and its effect on patient satisfaction. The study found that patients’ attitudes toward the computer were heavily influenced by the physicians’ attitude toward it. The more positive they perceived their doctor’s attitudes, the more likely respondents were to indicate a preference for computer use in the exam room.

McKesson Announces Nationwide Expansion of its Million Dollar EHR Software Give-Away Program, McKesson Gives Back

McKesson expands its McKesson Gives Back program nationally. The program, launched in 2011, donates McKesson Practice Choice EHR systems to small physician practices that operate in underserved and underinsured communities.

Morning Headlines 5/14/13

Report: Global health IT market to hit $56.7 billion by 2017

A recent analysis of the global health IT market forecasts an annual growth rate of seven percent driving the $40.4 billion industry as high as $56.7 billion by 2017.

Winners Announced for New York Patient Portal

The New York eHealth Collaborative’s Patient Portals for New Yorkers contest has concluded with Mana Health taking first place honors. Mana Health’s portal includes secure e-mail communication with providers, an audit trail of patient chart accesses, and a clean and intuitive layout.

Medical Association Backs Bills to Cut Red Tape

Texas lawmakers have passed a bill that will allow providers to start swiping patients driver’s licenses to collect identification information for claims processing. The change is supported by the Texas Medical Association, which has suggested in statements that automating the recording of demographic information will free up a significant amount of time for clinic staff.

Dangers found in lack of safety oversight for Medicare drug benefit

ProPublica releases an online tool that displays individual physician prescribing behaviors in easily understood graphics intended to highlight how far from "typical" a physician’s prescribing practices fall for their specialty. The underlying data comes from four years of Medicare Part D 2007-2010.

Morning Headlines 5/13/13

Cash-strapped hospital bosses employ American IT expert on a salary of £25,000 A MONTH…and even picked up his bar tab and his laundry bill

In England, Rotherham NHS Hospital is being criticized for spending $40,000 a month on consultants in hopes of salvaging a struggling $60 million Meditech implementation.

District Medical Group Partners with Medical Scribe Program to Optimize Electronic Medical Record

Phoenix, AZ-based District Medical Group hires scribes to support physician documentation in its transition to an EMR. The scribes has improved physician workflow and eliminated transcription costs.

UPMC Q3 operating income down by half

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center reports a nearly 50 percent drop in Q3 revenue compared to the same time last year. The drop-off would have been closer to two-thirds lost had UPMC not picked up a $53 million return on its 2006 investment in dbMotion, which sold to Allscripts this March for $235 million.

Tampa Stakes its Claim to Lead Healthcare into the Future

In an effort to attract jobs, Tampa is developing a city-wide program to embrace technology and best practices to reduce overall healthcare costs, generally the second highest cost for businesses after payroll. The program is being offered in lieu of the traditional tax breaks offered as an incentive by most cities.

Morning Headlines 5/10/13

Allscripts swings to first-quarter profit loss

Allscripts releases Q1 results: a $11.6 million loss on the quarter resulting in a -$0.07 EPS compares to a $5.8 million profit and $0.03  EPS for the same period last year. The stock was down 10 percent in after hours trading but is up 47 percent on the year.

Philips, Al Faisaliah Medical Systems officially open Philips Healthcare Saudi Arabia

Philips announces the opening of a joint venture with Al Faisaliah Medical System to market Philips solutions in Saudi Arabia.

HHS Releases Hospital Data on Charge Variation to Promote Transparency

HHS releases hospital charge data to promote cost transparency.

Accenture Eight-Country Survey of Doctors Shows Significant Increase in Healthcare IT Usage

A recent study highlights electronic medical records utilization trends across eight countries. The United States is leading all nations in the adoption of EHRs and nears the top of HIE adoption.

Morning Headlines 5/9/13

Athenahealth and MIT H@cking Medicine Announce Winners of Hack-a-thon

MIT and athenahealth co-hosted a hack-a-thon this past weekend and have announced a winner of among the 20 teams that competed. Top honors and $5,000 went to Project MIST, which came up with a hardware prototype that helps glaucoma patients overcome aiming difficulties and more easily administer their eye drops.

