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14 – Inga’s Update

February 26, 2014 News 4 Comments

So much to share and not much time nor energy following a very long Tuesday and a very short night’s sleep. Coffee will be my friend today.

Random highlights from my day:

I did pretty good on the swag front, choosing to only pick up items deemed cool enough to lug home. One of my favorites is the stuffed yellow lab from Sunquest, which I intend to give to a special friend who has one of the real versions. I went to the Sunquest booth and asked to have one but was told they had run out. Lorre then went to their booth and told them Inga wanted one and curiously they found an extra. I also love the autographed copy of Niko Skievaski’s Struck by Orca.

I played Medicomp’s Quipstar game and came in last place. Oh well, the Medicomp folks still cut an $1,100 check to my favorite charity.

How about these booth shoes sported by Patrick from Lightbeam?

Humana was giving away smoothies that were created from a bicycle-powered blender.

More than 100 vendors had requested desktop signs proclaiming their support of HIStalk. They are a bit of a labor of love to create and I was sad (hmm…annoyed) that a few opted not to display their signs after all. However, many thanks to those that I spotted, including Orchestrate, Summit, Bottomline, Forward Health, Awarepoint, Healthwise, GetWell, Imprivata, Infor, MBA, Versus, TeraMedica, Fujifilm, Netsmart, PatientSafe (their folks were also sporting HIStalk label pins), Greythorn (they had their sign displayed in a sparkly frame), TalkSoft, Health Care Software, Perceptive, and SIS. If you see one, please tell the booth folks that Inga sends her love.

Stoltenberg Consulting’s booth always reminds me of camping. Maybe that’s the intent. I guess it’s fun.

I really love most of the art in the Epic booth but this girl was a bit creepy because she looked a little too real.

This bear was a little more my style.

I loved the purple sneakers that the GetWellNetwork folks were wearing.

SAP had a big booth but Derek was out in the middle of the aisle trying to engage people in a very friendly and not too pushy way.

It’s a bit hard to see but this guy getting a demo in CareCloud’s booth was wearing a red suit. Um, you have to be pretty confident or a little color blind to wear a red suit. CareCloud, by the way, has a cool new booth with a balcony.

I liked the looks of the MedeAnalytics booth. This is actually the backside of it.

Every time I walked by IBM’s booth it was packed, but I could never quite figure out why.

Some of my favorite guys of the day were from Headspring, which was promoting a mobile nursing application.They were all in cowboy garb (because they are from Texas) and were standing out in the aisle handing out packages of nuts (which I happen to be eating right now for breakfast.)

TeraRecon has this massive screen as part of their booth. I thought it overpowered their space a bit.

I went by CommonWell and was disappointed that when I asked what they did I was handed a marketing slick that showed the various members but was not given any additional explanation of what they were all about. I let them keep their slick.

McKesson’s coffee bar was quite popular. If you are seeking coffee, however, many of the smaller vendors are also happy to give you a cup and most have shorter lines.

Kyle with INUVIO did a great job getting my attention as I walked by and then provided me a nice concise explanation of their card scanning solution.

I liked the look of ICA’s booth.

Check out the magician at NTT’s booth. He had me intrigued.

I had mentioned previously that Alere’s booth was one of my favorites and they were getting plenty of people walking through their tunnel.

The ladies at Dirvugent were super sweet and I liked that the company is donating money to a local children’s charity if you spin their wheel (and let them scan your badge.)

This is an amazing statistic.

Maybe someone can explain why so many people (all men that I observed) were walking around with Google glasses. Late in the evening I tried on a pair and didn’t see enough to make me feel compelled to buy some.

I had the opportunity to chat with Girish Navani of eClinicalWorks. He’s a really nice, down to earth guy and I will later share more details of our conversation, which ranged from eCW’s growth, to Girish’s intent to keep the company private, to his prediction for what HIT topics will be hot over the next couple of years.

I loved the pitch from the SIS guy as I strolled past their booth. He was sporting a red jacket, standing in the aisle, handing out goodies, and asking folks if they cared for mints, gum, or analytics for EHR.

I have another busy day planned and am very excited to see Hillary Clinton’s keynote this afternoon. Hope my feet survive.

Email Inga.

From HIMSS 2/25/14

February 25, 2014 News 10 Comments

Imprivata’s people worked hard overnight to get out video from HIStalkapalooza. They did a great job capturing what the event is all about. Thanks again to the companies that made it possible – Imprivata, Greenway, Nordic, Hill-Rom, RFIDeas, and VMware. If you attended, I’m sure those companies would appreciate your stopping by to say thanks (as would I.) The band rocked the house to the point I was told (having left long before so I could get work done) that they were still playing with people dancing until at least midnight. When we all get some catch-up time, I’ll list the contest and HISsies winners.

Lorre wanted me to make sure to thank three guys from our booth neighbor Park Place International. She asked them if they might have a hand cart that she could borrow to bring in three heavy boxes of our giveaway mugs that were sitting in her vehicle on the top level of the Rosen parking garage (since that was the only place left to park). They insisted on going out in their dark business clothes on a sticky morning and hauling in the boxes by hand, starting off their day sweating. That was a classy and chivalrous thing to do. Their behavior reflects positively on the company and we appreciate them, especially since Park Place is also an HIStalk sponsor (they provide Meditech services.)

Sunquest emailed yesterday asking if we could drop by their booth Tuesday afternoon to accept an award. That was a surprise since we’ve never received an award, so Lorre went over during their booth happy hour. It was a bigger deal than we expected – Sunquest’s executive team, including President Richard Atkin, presented HIStalk with the “Sunquest Industry Pioneer Award.” Richard remarked that some companies keep HIStalk at arm’s length knowing that we’re going to call them out if they do something stupid, but that Sunquest supports what we do and considers us a partner. It was a nice thing to do and an honor, and Lorre reports that lots of people stopped her on her way back to the booth wanting a peek at the award.

Odd: everybody was giving away pens, but notepads and sticky notes were impossible to find. Vendors, if you’re going to go green by not giving out paper, we don’t really need pens. I couldn’t find anything to write notes on.

I was walking in the hall and heard what sounded like a high-pitch voiced fire and brimstone preacher. It was patient advocate Regina Holliday of “The Walking Gallery” fame, almost seeming out of place pushing for patient involvement in a hall full of people and products that aren’t really wired with that in mind.

I’m trying to track down something that supposedly happened during the opening reception. I was told that someone from HIMSS was addressing the audience and said something that was potentially insulting to physicians (something about ego, I was told with no further details). If you were there and can elaborate, please do.

Evena Medical had cool glasses designed for venipuncture that view 16 lines transparently in the center of both lenses. They can also take pictures to send back to the EMR. They were interesting, although the venipuncture app seems to have limited sales potential compared to other possible uses.

The folks from 7 Signals showed me a cool display of their WiFi monitoring tool. They have it set up to report on the exhibit hall’s WiFi, which you might guess from the red indicators and the long list of exhibitor sessions, is pretty much useless. Their tool can not only report problems, but actually fix them with a single click. They couldn’t confirm a rumor I had heard – that vendors can’t avoid paying exhibitor company Freeman hundreds to thousands of dollars per day for Internet access in the hall because they run a program that disconnects all sessions that have been active for more than 15 minutes. Along those lines, Lorre found it amusing that we paid Freeman $185 for a single electrical outlet in the booth and they made sure to tape over the second outlet on the jack so we didn’t dare use it without paying.

I would come to HIMSS just to see the Hyland magician. Not only is he very engaging and fun, he fills up their sports bar booth all day long. I can never figure out if he’s a Hyland-knowledgeable magician or a magic-knowledgeable Hylander, which is a testament to how good he is at his craft(s).

