Morning Headlines 3/11/13

Department of Veterans Affairs Review of Alleged Transmission of Sensitive VA Data Over Internet Connections

An audit report released by the Office of the Inspector General validates earlier rumors that the VA has been routinely transmitting sensitive patient information across unencrypted telecommunication networks, including patient names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, and EHR data.

Business news briefs: Human error the cause of UPMC electronic issue

A system-wide problem with UPMC’s EHR (Cerner) resulted in all facilities shifting back to paper charting for three hours. Human error was identified as the root cause.

Cisco Study Reveals 74 Percent of Consumers Open to Virtual Doctor Visit

Cisco releases a press release, blog post, and infographic advertising the findings of its Customer Experience Report on health care. The study concludes that 74 percent of consumers are OK with virtual doctor visits.

Health Care Providers Give Cloud Vendors High Marks on Security

KLAS releases a report on cloud-based software solutions. Security and reliability were the two primary factors identified as preventing widespread adoption, despite high marks in both areas from actual users.

Morning Headlines 3/8/13

Topol helps patient in second airline drama

Three hours after giving a keynote speech at HIMSS, during which he discussed the value of mobile health devices and in particular smartphone-enabled ECG solutions, Eric Topol, MD, was flying back to San Diego when flight attendants began asking if there was a doctor on board. Dr. Topol responded and found a patient experiencing an irregular heart beat. He then used the very same device he had demonstrated during his keynote speech at HIMSS to diagnose atrial fibrillation. Dr. Topol was able to calm the woman and the flight landed shortly there-after. 

Mostashari talks ‘human toll’ of broken health system

In the week’s last keynote speech, Farzad Mostashari, MD, discussed ONC’s goals for the year ahead, which include: increasing the footprint and effectiveness of the nation’s HIEs, promoting interoperability, and increasing transparency and access to data for patients.

A Hospital System’s Wellness Program Linked To Health Plan Enrollment Cut Hospitalizations But Not Overall Costs

A recent study published in Health Affairs suggests a correlation between an employer sponsored wellness program which required smokers to enter a cessation program, and all employees to promise that they would eat well and exercise and a resulting 41 percent drop in hospital admissions for COPD, stroke, and heart disease. This study, however, comes with a surprise ending. Researchers conclude that wellness programs are unlikely to significantly reduce healthcare costs in the short term because outpatient visit costs rose almost as rapidly as inpatient visits dropped.

CMS, ONC issue request for information for HIE

CMS and ONC have issued a joint RFI asking for suggestions on what more, or less, the federal government should be doing to advance clinical information exchange.

Morning Headlines 3/7/13

Q&A: Mostashari on sequester, RECs, CommonWell

ONC Farzad Mostashari, MD, held a Q&A session at HIMSS today, discussing REC’s, the CommonWell Health Alliance announcement, and the federal budget sequester, of which he says "This is going to hurt. We are not furloughing people, which is the bulk of the budget, so our contracts are going to take a big hit."

HIMSS13: athenahealth Issues HIT Industry ‘Code of Conduct’

Responding to recent calls from Farzad Mostashari, MD, for vendors to "step up" and agree to a code of conduct that protects patients, athenahealth publishes just such a code which includes five principles: Empower Data Portability and Provider Choice, Built a True Nationwide Information Backbone, Protect Patients, Prevent Fraud, and Drive Meaningful Use.

Epic’s Faulkner Says Rivals May Use Data Pact as Weapon

In response to the CommonWell news, Judy Faulkner was quoted as saying "“It appears on the surface to be used as a competitive weapon and that’s just wrong." Epic representatives have maintained that they were not invited or informed of the new collaboration between EHR vendors until the public announcement. Together, the five EHR vendors included in the CommonWell Health Alliance represent 41 percent of the market for hospital EHR systems.

Information Overload and Missed Test Results in Electronic Health Record–Based Settings

A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine concludes that clinical notifications, and the alert fatigue that they sometimes cause, is having the unintended consequence of causing physicians to miss abnormal lab results. The study was conducted across the hospital and clinic settings within the Department of Veterans Affairs health system.

Morning Headlines 3/6/13

Allscripts (MDRX) Announces Acquisition of dbMotion, Jardogs

Allscripts announces that it has acquired patient engagement solutions vendor Jardogs, which offers a highly rated PHR and a population health manager among other products.  Allscripts also announces the acquisition of HIE vendor dbMotion. The acquisitions support Allscripts strategy of creating a connected community of health solutions. Details were not announced, although a financial publication from dbMotion’s home base of Israel placed that transaction’s value at $235 million.

Verizon Introduces Messaging Service for Health Data Transfer

Verizon unveils a secure universal messaging service that aims to allow clinicians to exchange messages and medical records through a secure browser interface regardless of whether they belong to the same health network or HIE. The platform provides an entirely independent option for physician to physician communication and file sharing.