Geisinger Gives Patients Access to Doctors’ Notes

Danville, PA-based Geisinger Health System will give patients complete access to their physician notes within the health systems patient portal in an effort to increase patient engagement. The decision follows a pilot program that showed promising results.

The National Progress Report on e-prescribing and Safe-Rx Rankings: Year 2012

More than 40 percent of prescription were transmitted electronically in 2012, according to a recently released study from Surescripts.

Memorial ‘still on path’ to join MaineHealth despite Maine Med’s financial problems

Conway, NH-based Memorial Hospital’s CEO Scott McKinnon reports that MaineHealth’s recent Epic problems are not enough to derail Memorial Hospital from joining MaineHealth. In earlier interviews, McKinnon had cited working under a system-wide Epic platform as a primary reason for joining MaineHealth.

Morning Headlines 5/8/13

McKesson 4th-Quarter Net Down 50% Amid Lower Revenue, Higher Costs

McKesson reports a fourth quarter profit of $259 million, down from $521 million a year earlier. Revenue was down 3.4 percent, missing analysts’ expectations. The technology solutions sector saw revenue increase 6.2 percent over the year, with a gross annual revenue of $913 million. Stock ended flat on the day and was up 1.5 percent in after hours trading.

A Bold New Vision for Meditech

John Halamka, MD, CIO of BIDMC, reports his initial impression of plans for Meditech 6.1 which he says will be a cloud-hosted system based on standards, Web-centric and mobile-enabled, with both inpatient and outpatient capabilities, complete with analytics, a PHR, and care management tools.

The discriminatory cost of ICD-10-CM transition between clinical specialties: metrics, case study, and mitigating tools

A study published in JAMIA finds that transitioning to ICD-10 will be difficult and disproportionately costly to specialists. The study found that only 60 percent of ICD-9 codes have a direct ICD-10 equivalent, while the other 40 percent will require clarification.

UCSF Creates Center for Digital Health Innovation, Names Director to Lead It

UC San Francisco will create a Center for Digital Health Innovation to lead the institution away from "disease-based treatment approaches" and toward "individualized precision medicine." The new Center will be run by UCSF Medical Center CMIO Michael Blum, MD.

Raleigh clinic says X-rays were stolen, may have included patient information

A Raleigh, NC clinic alerts patients that X-rays were stolen and patient information may have been compromised when a sham scanning and archiving company stole the x-rays for their silver content and then disappeared.

Morning Headlines 5/7/13

Greenway Reports Fiscal 2013 Third-Quarter Results

Following lowered year-end forecasts that caused a 22 percent one-day drop in stock price last week, Greenway sees an additional 2.8 percent drop after releasing its Q3 earnings report. The company suffered a $2.8 million net loss from operations over the quarter due to fewer one-time system sales and lower training and consulting revenue. Shares closed at $11.94, $0.11 higher than their 52-week low.

Electronic Health Information Exchange Governance Framework Released

ONC releases its regulatory framework for health information exchanges. It establishes a common foundation and spells out regulatory exchange conditions for public and private HIEs to align with.

CHIME Calls For One-Year Extension of Stage 2 Meaningful Use

The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives sends a letter to six Republican senators recommending a one-year extension to Stage 2 Meaningful Use before progressing to Stage 3.

ATA kicks off its annual meeting with a call for Mercy

The American Telemedicine Association kicked off its annual meeting in Austin, TX with Mercy Health President and CEO Lynn Britton giving the keynote address, in which he spoke of about telemedicine and the return on investment Mercy Health realized from its initiatives.

Morning Headlines 5/6/13

Two Cerner live sites go to tender

In England, two NHS hospitals release an RFP seeking a replacement for their Cerner systems.

AMA says EHRs create ‘appalling Catch-22’ for docs

Steven Stack, MD, chair of the AMA board of trustees. spoke at a CMS listening session on billing and coding within an EHR system. He questioned the government’s mandating the use of EHRs while simultaneously orchestrating a witch hunt over cut-and-paste fraud accusations associated with physician documentation. Sack points to the generic, nearly uniform output of EHR documentation systems for causing a false perception fraud.