Here’s a shout-out to booth visitor and Meditech employee Ockert Coetzee, who earns recognition for reading HIStalk every day from Dubai.

Lorre got a booth visit from Niko, who put together the fascinating book Struck by Orca: ICD-10 Illustrated that features fun and/or bizarre artistic interpretations of obscure ICD-10 codes. He autographed copies for Inga and me, which we appreciate. Copies of the book would make a fun vendor giveaway if you can strike a deal.

Also visiting our tiny but expensive patch of HIMSS release estate was former New York Giants receiver Stephen “The Touchdown Maker” Baker, who caught a touchdown pass that helped beat the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXV. Thanks to Quest Diagnostics for bringing him by. He let Lorre take a picture of her finger wearing his Super Bowl ring and autographed footballs for Inga and me.

HISsie-nominated CMIO Bob Murphy, MD from Memorial Hermann, who is a really funny guy, will be in our booth #1995 today from 10:00 to 11:00. His co-workers Alan Weiss, MD and Mitch Kwartler will join him. Stop by and say hello.

Also in our booth today will be Vince Ciotti (11:00 until noon), who will bring along his HIS-tory timeline poster showing vendor acquisitions over the years.

Lorre reports that someone from Epic told her that if I see their employees on their phones, they aren’t screwing around (as I always accuse) but instead are religiously watching for HIStalk tweets. He said a lot of Epic people read HIStalk. I suggested inviting Epic’s people to flashmob our tiny booth, to which Lorre counteroffered that we should ask them to pose looking at their phones in Epic’s booth since my conference goal is to snap a photo in which at least four company employees are paying attention to their phones instead of the people standing right in front of them.

Inga, Lorre, and I are all tweeting quite a bit from the conference, so follow us and you might find out where the good snacks and goodies are.

We have a few more 2013 HIStalk headlines mugs to give away in the booth Wednesday. Karen DeSalvo, your photo is on them if you’d like one as a souvenir. We’ll even mail it to you.

People keep asking if I’ve seen anything particularly noteworthy in the exhibit hall. Not so far. I think the government has taken over the agendas of both vendors and providers with ICD-10 and Meaningful Use requirements. One CIO I talked to said he attended the conference only to get ICD-10 deliverable dates from his vendor – he isn’t even thinking about buying anything new.

Today I started at the low-numbered booths and made it to around the 5000 row before my feet and interest gave out for the day. I’m hoping to check out the rest and also take a deeper dive into anything especially interesting, so if you saw something fresh and exciting, let me know. Meanwhile, here are the notes I surreptitiously made as I prowled the hall. My contrived badge title makes it clear that I’m nobody of influence, so I get to see vendor people as they really are when they aren’t kissing butt hoping to make a sale.

Pentaho was a company that seemed to get traction a couple of years ago, then went off the radar. They are an Orlando-based commercial open source vendor of data analysis tools, with emphasis on Hadoop. They said they got a CMS contract to figure how how to handle the information from Healthcare.gov because CMS couldn’t figure it out and their processing time was hours instead of minutes.
Ingenious Med had our “We Power HIStalk” sign out. I appreciate that, so indulge me when I mention that fact because it’s pretty cool that companies will use their space to promote their relationship with HIStalk.
PDR Network had our sign out. They explained that their customers are vendors that integrate their information into their products, so they were mostly using their booth to meet up and prepare for meetings. That’s something about exhibitors that attendees might not know – B2B type companies might rent space just to connect with potential non-provider partners or customers.
I saw several exhibits featuring variations of the old “Operation” game (“Remove Funny Bone.”)
I looked over someone shoulder at an NTT DATA demo. It looked pretty good.
I saw only a couple of white coats worn by booth people who clearly aren’t clinicians. Thank goodness. They were about as phony as those worn by Clinique makeover people at the mall.
MEDHOST had an impressive booth that was crowded. They said their patient flow solution is new. Some customers have had a payback period of only nine months from implementing their EDIS (note to vendors: if you quote a time-based result, that’s payback period, not ROI.)
CTG had our sign out. They were nice guys and made me feel better about sweating like a pig all afternoon Monday – apparently the exhibit hall AC was out and it wasn’t just me perspiring.
Caradigm had a big crowd in a big booth.
I saw one of the girls who was serving up frozen yogurt in one vendor’s booth fill up a cup for a waiting attendee, then lick her fingers vigorously before handing it over.
Clinical Architecture had our sign out.
The red-white dressed people from Alert were there as they are every year despite never seeming to have made a US sale.
McKesson had a cool coffee bar.
TeraRecon had a big booth and some cool display stuff.
Summit Healthcare had our sign out and was baking cookies in the booth.
Symantec was emphasizing breach protection and had customer IT people talking on stage. They had an effective booth person engaging passers-by.
Peer60 had some cool, non-corporate guys who explained that they develop customer surveys that require less than 60 seconds to complete. I suggested that their biggest potential prospect is on site since HIMSS sends out ridiculously long and poorly designed member surveys that I’ve never completed even once.
The Advisory Board Company had a big booth and a lot of traffic.
Hitachi was going to offer an Orlando microbrew for happy hour, which would have been a welcome alternative to the lowbrow canned swill (Budweiser, Amstel Light, Heineken, etc.) that everybody else was serving up.
I chatted with someone from ICA, who explained that hospitals are connection to long-term care providers as a “short putt” to meet Meaningful Use requirements with as little effort as possible. He also said that some small companies are getting traction with specific services that use Direct platform. He pointed out that HIE vendors often require hospitals send them all HL7 transactions, which the always-secretive hospitals don’t want to do, so hospitals are choosing ICA to filter what is sent out.
I talked for a few minutes with Chris Joyce of Bottomline Technologies, who said that its acquisition of his former company Logical Ink opened up a lot of possibilities because of ECM synergies with Hyland Software.
Thanks to Winthrop Resources, MediQuant, and Arcadia for putting our sign out.
Passport had our sign out and was busy.
ESD and Shareable Ink had our sign out – thanks.
GetWellNetwork displayed our sign and had an effective person engaging on the perimeter.
The eClinicalWorks booth was large and busy. The rep said they’re signing 2-3 ACOs each month. They got a great gift with Farzad Mostashari pushed their population health and primary care agenda when he was with New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene – they are very well positioned.
Medicomp was playing the Quipstar game, which is always fun.
Aprima had our sign out, along with brownies and coffee.
InterSystems had a huge booth.
Also displaying our sign: Innovative Healthcare Solutions, Healthwise, Quest Diagnostics, and Infor.
SSI Group had our sign out along with coffee, drinks, and a cool mobile device charging station.
Aventura hung out their Bonny’s “Fashion Diva” sash.
PC Connection was making great-smelling cinnamon almonds and pecans.
NantHealth had out stuff from the LA Lakers that billionaire founder Patrick Soon-Shiong owns. I tried to figure out what they are selling, but I never did given that all the screens seemed to be lofty PowerPoints and videos of PSS talking rather than anything with specific details about how several dozen recent acquisitions that cost a billion dollars have suddenly transformed into a “Clinical Operating System” as was announced this week. He’s a genius, but the roadside is littered with companies that were long on acquisitive ambition but short on integration.
I was pretty pleased when I saw three sponsor people seemingly caressing their HIStalk sign in their booth, but then I overhead them complaining bitterly that their bosses got invited to HIStalkapalooza and they didn’t. I’ve heard that almost constantly over the last few weeks from people who should intellectually be able to understand that no company can afford to thrown a bash for the probably 3,000 people who would want to attend, so I’ll resist the urge to call the company out and instead I just won’t mention them at all. I should have jumped in and opined that the Super Bowl needs to be played in a million-seat stadium so everyone can come.
Max from Legacy Data Access gave me a good elevator speech on the company’s system retirement services.
The Qlik booth was packed, our sign was out, they had customer presentations, and they gave me a killer chair massage.
My award for best use of a small booth goes to CommVault, which had a great design, a fun game run by Katrine, and fun giveaways (syringe pens and ear buds). I’m sitting here hours later and I still remember the company’s selling points as featured in the game – performance, access, and management. I’m really impressed with how polished and fun their booth was given its modest space and furnishings.
Also displaying our sign: healthfinch, Versus, MBA Health Group, Leidos (they had it front and center in their big booth), ICSA Labs, PatientSafe Solutions, Valence Health, Patientco, Beacon Partners, and Wellsoft.
Divurgent was raising money for a local children’s hospital. You spin the wheel and whatever dollar about you hit is added to their donation check. Nice job.
Greythorn not only had our sign on display, they had placed it in a glittery frame and mounted it to the back wall. They get the “most creative” award.
I talked to Talksoft President Ken Walsh about the company’s phone messaging system.