HL7 Announces Plans for Freely Available IP and Future Membership Model

Health Language Seven (HL7) announces that it will make most of its intellectual property, including of its standards, freely available effective April 1st. The company had promised as much in September, but had not disclosed details or set an effective date.

Accretive to restate financials

After delaying the release of Q4 and Year End financials, Accretive Health has announced that it will not submit its year end report on time and will need to restate both current and past financial results. Shares are down more than 20 percent since the initial delay last week.

Morning Headlines 3/4/13

Cerner, McKesson, Allscripts, athenahealth, Greenway and RelayHealth Announce Ground Breaking Alliance to Enable Integrated Health Care

The major news from HIMSS today is that the Cerner-McKesson announcement turned out to be much larger than suspected, including a total of six major players coming together to form the CommonWell Health Alliance. The organization will be an independent non-profit for EHR vendors together that want to achieve a higher level of interoperability between systems.

Nuance and Cerner Partner to Offer Point of Care Solution for Clinical Documentation Improvement

Cerner announces that it will integrate Nuance’s suite of clinical language understanding products to support physician documentation in a new workflow that will allow physicians to dictate notes while the tool simultaneously performs quality review, prompting clinicians for clarifying information where needed.  

ICD-10 Snapshot Study

A recent survey of 260 healthcare professionals involved in ICD-10 planning reveals that only 55 percent of respondents are confident that they will meet the October 1, 2014 deadline. Primary concerns center around additional training needs and a lack of time. 43 percent of respondents reported frustration with vendors "not providing an adequate schedule to ensure we will be ready by the deadline."

HIMSS 2013 iHIT Study – Final Report

HIMSS releases its 20132 Impact of Health IT report. The results paint a suspiciously rosy picture of end user satisfaction, including 83 percent of respondents agreeing that HIT applications support clinical processes and workflows. The survey-takers were comprised of 63 percent nurses, 22 percent pharmacists, and 11 percent physicians working at larger than average (and most likely more technologically refined) hospitals with an average 681 beds.

Morning Headlines 3/4/13

Deloitte, Intermountain to share big data tool schedule at HIMSS13

Following last Thursday’s announcement that Deloitte and Intermountain had forged a five-year-deal to extract and publish big-data best practices, the pair today announce that they will be demonstrating the newly developed technology which will power the initiative at HIMSS this week.

NextGen Healthcare to Unveil New Population Health Management Solution to Drive Collaborative, Accountable Care

In line with the latest in EHR vendor trends, NextGen unveils a new population health application, which will be demonstrated at HIMSS, booth 5313.

Hoag and St. Joseph Health Complete Historic Health Care Affiliation

5-hospital health system St. Joseph’s Health and 2-hospital system Hoag announce plans to affiliate, creating a new Orange, Calif.-based health system called Covenant Health Network. While Hoag hospitals will be joining the St. Joseph’s system, they will retain their Presbyterian affiliation and operational standards, rather than adopting St. Joseph’s Catholic affiliation.

Power loss leads to water problems, and grumbles, in New Orleans

HIMSS-goers awoke to an unpleasant surprise Sunday morning as all of New Orleans was placed under a city-wide boil water order after a fire broke out in the city’s primary water treatment facility. The city’s emergency response website is calling for everyone to boil water for one minute prior to drinking, cooking, brushing teeth, washing hands, bathing (sponge baths with pots of sterilized water is the only recommended option for bathing) or preparing food, until further notice.

HIMSS13 Online

HIMSS13 starts Monday, already the twitter hashtag #HIMSS13 is exploding with traffic. Several pre-conference sessions were held today and the day ended with the official HIMSS13 reception. For those sitting out this years events, HIMSS is live broadcasting most speakers, including keynote speaker Bill Clinton, and sessions for remote viewing . In true HIMSS style, they’re charging $40 a session.

Morning Headlines 3/1/13

House panel blasts DoD for overlooking VistA

After cancelling iEHR plans, DoD is facing pressure to consider VistA as an alternative that would allow DoD and the VA to continue with plans of adopting a single system. DoD has instead issued a RFI for a commercial solution, leaving many speculating that they will follow the Coast Guard’s path toward Epic.

Why Vocera Communications Shares Tumbled

Vocera announces Q4 results: revenue increased 24 percent to $27 million, EPS was $0.10 vs $0.07. Stock dropped almost 10 percent after guidance was adjusted for first-quarter forecasts. Vocera reported guidance of $23 million to $25 million, far less than analyst expectations of $28 million.