TriZetto Corporation Announces Reorganization of Leadership Team

TriZetto announces an executive reorganization as CEO Trace Devanny departs immediately leaving an empty seat that will be temporarily filled by TriZetto board member Vicky Gregg. An executive search is underway for a permanent replacement for Devanny. Jude Dieterman, formerly EVP and COO, has been promoted to the newly created role of president.

Govt moves to roll out ambitious e-health plan

The health department in India has issued an RFP for its recently announced e-health plan, which calls for each citizen to have a health card to hold demographic data and an integrated EHR that will automate hospital processes and bring all information into a centralized state health information system.

Morning Headlines 5/3/13

Financial woes at Maine Medical Center

Maine Medical Center suffers a $13.4 million operating loss in the first half of the fiscal year, a situation CEO Richard Petersen calls a first in recent history. Petersen pointed to declining inpatient and outpatient volumes and an Epic install which is causing issues with billing. The remaining rollout of Epic is on hold until the situation is resolved. The system has also initiated a hiring freeze, cancelled unnecessary travel, and reduced overtime in an overall effort to save $15 million during the second half of the fiscal year.

March 2013 EHR Incentive Program Update

Almost half of all eligible providers have now received EHR incentive payments according to the most recent CMS update.

Post–Acute Care Riddled With Challenges and High Expectations

KLAS evaluates health IT vendors working in the post-acute care market following an ACO-driven surge in interest. HealthMEDX was the top rated vendor.

Hospital Execs Forecast Higher IT Spending

A survey of hospital executives finds that 43 percent say their largest anticipated investment for the coming year will be in health IT.

Morning Headlines 5/2/13

Trinity Health, Catholic Health East complete merger deal 

Trinity Health Systems and Catholic Health East have completed a merger that will make the new 79-hospital organization the second largest not-for-profit system in the country. Interim CEO Judith Persichilli recently said that the new organization will choose which EHR can best support their needs. Trinity uses Cerner, while Catholic Health East runs Meditech.

Project seeking ways to detect diabetes

New York University, NYU Langone Medical Center, and Blue Cross will collaborate on a project to develop machine-learning algorithms to identify cases of undiagnosed diabetes and to predict pre-diabetes.

The Defense-VA-Vendor Conference Nobody Wants You To Know About

The VA and DoD are holding a joint conference with EHR vendors to discuss the stalled iEHR project. The meeting will feature high-ranking speakers from both departments as well as representation from any vendor that expresses an interest in attending. The press has been explicitly prohibited from attending.

Finalists Announced!

The New York eHealth Collaborative’s Patient Portal For New Yorkers project announces nine finalists in its search for a statewide integrated patient portal. The finalists were selected by public voting and will pitch their products to a live audience and a panel of judges.

Morning Headlines 5/1/13

Texas lawmaker introduces bill to ban ICD-10 implementation

Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) introduces H.R.1701, "Cutting Costly Codes Act of 2013," which would prohibit HHS from replacing ICD-9 with ICD-10. The bill has no co-sponsors and has been referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Committee on Ways and Means for further consideration.

Nuance shares sink on profit drop

In Q1, Nuance’s net income drops to $110.4 million, down from $138.8 million last year. EPS $0.34 vs $0.43. Shares dropped 19 percent by the close of trading Tuesday. The company also announced a $500 million share buyback plan today as hostile corporate takeover specialist Carl Icahn continues to build his stake in the company, which now stands at 10.7 percent.

Case study: Breach increases risk of fraud

A case study examining the 2012 Utah Department of Health data breach that compromised 780,000 individuals found that in 2010, one in 10 individuals who received a data breach notification became a victim of fraud, but that in 2012, that number jumped to one in four.

Senators urge Obama to help resolve veterans claims backlog

A bipartisan group of 67 senators sent a letter to President Obama asking that he take direct action in resolving the VA’s backlog of veteran disability claims.