Dr. Jayne’s HIMSS Report – Monday

If I wasn’t already moving a little slowly, the sheer size of the conference center and exhibit hall has almost done me in. I was a little turned off by the keynote speaker. Although many of his recommendations for transforming healthcare are solid, I would love to see payers help lower costs by doing something about the outrageous bonuses that some of their leaders receive. I understand the bonus is for doing a good job, but we all need to remember that those bonuses are funded through premium dollars in the end. After that, I attended a session on converting the legal medical record. Lots of good information and I’ll write more about that later in the week when I have a chance to go through my notes.

At this point, I’m running a mile a minute trying to make it to all the booths I want to check out and fitting in lots of meetings. Usually convention center food is pretty bad but I did score a grilled portobello mushroom sandwich that very good and even better found a quiet sofa on the fourth floor to eat it. There have been a couple of glitches, though. Some of the entry doors are locked (even the ones they actually want you to use) and there were some audiovisual problems in the sessions I attended. In one presentation, the slides were chopped off on the bottom, so content was missing. I’ve been a presenter at large meetings before and I know there’s a speaker ready room here. HIMSS is the big dance and you need to bring your A-game, so make sure your slides look good before you session starts.

Walking through the crowded lobbies, I remembered the jazz combos they had playing last year in New Orleans. They would have been a good distraction from the ridiculously long coffee lines. At one point there was a crew of concession workers bringing out dividers to rope off the lines from the crowd. I’m surprised with a meeting of this size that they didn’t anticipate the need for that sooner.

I haven’t seen a lot of costumes or scantily clad booth attendants this year, but MEDecision did catch my eye with their morph-suited dancer. One of their other staffers was sporting a knee brace, which she assured us was not due to a dance-related, on-the-job injury.

I spent some time in University Row and the career center area. I was happy to see A Hero’s Welcome (#165) on site to help veterans identify job opportunities. Also in the low numbers was MDI Access (# 279), who not only were nice guys, but were giving out hand sanitizer. Mine keeps getting confiscated by TSA, so they were happy to share a couple.

Inga and I spent some time cruising the hall together and had a few product demos. We make an excellent “good cop / bad cop” team because she asks a lot of patient-centric questions while I hit the clinical and technical areas. Some tips for those of you doing demos, especially if you will have a physician in your audience:

Make sure your clinical scenarios are valid and your sample patients have been cleaned up. Nothing turns me off as much as seeing an inappropriate antibiotic prescription or ridiculous diagnosis code on your patient chart.
Don’t make broad statements about “all physicians think” or how large healthcare organizations run without understanding your audience (especially if it’s a one-on-one demo.) One presenter make several statements that were directly contrary to how my organization works, which made me immediately feel that they would not be a good fit for us.
If you’re going to hand out information sheets, make sure you don’t inadvertently give an attendee your copy that you wrote notes on (although I did enjoy reading them.)

I attended the first round of Quipstar at the Medicomp booth (#2703). If you haven’t seen it, I’d encourage you to attend. Inga is playing Tuesday afternoon and they have a great product, so be sure to stop by.

First time exhibitor CoverMyMeds (#4495) proudly displayed their HIStalk sponsor sign and also offered a quick recharge for those whose phones were dying. After a couple of hours, my feet were dying as well, so it was time to head back to the hotel and get ready for HIStalkapalooza. Unfortunately Inga and I were on a shuttle that got stuck behind an Aramark truck unloading in an alley, so we ended up in a mad rush to get ready.

Dr. J brought his A-game in these shoes. Although he missed the contest, they were my personal favorite in the men’s division. I was happy to see a physician named the winner of the Stiletto category. It just goes to show we can look good in something other than a white coat and surgical clogs.

The ever-dapper Mike Quinto of PatientSafe Solutions (#3983) sported the “I Could Be Dr. Jayne,” sash, which ended up being worn by several different gentlemen throughout the evening. HIStalkapalooza was rocking, the band was excellent, the drinks were tasty, and I thought the night couldn’t get any better until my not-so-secret crush Dr. Farzad Mostashari showed up. I was able to get a nice pic of the two of us, which really made my day. Thanks to everyone who came out and especially to our sponsors for making the night possible.

From HIMSS 2/25/14 – Inga’s Update

February 25, 2014 News 4 Comments

From Amanda: “Re: HIStalkapalooza. I had SO. MUCH. FUN. Thank you for everything! Seriously – best time ever.”

From Erin: “Re: HIStalkapalooza. This is the best HIStalkapalooza! Thank you for allowing us to be a part of it!!”

From Lisa: “HIStalkapalooza. Many thanks to you and the HIStak team for a wonderful party. Everyone I spoke with was having a blast.”

Those are a few of the early HIStalkapalooza reviews. Based on the flood of Tweets I read on the ride back to my hotel last night, a whole of people had a great time.

Before I share more on HIStalkapalooza, I’ll mention a few other details from my day Monday.

Fortunately my hotel is in walking distance to the convention center. I was amused by this gentleman standing at a crosswalk handing out one of the free newspapers. Even more amused that so many people actually take one (do they read it?)

I walked in a bit late for the opening keynote by Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini, who provided his vision for transforming healthcare. Among his recommendations: providing patients with digital tools to help manage their own health, increasing emphasis on wellness, and better managing chronic disease.

Outside the auditorium, by the way, HIMSS had a monitor with a feed of the keynote. Unfortunately 15 feet away was a HIMSS TV monitor, which meant that unless you were in directly in front of the keynote monitor you couldn’t hear the presentation. Hope someone fixes that.

I next headed to the ONC Town Hall. I was amused that Karen DeSalvo jumped right into the session without first introducing herself. All the ONC big-wigs were on the panel and after brief introductions the session proceeded in a Q&A format. Questions ranged from concerns about the exclusion of certain groups from the MU incentive program (pharmacists, for example) to possible requirements for Stage 3. The panelists did a commendable job of taking turns replying to the different questions and comments.

There’s always a crowd standing outside the exhibit hall doors right before it opens and this year was no different. The first thing I did was head to the athenahealth booth and took a look at their new athenaCoordinator Enterprise, which provides hospitals with tools and services to coordinate care. The differentiator from other care coordination platforms is that athena also provides much of the behind-the-scenes services, such as contacting patients in need of visits and checking prior authorizations. I think there will definitely be health systems interested in an option to out-source these tasks, though I can also see many that would fear giving up that much control to a third party. The product looked quite intuitive and easy to navigate. The athena folks also gave me a peak at the new user interface they are working on. I remember first seeing athenaClinicals about five years ago and was not impressed with how the product looked visually. However, I think they are on the right track with the changes that provide a much more current and sort of Facebook-like look and feel.