Kaiser Permanente Ventures and CHV Capital Participate in $8M Extension of $41M Series B Investment in Health Catalyst

Health Catalyst adds $8 million toward its $41 million Series B round, with contributions from Kaiser Permanente and CHV Capital.
 
Resolute Health selects Allscripts Electronic Health Record

Currently in construction, Resolute Health Hospital, of New Braunfels TX selects Allscripts as its EHR in preparation for its spring 2014 opening.

St. Vincent’s Health Partners, Inc. Selects McKesson To Help Reduce Risk and Drive Better Health

St. Vincent’s Health Partners will implement McKesson’s new population health application, recently secured through the McKesson’s acquisition of MedVentive.

Morning Headlines 2/28/13

House committee worried DoD, VA ‘moving the goal posts’ on e-health records

VA CIO Roger Baker made his final appearance before the Veterans House Services Committee Wednesday to answer for the cancellation of the iEHR project. He reported that the program was large, complex, and difficult to control. He also acknowledged that both the VA and DoD, could have done a better job communicating changes across the departments. Baker, along with VA CTO Peter Levin, resigned their positions last week.

M*Modal and Merge Healthcare Bring Speech Understanding to Imaging Solutions for Improved Workflow and Reporting

Merge and MModal announce a strategic partnership that will allow Merge to sell MModal’s natural language understanding tools baked into Merge’s imaging and radiology PACS solutions.

Predicting out of intensive care unit cardiopulmonary arrest or death using electronic medical record data

A recent study measuring the ability of EHR-backed predictive surveillance tools to predict cardiac events concludes that the automated model outperformed both manual risk assessments and human judgment-driven risk response teams. The automated model predicted cardiac events 15.9 hours before they occurred and 5.7 hours earlier than rapid response team activation.

Why Telemedicine Is Finally Ready to Take Off

CIO.com points to advances in technology, pressure to reduce costs, and bipartisan political support to substantiate its prediction that 2013 will be a flash point for telehealth adoption.

Morning Headlines 2/27/13

TELUS Health to become Canada’s largest electronic medical record provider

Telus Health announces the acquisition of EMR vendor MD Practice Software, which will expand its reach to more than 9,000 Canadian physicians and make Telus the largest EMR provider in Canada. This is the third EMR vendor Telus has acquired, spending more than $1 billion on acquisitions over the past 10 years.

Accretive Health Postpones Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2012 Earnings Release

Revenue cycle optimization vendor Accretive Health announces that it will delay the release of fourth quarter and full year financial statements. The company says it is concerned with its own revenue recognition policies and needs to evaluate the process before releasing financial statements. Share price dropped 20 percent in after hours trading Tuesday following the announcement.

Craneware H1 Profit Rises

Craneware reports a half-year profit of $4.5 million, up from $3.8 million in the same period last year. EPS was $0.12 and revenue grew seven percent.

Kansas Health Information Network and ICA Launch Pilot to Share Immunization Data with State Registry

Kansas Health Information Network has successfully transmitted immunization information through its ICA CareAlign HIE to the Kansas Immunization Registry.

Morning Headlines 2/26/13

Cerner To Buy PureWellness

Cerner announced this morning that it will acquire PureWellness, which offers an online health and wellness platform. Cerner said in a blog post, “We think the combination of our Millennium solutions and Healthe Intent platform with PureWellness’ engagement platform creates the most comprehensive set of capabilities on the market to support an individual’s health and care needs. Individual engagement is an important piece of a comprehensive approach to population health management, a concept we see playing a vital role in the evolution of health care.”

CIOs say lack of security pros leads to more breaches

In a survey released this week, CIOs report that a shortage of qualified IT security professionals is directly impacting network security within healthcare.

Rural Health Information Technology (HIT) Workforce Program Funding Announcement

HHS announces a $4.5 million grant that will be awarded in $300,000 increments to rural health networks engaged in recruitment, education, training, or retention activities aimed at developing and sustaining a population of health IT professionals in rural areas.

HealthEdge adds Arik Hill as Vice President of Customer Support

HealthEdge, a software vendor which provides an integrated financial, administrative, and clinical platform for healthcare payers, announces that Arik Hill (CIO, FirstCare Health Plans) has joined the company as vice president of customer support.

SAIC Announces Names For Planned New Companies

SAIC announces the names for the businesses that will be created later this year following its planned split into two independent companies. The national security, health and engineering business – to which acquired health IT consulting firms maxIT and Vitalize will belong — will be named Leidos, a coined word clipped from “kaleidoscope.” The technical services and enterprise information technology business will continue to carry the SAIC name.

Morning Headlines 2/25/13

Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us

Time magazine’s special edition report on rising healthcare costs is the longest article the magazine has ever run, but it is short on offering meaningful solutions.