A quick shout-out to Maria at athenahealth. Her shoe wardrobe never fails to impress me.

I then did a bit of cruising around the exhibit hall and came across the handsome Dr. Travis who is hanging out with his new company Catalyze at the Startup Showcase. The Startup Showcase was actually hopping, to the point that the everyone looked uncomfortably crowded. Vendors with kiosks in the center were at a disadvantage because you pretty much would need to elbow your way in to chat with anyone. Guess that’s a better problem than twiddling your thumbs because of a lack of traffic.

Vendors participating in the showcase also have an opportunity to provide 30 minute company and product overviews. I predict the whole showcase will be much bigger next year, based on its early popularity.

I stopped by the Siemens booth just long enough to see this big game board. I didn’t stay long enough to learn what they were talking about but the way the panel tiles were displayed was pretty fascinating. I am going back today.

I spinned the wheel at Actuate’s booth and am now in the running for a Fitbit force. I am not 100 percent sure what a Fitbit will do for me but I am sure I need one.

If you are going to ask folks to spin your wheel, I think you need to offer prizes that are worth the effort. Dr. Jayne and I kind of giggled at these folks that were offering not-so-amazing trinkets like earplugs, pens, and TSA zip lock bags. We liked her shoes, though.

I don’t recall seeing this guy before at Epic’s booth. I plan to tour the art a big more closely today.

I was intrigued by SAP’s bus, which they had in addition to a regular booth. Inside it was set up like a booth with demo stations. Kind of cool.

I ran into two HIT superstars on the floor. That’s Dr. Mostashari being photo-bombed by Dr. Lyle Berkowitz. It’s my favorite picture of the day.

My first stop this morning will be to MedData which is offering freshly baked scones.

I headed back to my hotel before the exhibit hall closed so I could get spiffed up for HIStalkapalooza. Many thanks to Imprivata, VMware, Greenway, Nordic Consulting, Hill-Rom, and RFIDeas for sponsoring.

The Inga-Tini – Mr. HIStalk was my drink of choice for the evening, though some of the other options looked quite fun as well.

I thought Lorre looked stunning at the official HIStalk ambassador. If she weren’t hosting I am sure she could have won both HIStalk Queen and the Inga Loves My Shoes contests.

Speaking of the contests, I’d love to know the names of all the winners, so if you were sashed, please drop me a note and/or a photo.

Jennifer Lyle of STS Healthcare did an amazing job as the official emcee for the evening. She was beautiful and funny, as always.

I loved the little decorating touches, including the HIStalkapalooza lamp shades. I think I need one.

I absolutely loved the band. I wasn’t the only one since when I left at 11 there was still quite a crowd that appeared they’d keep dancing until they were kicked out. Who knew HIT had so many great dancers? Ross and Kym Martin, Ed and Julie Marx, and Matthew Holt and any and everyone he could get to dance with him were all non-stop on the dance floor.

Our esteemed shoe and fashion judges, all of whom could have been winners themselves.

I almost missed the whole back room area which had a photo booth and Dance Head recordings. Great keepsakes and hilariously funny.

As a whole, I was only disappointed about a couple of things. First, it was difficult to hear the quite funny Missy Krasner and Ross Martin as they presented the HISsie awards. I also wish more folks could not have been added to the guest list. I hope we have the opportunity to change these imperfections next year.

I actually have so much more to share but I must get moving to the convention center. On today’s agenda: a couple of meetings, possibly the #HITsm Tweet-up, and at 3:00 p.m. I’ll be playing Quipstar at the Medicomp booth (2703). Please come cheer me on as I play for charity.

Email Inga.

From HIMSS 2/24/14

February 24, 2014 News 8 Comments

It’s late and I’m tired after a long day and then HIStalkapalooza, plus I have to get up early in the morning, so I will keep it short and catch up later.

Note to self: don’t drive the rental car to the convention center to drop off stuff for the booth. I got stuck in traffic mid-morning, the parking lot lots were all full, and I was happy to finally get a spot in the Rosen Plaza deck maybe 30-40 minutes later. Thanks to our friends from Nuance who helped bring in some of our heavy items. The hall is not the least bit cooperative about helping with carts since it’s all about the Freeman trade show monopoly and you have to pay them for anything you need, so we didn’t have any easy way to bring in heavy boxes of mugs.

The only session I attended today was one that was supposed to feature several politicians talking about federal legislation. It turned to be their staffers instead. They were unintelligible for the first several minutes because of an audio problem, correction of which made it even less interesting, so I was out of there within ten minutes.

The exhibit area is, of course, sprawling. I mostly just cruised around today getting the lay of the land, tweeting out interesting giveaways and food (MedData’s passionfruit scones were easily the best). I don’t know that I saw any particular trends other than an uptick in privacy and security offerings and of course more vendors touting analytics.

Our little booth got respectable traffic as Lorre hosted her celebrity guests, applied HIStalk temporary tattoos, gave away buttons, and denied that she is either Inga or Mr. H. We didn’t get the 2013 headlines mugs into the hall because of the traffic problems I mentioned, but she will have some on hand Tuesday. Several people asked for a mug and one person said his was stolen, which I suppose is a good problem for us to have.

I was frustrated at the HIMSS people over CEUs. Individual sessions may offer CEUs for physicians, nurses, pharmacists, etc. If you’re a doctor, let’s say, you then need a list of sessions that offer your CEUs. You won’t get it from HIMSS, apparently: the lady in the CE booth says HIMSS has a 20-page PDF print of an Excel worksheet that lists all the sessions and which CEUs if offers, but it’s not available to attendees to print anywhere in the hall (and darn it, this time I didn’t pack my laser printer). This is one of the dumber things I’ve seen HIMSS do, but it’s certainly not unprecedented since they always seem to struggle with the simple idea of providing some indication of which sessions are approved for which CEUs.

The VA will implement the cloud-based version of Nuance’s Dragon Medical.

Here’s an interesting Epic booth graphic showing how handily they beat their competitors, also pointing out that they’ve never lost a hospital EHR customer.

HIStalkapalooza

Thanks to the event sponsors: Imprivata, RFIDeas, Greenway, Nordic, VMware, and Hill-Rom. I thought the venue, food, and music were excellent. Also thanks to the several folks who presented on stage, including opening music by Ross Martin, MD, Jennifer Lyle as our emcee, and Ross and Missy Krasner as HISsies presenters.

I noticed one error in the final HISsies award as presented on stage. Farzad Mostashari won the “Industry Figure of the Year” award (as well as the “When ___ Talks, People List” one earlier) and the slide was correct, but it was read as though Judy Faulkner was the winner. She won in 2013, not this year. Also accepting their awards in person were Ed Marx, SVP/CIO, Texas Health Resources (best provider IT executive) and Carl Dvorak, President, Epic (HIStalk Lifetime Achievement Award).

Imprivata had still and video photographers on hand and I’ll have high quality images as soon as tomorrow, but here are a few snapshots until then. I’m sure I’ll also have reports from Inga and Dr. Jayne tomorrow. You can also give me some crowdsourcing backup by adding your comments about HIStalkapalooza, the conference, and anything else of broad interest.

From HIMSS 2/24/14 – Inga’s Update

February 24, 2014 News Comments Off

I arrived in Orlando late Saturday afternoon and was able to hop right into a cab – unlike folks who arrived Sunday afternoon. A friend sent me this picture and told me he waiting more than 20 minutes for a ride, but I also heard stories of 40 minute waits.

I was up early Sunday morning and walked through the fog to the convention center. About the only people I ran into along the way were joggers and jet-lagged Europeans. Once I arrived there were a few different hubs of activities, primarily from the pre-conference sessions.

It’s too bad that all these Sunday sessions come with an additional price tag of about $300 because I understand that most are quite good. I did sneak into the Innovation session long enough to hear Dr. Lyle Berkowitz’s presentation, which was informative, nicely paced, and full of interesting anecdotes from the “real world.”

The other hub of activity was in the exhibit hall. I am always amazed at the transformation that occurs in a relatively short amount of time. Here’s how it look about 24 hours before the doors opened.

This year a friend hooked me up with a “back-stage pass,” aka an exhibitor badge so I could actually walk amidst the chaos. Looks like Judy will be back in front of the fireplace again this year.

Alere gets my early vote for coolest booth. This picture doesn’t do it justice but it basically looks like a tunnel. As the worker vacuuming the carpet in the next booth commented, you can’t help but want to walk through it.

CareTech’s booth was also unique. I like the glass walls surrounding it but I wonder if the design will detract people from actually walking in.

This sad little space is where you will find Lorre holding court on behalf of HIStalk this week. Be sure to pick up your HIStalk swag and tell Lorre hello at booth 1995.

Here’s Medicomp’s booth, which was getting prepped for its Quipstar game show. I’ll be playing Tuesday at 3:00 p.m. so please come cheer me on.

Apparently I am not the only person who loves to check out the transformation in progress. That’s HIMSS executive director Steve Lieber taking in the details at one of the learning galleries.

The Startup Showcase looks like it will be a good stop. I look forward to investigating a few of the 44 vendors that have kiosks.

I met up with my BFF Dr. Jayne at the opening reception (no, that is not her.) Mr. H gave the event a big thumbs down, but Dr. Jayne managed to have some fun. Okay, there was minimal decoration or signage or entertainment (no live band this year) but we liked our free drinks and the opportunity to people watch.

There were a few “party pits” with comfy red couches which offered a nice alternative to high top tables.

Yep, some folks brought their fashion A game to the party.

The Voalte guys were making their own fashion statement. I love that they always come decked out in the signature pink pants, which has to be a great conversation starter.

My agenda for Monday: keynote session, ONC Town Hall, a walk through the Interoperability Showcase, the exhibit hall, and some big party tonight. Oh yeah, HIStalkapalooza. Can’t wait.

Email Inga.

From HIMSS 2/23/14

February 23, 2014 News 7 Comments

For those planning to visit the HIStalk booth (#1995), here’s a celebrity addition: Vince Ciotti will be on hand Tuesday and Wednesday from 11 until noon.

3M announces that it will acquire analytics and BI vendor Treo Solutions.

Vonlay is doing some cool social media coverage of the HIMSS conference as they always do. Check out their page.

CVS MinuteClinic announces that it will replace its homegrown EMR with Epic.

The HIMSS opening reception was a disaster in my book, rivaling the Chicago one as the worst one ever. HIMSS decided for some reason to hold it in the Hyatt Regency across the street rather than the convention center itself as has always been the case, and International Drive was full of people who were lost since that hotel complex is almost as big as the convention center. Someone told me that HIMSS screwed up and had some of the directional signs reversed, which probably didn’t help, and I saw one HIMSS person running around with “follow me” hand-held signs to try to herd the puzzled crowds through the bowels of the endless building to its southernmost point that seemed like a mile from the main entrance. The room was the usual cheerless airplane hangar, so the impetus to move from the convention center is unclear. HIMSS went back to the much-hated drink ticket concept that was a welcome deletion a few years back, but it didn’t really matter since the bar lines were at least 40 people deep at every location and the incessant din that could have been a band, recorded music, or a plane passing overheard made it impossible to think, much less hold even a shouted conversation. I lasted about two minutes and left without eating, drinking, or talking to anyone since it was about as pleasant as as dental surgery. There’s a lot to dislike about how HIMSS conducts business, but clearly botched conference logistics isn’t usually one of them.

We had a nice reception for HIStalk sponsors Sunday evening. Thanks to the really cool people who actually showed up, which unfortunately was only about 40 percent of the total who RSPV’ed. Because of the thousands of dollars I spent to guarantee the 60 percent who were no-shows whom I suspect were registered by their clueless admins, I’m pretty sure I won’t do another one, especially thinking of the time and effort required to manage all of their never-ending requests to bring extra people who joined them in going elsewhere. Thanks to Dr. Gregg and Lorre for running the event. Those who attended had nothing but compliments about it.

We gave out some really cool mugs with healthcare IT news headlines from the past year at the sponsor event, and because of all the folks who blew it off, we’ll have some to give away at our booth. Stop by and Lorre will hook you up. One of our longest-tenured sponsors proclaimed the mugs as, “The best favors I have ever seen.”

Monday will be the usual crazy day with the opening keynote (an insurance vendor CEO, which makes no sense), the exhibits, and the rare educational sessions that are actually worth discussing. Inga, Dr. Jayne, and I will use Lorre’s Twitter throughout the day to tell you about what we’re seeing out on the show floor. Then we move right into HIStalkapalooza, which always generates discussion and hopefully some fun pictures and videos.

Dr. Gregg has a brilliant booth idea that he describes as follows.

HIStalk Reverse Giveaway

Laaaaadies aaaand gentlemen! Announcing, the HIMSS 2014 HIStalk Reverse Giveaway!!!

You don’t want to miss this one. Stop by the HIStalk booth out in the hinterlands of the HIMSS 2014 Exhibit Hall on Monday, February 24th, from 1:00 to 2:00 PM and be part of our completely unique Reverse Giveaway. (A first for ANY exhibitor at HIMSS… we’re pretty sure.) Dr. Gregg will be there at that time and has promised to accept any and all gifts you want to unload.

Reverse Giveaway items include:

Tokens
Tchotchkes
Swag
Bling
Freebies
Trinkets
Baubles
Doodads
Lagniappe
And any general largesse or pure graft (larger denominations preferable.)

Dump that heavy load you’re carting around and make room for more. Enjoy the show (and hope to see you at HIStalkapalooza!)

From the trenches…

"If it wasn’t for graft, you’d get a very low type of people in politics.” – Preston Sturges

Dr. Jayne’s HIMSS Report – Sunday

I’m moving a little slower at HIMSS this year thanks to the half marathon on Sunday morning. It was muggy, hot, and crowded, so on some level was good preparation for the upcoming week of slogging through the exhibit hall, trying to find my way to sessions, and looking for the next great thing in healthcare IT.

The opening reception seemed a little more upscale this year. Inga and I didn’t see as many people in vendor logo polo shirts, but we did see lots of sassy shoes and some pretty high heels. It’s only day one, though, so I’m looking for those heels to get shorter as the week progresses if they’re not retired after the “Inga Loves My Shoes” contest Monday night.

Registration was a breeze and I spent most of the day catching up with old friends that I only see at HIMSS. One good friend works in the public sector and was happy to report that not a lot has been changing in her world. Hospitals in her area are largely focused on meeting Meaningful Use Stage 2 requirements and preparing for ICD-10 with little else on the horizon due to budget and staffing constraints.

I managed to catch up with both Dr. Gregg and Dr. Lyle which was a nice surprise since I know how busy everyone’s schedules are. I also had a chance to expand my network with introductions to other CMIO types. At least two of them are in the vendor space, so I’m looking forward to getting their take on events from the vendors’ chairs. Inga and I also hit a couple of social events – the Divurgent-SummHIT party at the Funky Monkey was definitely hopping.

Last but not least, I heard one juicy rumor although I’m sworn to secrecy until it’s announced later this week. I’ve got a packed day of sessions and meetings tomorrow and a couple of calls to deal with issues back home so I’m turning in early. Looking forward to HIStalkapalooza and definitely need the rest!