Grace Cottage blames federal law for job cuts

19-bed Grace Cottage, of Townshend, VT, defends its $2.5 million Cerner implementation, as well as other major capital expenses, after firing 10 percent of its workforce which officials say was necessary due to steadily declining reimbursements and increased expenses. In perhaps related news, the only job opening posted on the hospital’s career page is for a new CEO.

Huge Decision Coming for Doctors Who Sued EHR Company

A group of doctors suing Allscripts over the discontinued MyWay EHR platform will find out Tuesday whether they the lawsuit will be allowed to continue or whether they will be forced to honor the binding arbitration clauses in their contracts.

MModal and Intermountain Healthcare Collaborate on Industry’s First Speech-Enabled Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) App for iPhone and iPad

MModal will partner with Intermountain Healthcare to develop a speech-enabled CPOE app for iOS devices. The app is expected in the fall of 2013 and will be integrated within EHR systems not yet named.

Morning Headlines 2/22/13

A Digital Shift on Health Data Swells Profits in an Industry

The New York Times runs an article criticizing the HITECH act as government waste lining the pockets of special interest groups. It goes on to villainize vendor executives, specifically Allscripts CEO Glen Tullman, suggesting that lobbyists for the industry pushed the legislature through Congress.

GetWellNetwork Achieves Record Growth for Third Consecutive Year

GetWellNetwork announces 30 percent growth in revenue, 50 percent growth in employees, and a 57 percent increase in new beds during 2012.

Sunrise Portfolio’s Open Architecture to Help Enhance Patient Care in an Integrated Environment

465-bed Phoenix Children’s Hospital adds Sunrise Ambulatory, Sunrise Financial Manager, and Allscripts Community Record to its existing Allscripts platform.

Reduction in medication errors in hospitals due to adoption of computerized provider order entry systems

A systematic literature review of the effect of CPOE on medication errors finds that processing a medication through a CPOE system decreases the likelihood of an error occurring by 48 percent.

Morning Headlines 2/21/13

Top Hospital Electronic Health Records Vendors Rated by Client Satisfaction, Black Book Rankings Announce 2013 Inpatient EHR Leaders

Black Book Rankings, which provides vendor satisfaction reports, gives CPSI the under 100-bed market, Cerner wins in the 100-249 bed range, and Epic takes the 250+ bed market. Unlike KLAS, Black Book’s methodology includes an external audit of data by independent statisticians.

VA CTO Peter Levin to leave agency

VA CTO Peter Levin announces his resignation just days after VA CIO Roger Baker made his own announcement. Levin led the Blue Button initiative and was a key advisor to the iEHR program. Both Levin and Baker were scheduled to appear before the House Veterans Affairs Committee next week to answer for the abrupt halt of the iEHR program.

Express Scripts accuses Ernst & Young of stealing trade secrets

Express Scripts sues Ernst & Young after discovering that an E&Y health information technology partner stole confidential documents related to pricing information, business projections, and strategy while working on the Express Scripts and Medco Health Solutions merger. Express Scripts claims the E&Y employee emailed more than 20,000 confidential documents to his personal e-mail account with the intention of using the information to secure future business with both Express Scripts and its competitors.

Health System Chief Information Officers: Juggling responsibilities, managing expectations, building the future

Deloitte releases a whitepaper on future challenges within health IT according to hospital CIOs. Respondents largely report being comfortable with their ability to handle MU and ICD-10 requirements. Goals moving forward included integrating independent medical practice IT systems, protection of PHI in a quickly growing digital environment, and transitions from fee-for-service to value-based models.

Morning Headlines 2/20/13

Allscripts Healthcare swings to loss

Allscripts reports Q4 results: revenue was down 10 percent, EPS –$0.14 vs. $0.14. CEO Paul Black said that both the quarterly and annual results "did not meet our expectations." The company plans to close 12 offices and take other measures to reduce product development costs.

Merge Reports Subscription Backlog Up 82%

Merge reports Q4 results: revenue up 1 percent, adjusted EPS –$0.13 vs. $0.04 on sales of $65.1 million. The board rejected valuations placed on strategic alternatives and reiterates 2013 guidance of sales range of $265 – $275 million.

iMedicor Announces Two Acquisitions, Four Corporate Appointments

iMedicor announces the acquisition of HITS Consulting Group and the appointment of HITS CEO Henry Denis to president.The company also acquired data mining firm ClarDIS and founder Joshua Brimdyr was appointed as COO.

Bayada prescribes 4,000 Samsung Galaxy Tabs for homecare nurses

Bayada issues Galaxy tablets outfitted with the SwiftKey Healthcare dictionary to home health nurses for use with clinical documentation. A pilot program found that a typical nurse reduced documentation time by 30 minutes every day by using a tablet rather than a laptop or pen and paper.

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.