News 2/21/14

February 20, 2014 News 6 Comments

Top News

Allscripts announces Q4 results: revenue flat, adjusted EPS $0.08 vs. $0.16, beating revenue expectations and meeting consensus earnings estimates.

Reader Comments

From Dr. Detroit: “Re: misspelling HIMSS. Once a vendor does it in four separate emails as this one did, they should be granted credentials as a certified ‘HIPPA’ consultant.”

From Stool Pigeon: “Re: fecal transplants. You’ve grossed out readers before, so you might find this interesting.” MIT launches OpenBiome, the country’s first stool bank, to collect samples to treat patients with C. difficile intestinal infections. At least it eliminates that awkward moment of asking friends and loved ones to sit and be counted.

From Pathology MD: “Re: HIStalk pins. I am a loyal reader but can’t get to Orlando. I collect pins and really would like the 10-year HIStalk pin or both for my collection. I’ll pay.” Lorre and I were touched by this request for this request for the inexpensive giveaway that was her idea, so she’s sending the pins to this reader as well as another with a similar request (obviously I’m happy to pay the postage.) We have a limited number of these to give away in Booth #1995, so maybe they really will become collectible.

From Dr. J: “Re: men’s wear for HIStalkapalooza. My $99 boots arrived just yesterday.” I love these, especially because they have a big toe box unlike some of those pointed boots that surely cause digital damage. They are from Dude’s Boutique Online, which I see has a really cool crocodile and ostrich boot in cognac for only $198 on sale as long as you don’t mind leaving a trail of dead animals behind your purposeful stride. I’ve asked Dr. J which ones these are because I need a pair to make me look more rock and roll.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Netsmart of Overland Park, KS. Netsmart is the leader in coordinating care among behavioral health, physical health, and acute care hospitals. That’s important because severely mentally ill people die 25 years younger than the rest of the population and drive up Medicaid costs and other loss ratios. Netsmart links primary care initiatives with broader, coordinated care for the body and mind to reduce readmissions. Netsmart CareFabric offers clinical solutions (EHR, eRX, CPOE, consumer engagement, analytics, care coordination) and business solutions (PM, client banking, RCM.) The company’s products are used by 23,000 clients, including 450,000 providers and 40 state systems, to improve the quality of life for 25 million people each day. Its clients include mental health and addiction services agencies, health homes, psychiatric hospitals, private and group mental health practices, public health departments, social services and child and family health agencies, managed care organizations, and vital records offices. Thanks to Netsmart for supporting HIStalk.

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Premier, Inc. of Charlotte, NC. Premier (NASDAQ:PINC) is a leading healthcare improvement company that unites 2,900 hospitals and 100,000 other providers to transform healthcare. Premier enables better care and outcomes at a lower cost through integrated data and analytics, collaboratives, supply chain solutions, and advisory and other services. A recent offering is PremierConnect Enterprise, a cloud-based data warehousing and business intelligence offering that combines trusted information, collaborative development, and access to expertise to enable information-driven health systems. Premier’s database is among the industry’s most comprehensive with data covering one in four hospital discharges, 2.5 million real-time clinical transactions each day, and $40 billion in annual purchasing information, all used to connect, share best practices, solve important problems, and build new technologies. The company has been named among the world’s most ethical companies for six years in a row. Thanks to Premier for supporting HIStalk.

Ion IT Group is supporting HIStalk as a Platinum Sponsor. The Carthage, TN-based company offers strategic services, consulting, and outsourcing. Specific services include managed IT, security and risk assessment, business solutions, and infrastructure. It also offers the Vital Connect remote vital sign monitoring solution (weight, blood pressure, temperature, pulse oximeter, and blood glucose) that works via a mobile phone data collector. It also provides HealthX secure messaging based on the Direct standard, which enables the exchange of EHR reports, documents, images, and structured data, and Evault services for cloud-based backup, recovery, and end point protection. Thanks to Ion IT Group for supporting HIStalk.

A few highlights from HIStalk Practice this week include: proposed Stage 3 MU objectives that may impact EPs. The Colorado Health Institutes suggests that the use of technology may help mitigate a looming shortage of PCPs. EClinicalWorks CEO Girish Navani predicts it will only be a matter of time before all providers convert to EHRs. Results from teledermatology assessments are found to be nearly identical to results of in-person assessments. Dr. Gregg provides a thorough list of all the JUNK you’ll need to lug with you to HIMSS. Thanks for reading.

On HIStalk Connect: Industry insiders suggest that the Apple iWatch will predict heart attacks in time for wearers to seek help. Surgeons at Washington University in St. Louis test a pair of smartglasses that highlight hard-to-spot cancer tumors during surgery. Partners HealthCare’s bid to acquire South Shore Hospital is rejected because the Massachusetts Health Policy Committee believes that population health-based cost savings are exaggerated. Dr. Travis dives into the world of Big Data in an article that focuses on the patient and the various tools available for capturing and sharing patient-centric data.

HIMSS has been emailing a Groupon-like but even lamer “HIMSS14 Conference Deal” that purports to offer the recipient something of value for opening it. Most of those emails haven’t offered anything at all, only a pitch for a company buying the ad. That doesn’t sound like a a deal for anyone except HIMSS. Those with memories going back more than a couple of years may recall the gentle era when HIMSS didn’t overtly flog the wares of its members to its other members with spam that promotes webinars, white papers, and other promotional stuff that has nothing to do with HIMSS except they’re getting paid to talk it up with little evidence of objectivity or restraint.

I received this by email today, just in case you wonder where all your post-HIMSS conference junk email and cold calls come from. I don’t recall having an opt-out option when registering for the conference as an attendee.

You may be rocking your HIStalk temporary tattoo after stopping by our booth, but you can’t match Lorre, who will let her fingers do the HIStalking.

HIMSS guides for your last-minute perusal: Exhibitor Giveaways, Sponsor Activities, Sponsor Meet-Ups

HIStalkapalooza Timeline

The event will be memorable, with many surprises that I won’t spoil now. The roster of attendees, which unfortunately couldn’t include everyone who wanted to be there, is spectacular and nicely diverse, with a huge number of hospital people enjoying amazing food, lots of drinks including an all-new IngaTini developed by the lady herself, and party music until late. Don’t even think about bailing out for some other event if you have an invitation because you’ll be sorry Tuesday morning when you hear everyone talking about it.

Transportation to and from the Convention Center will start at 6:30 p.m. on Monday.
At the House of Blues, we’ll have a red carpet greeting, photographers, and interviews by Jennifer Lyle. Your photos will be available to pick up on your way out as a souvenir.
The band (Party on the Moon) will play a set starting at 7:00 as the appetizer buffet and bars are open.
The dinner buffet will start at 7:30.
We’ll open the stage part of the evening at 7:45 with the music of Ross Martin, MD of AMIA and The American College of Medical Informatimusicology and a welcome from Jennifer, Lorre, and the folks from Imprivata.
The “Inga Loves My Shoes” contest with Lisa Reichard and Ed Marx will start at just after 8:00.
We’ll crown the HIStalk King and Queen next with Dave Lareau, Bonny Roberts, and Jennifer Dennard.
Then come the HISsies awards, with Ross Martin and Missy Krasner of Box.
We’ll wrap up the stage part of the evening by around 8:45 and the band will play until 11:00.

HIMSS Conference Social Events

Verisk Health is conducting a service project supporting the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida on Tuesday at 6:00 p.m. at the Rosen Centre Hotel. Participants can spend an hour helping to assemble 4,000 food packs for children who do not have access to school cafeterias during the weekend.

ICSA Labs will host an evening of cocktails and hors d’oeuvres from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Tuesday at the Hyatt Regency. RSVP here.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Merge Healthcare announces Q4 results: revenue down 17.2 percent, EPS $0.00 vs. -$0.19, missing expectations on both. Shares are up 15 percent in after-hours trading.

Vocera reports Q4 results: revenue up 6 percent, adjusted EPS $0.03 vs. $0.03, beating earnings expectations. The company also announces that two New York luxury hotels are implementing its solution for employee communication.

Healthwise and the Informed Medical Decisions Foundation announce their pending merger.

UnitedHealth’s Optum division acquires a majority stake in Audax Health, the developer of a consumer health management platform that was founded four years ago by the now 24-year-old Grant Verstandig.

ISirona retires its name following its January 2014 acquisition by NantHealth.

Sales

Saint Luke’s Health System (MO) selects Solarity technology from EDCO Health Information Solutions for scanning medical records at the point of care and remote indexing services.

Sanford Health (ND) will spend $30 million to implement Intelligent InSites RTLS at several locations.

People

Farzad Mostashari, MD joins the board of patient engagement company Get Real Health.

CureMD announces the death of President, CEO, and Co-Founder Kamal Hashmat, MD following a “tragic accident.” Co-founder and CIO Bilal Hashmat will replace him.

The Institute of Medicine names Duke University Health System President and CEO Victor Dzau, MD to a six-year term as president. He will replace Harvey Fineberg, MD, PhD, who has held the role for 12 years.

Bill Spooner, SVP/CIO of Sharp HealthCare, announces his retirement after 32 years in the position. He will be replaced by Ken Lawonn, formerly SVP of strategy and technology at Alegent Health.

Announcements and Implementations

Sixteen health information organizations throughout the Midwest and Rocky Mountain states form The Mid-States Consortium of Health Information Organizations, with the goal of advocating for health information exchange across states and in rural areas.

HIMSS Analytics introduces the Continuity of Care Maturity Model to address the importance of information exchange, care coordination, interoperability, patient engagement, and analytics.

The president of Toshiba says the company will spend billions of dollars on mergers and acquisitions to boost annual sales in its healthcare division to $9.78 billion by March 2018.

Kaiser Permanente Colorado, the largest not-for-profit health plan in Colorado, will join the CORHIO HIE.

Deloitte Consulting launches ConvergeHEALTH by Deloitte, a business unit that supports data-driven transformation of healthcare using analytics, consulting, and collaboration with leading healthcare organizations.

A group of Mayo Clinic physicians launches Ambient Clinical Analytics and raises $1.1 million in funding on top of its original $16 million CMS grant. It will offer Mayo-developed mobile device tools such as surveillance alerts and an analytics-powered EMR viewer. It will be debuted at the HIMSS conference next week.

Government and Politics

CMS announces that it will offer end-to-end ICD-10 testing in summer 2014 to a small group of providers.

ONC selects 15 provider and administrator champions for its HIT Fellows Program.

Other

Carilion Clinic identifies 8,500 patients at risk for developing heart failure using NLP and predictive analytics technology from IBM to analyze clinical data from the health system’s Epic EMR.

A HIMSS survey finds that 19 percent of health systems and physician practices experienced a security breach in the last 12 months and 12 percent had at least one reported case of medical identity theft.

Nashville attorney Michael Dagley, who represented Trinity Medical Center (ND) in its $106 million settlement with Cerner over its ProFit accounting software, indirectly accuses the company of over-promising on ProFit’s capabilities to earn the clinical systems business. He also warns hospitals that limitation-of-liability clauses may prevent hospitals from suing their vendor, saying, “Vendors will have in their contract, almost always, a limitation of liability. Which means you cannot sue us for any consequence of the software being defective, you can only get your money back for the software. The providers, a lot of times, do not understand the significance of that agreement. So now, they’re three months into it, they’ve bought the software, and they’ve lost $100 million. They pull up the contract, and the contract says you can get your money back for the software and they’re going, ‘That’s $300,000, but I lost $100 million!’” He suggests consulting KLAS rankings and talking to clients.

A study finds that few consumers pay attention to online physician reviews even though they’ve gained popularity.

The outgoing CFO of Nevada Regional Medical Center (NV), which is laying off employees and losing $575,000 each month, says, “The biggest expense we’ve had is Cerner’s fees.” Cerner agreed to lower its payments by $31,000 per month for six months and then add $2,000 per month for the remainder of the eight-year agreement (they get paid the same total amount, in other words.)

The local paper says that Epic may reach 10,000 employees by 2018, with much of the growth due to international expansion that will be run from Verona. The article lists “Epic’s 12 Principles” that it says are posted all over its campus:

1. Do not go public.
2. Do not be acquired.
3. Expectations = reality.
4. Keep commitments.
5. Be frugal.
6. Have standards. Don’t do deals.
7. Create innovative and helpful products.
8. Have fun with customers.
9. Follow processes. Find root causes. Fix processes.
10. Don’t take on debt, no matter how good the deal.
11. Focus on competency. Do not tolerate mediocrity.
12. Teach philosophy and culture

St. Vincent Hospital (IN) notifies 1,100 patients that their medical information is in unknown hands after a laptop attached to an EEG machine is stolen. The hospital issues the standard boilerplate in staying it has no reason to think the information is at risk, that it will offer free credit monitoring, and that it just might take a look at encrypting devices one of these days.

All-digital Banner Health (AZ) was all-paper Banner Health Wednesday as its Cerner systems go offline, forcing its hospitals in Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada to go to downtime procedures. The systems came back up Thursday afternoon.

I bragged on buying a cell phone charger to use at HIMSS so I can recharge my iPhone without tethering to a wall jack, but I should have waited: Jay at Lifepoint Informatics saw the mention and said the company will be giving them away at the HIMSS conference. Jay not only says the company is a proud HIStalk sponsor, he even posed the charger with their HIStalk booth sign from last year to demonstrate it. I would get to Booth #6069 early since this is a really nice giveaway.

If you are headed to Orlando, travel safely and I will see you there. If not, thanks for holding down the fort and feel free to take long lunches and leave early because your boss isn’t really working that hard at the HIMSS conference.

Sponsor Updates

Caristix interfaces the Mirth Connect interface engine to iNTERFACEWARE’s Iguana engine to provide point-and-click migration from one interface to another.
ScImage announces availability of a universal MPI translator for importing diagnostic images from disparate systems into its PICOM365 system.
IMDsoft makes MetaVision AIMS available for anesthesia practices independent of any facility infrastructure and as a subscription-based license.
DataMotion enables 16 EHR systems to achieve 2014 ONC-ACB certification using its DataMotion Direct secure messaging service as “relied upon software.”
Ricoh Americas partners with InterSystems to develop new interoperable healthcare solutions, including the Ricoh Healthcare Camera, which allows clinicians to scan barcodes from a patient’s wristband and add information on the injury before taking pictures.
Surescripts certifies First Databank’s FDB MedsTracker for prescription routing in adherence with the NCPDP SCRIPT 10.7 standard required for MU Stage 2 certification.
Coastal Healthcare Consulting launches Wave, an implementation solution that encompasses project management, workflow analysis, design, building, testing, training, and go-live support.
EClinicalWorks deploys Array Network’s APV10650 appliances to consolidate its cloud-based application infrastructure into a smaller number of larger data centers.
Welch Allyn will use Accelero Connect from Iatric Systems to automate the capture and recording of vital signs into EHRs.
Bon Secours Medical Group (VA) VP/Chief Clinical Officer Robert Fortin discusses his organization’s move into population health management in an iHT2 article.
Apelon and Clinical Architecture partner to offer Clinical Architecture’s Symedical with Apelon’s professional services
Covisint and actuarial Milliman Inc. introduce the Covisint Predictive Analytics solution.
Liaison Healthcare completes interoperability testing of its Master Person Index and Patient Document Repository offerings with 70 test partners during last month’s 2014 IHE North American Connectathon.
University Medical Associates (OH) joins the Guideline Advantage quality improvement program, which leverages Forward Health Group’s PopulationManager toolset.
Orion Health reports that its statewide HIE customer count grew 40 percent in 2013 and its HIE customers increased by 200 percent. The company will open a development center in Scottsdale, AZ later this year.

Sponsor Speaking Engagements at HIMSS

Brian Levy, MD, VP of global clinical operations for Wolters Kluwer Health’s Health Language division, will discuss leveraging analytics to capture the benefits of ICD-10 on Wednesday at 11:30 a.m.
Vital Images will feature VitreaView in a live case study at the Interoperability Showcase on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m.
Medhost will demonstrate YourCareCommunity in the HIMSS Interoperability Showcase (Hall F).
Ryan Witt, global manager director for Juniper Networks, will moderate a lunch and learn session Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. that will discussing managing network requirements to support new technologies.
Intelligent InSites customer Veterans Health Administration will share best practices in implementing RTLS in a Sunday pre-conference symposium.

HIMSS14 in Review
By Vince Ciotti

Since I spend my winters right here in sunny Florida next to Orlando, I thought I’d give readers of HIStalk the advantage of reading the very first report on HIMSS 2014.

The crowd was huge, way up from last year’s paltry 35,000 to about 40,000 this year. At an average of $800 each for registration fees, that gives HIMSS over $30 million. Maybe next year they’ll lower their annual membership dues.
Weather was near perfect, although a little on the warm side at about 80 degrees. Interestingly, that was the same temperature inside the hall as well as outside due to the large volume of hot air from all the demo dudes & dollies.
There were almost 200 booths from vendors new to HIMSS this year, with 195 of them featuring “Big Data” analysis and reporting. Conspicuously absent were major players NSA and Target.
Vendor booths were absolutely stunning. If you add the out-of-pocket costs for their thousands of marketing mavens and sales reps plus the fees charged for booths and floor space, it was possibly the single largest line item in healthcare costs outside of EHRs.
The multitudes of speakers had truly impressive PowerPoint files: amazing builds, animation, and other visual effects that must have taken many months of hard work away from providing user service & support.
1,275 vendor booths featured banners that claimed they were “Best in KLAS” for one category or another. Indeed, KLAS’s own booth claimed they were rated as the very best source for evaluation of vendors’ true capabilities by… guess who?
It was hard to count the many new products and releases that were announced, every one of them far better than what clients are suffering with today. All of it was offered at special low pricing for HIMSS attendees who signed up early.
417 consulting firms announced new divisions that specialized in Epic implementations, every one of them manned by senior employees (some actually in their 30s) with vast experience of more than one year each.
Keynote speaker Hillary Clinton surprised everyone when she praised the Affordable Care Act. Her only complaint was that it didn’t go far enough, and whoever becomes the next president really needs to try to improve healthcare even more.

Stay tuned next month — I may have an early report on HIMSS15 in Chicago.

Vince Ciotti is a principal with H.I.S. Professionals LLC.

Ten Tips for Making the Most of Your HIMSS14 Experience
By Jodi Amendola

Build your plan around the trends or issues you’re most interested in, then mark the booth and educational sessions that address them.
Include networking events in your plans.
Building in scheduled breaks throughout the day. Real ones, not check-your-email breaks. Many vendors offer space to sit along with free refreshments.
HIMSS14 is not the place to break in a new pair of shoes or to sacrifice comfort for fashion.
Take advantage of apps such as the HIMSS14 Mobile Guide; a business card scanner; a personal health monitor; a friend locator; a restaurant and entertainment locator; and apps that let you confirm travel plans for the trip home.
Re-invigorate a long-distance relationship over a cup of coffee or a meal and mine your contacts to reconnect with or get to know other colleagues better.
Put away the smartphone. Considering how much time and money you’ve invested in being here at the best health IT conference of the year, that email can wait.
Connect with the speakers by asking questions during the Q&A, introducing yourself, or connecting via Twitter or LinkedIn.
Put a star in the margin of your notes (electronic or handwritten) next to any action item, then distill every session into one or two key takeaways.
Share video or audio files of the sessions you found especially valuable with your colleagues and friends or give a talk about something you learned at your next staff meeting.

Jodi Amendola is CEO of Amendola Communications.

EPtalk by Dr. Jayne

I’ll keep it this post relatively short because I am completely overwhelmed by HIMSS preparations and a major calamity at the office. Let’s just say that nothing can prepare you for the chaos that ensues when a provider is arrested in the middle of the work week.

Since it was a solo provider and we had to close the office, I seriously toyed with the idea of using our patient portal to blast a message to the impacted patients, but the risk management department shot me down. I guess it’s better for the patients to sit and wonder what will happen with their care, at least in their eyes.

Inga and I have been hard at work finalizing our social plans for Orlando. We had a reader ask if I would be making a scheduled appearance at the HIStalk booth (#1995 for those of you playing at home.) Although I will definitely be stopping by to pick up my HIStalk tattoo and a Smokin’ Doc pin, I’ll be doing it anonymously. Feel free to swing by, however, and see if there are any sassy blonde physicians lurking about. I’ll probably be there to support some of our scheduled celebrity appearances. I’ll also be at the Medicomp Systems booth (#2703) to support some of my BFFs as they compete in Quipstar.

Most of the events we’re attending are those whose hosts generously agreed to allow us to invite all our readers. Inga and I also have a penchant for hitting the in-booth happy hours, so look for us during the cocktail hour in the exhibit hall as well. I’m trying to fit in some educational sessions in between cruising the booths and taking pictures of ridiculous costumes that the hired booth attendants are forced to wear. Be sure to have your cameras at the ready and feed us pictures of hot shoes, cool giveaways, and the wildest outfits you see.

We’ve also been hard at work identifying the recipients of some of the coveted HIStalk beauty queen sashes. Don’t worry, there is still a chance to win one for yourself by entering Inga’s shoe contest or aiming for the coveted HIStalk King and HIStalk Queen titles.

I look forward to HIMSS each year, but it’s bittersweet on some levels. While many of us are away, we will be depending on the rest of our colleagues in the trenches to keep the infrastructure running and the providers under control. Although a lot of vendor organizations freeze in time around HIMSS, the rest of the health IT world does keep turning.

Case in point: NCQA announces the opening of a public comment period for proposed changes to the HEDIS measures for 2015. Proposed new measures include one on overuse of colorectal and prostate cancer screening and another on appropriate use of antipsychotic measures in children. Those slated for retirement include glaucoma screening in older adults and cholesterol management for patients with cardiovascular conditions.

HHS release a model Notice of Privacy Practices in Spanish. Since over 38 million people in the US speak Spanish, it’s about time. The offerings include fillable forms that can be printed for patients and are designed for both provider organizations and health plans.

The hot topic of conversation in the physician lounge this week has been the publication of the final rule amending the 1988 CLIA regulations to allow patients and their designees to receive lab results directly from laboratories. Physicians are generally resistant to anyone releasing lab or test results directly to the patient. Most of the time they cite concerns that the patient will not be able to interpret the results or that they may be confused or even harmed by results that lack explanation.

Our health system releases results to patients without physician review after 96 hours, so physicians have had to get on the ball and notify patients in a timely manner because the patients are going to receive their results if they are enrolled on the patient portal. There are a couple of tests that are restricted (like HIV and sexually transmitted infection labs) due to state privacy laws, but pretty much everything else in the lab or radiology realms is fair game.

Personally, I think it’s about time that other organizations have to start jumping through all the hoops that providers do with all the different rules that continue to be propagated. In this case, they only require the release of information within 30 days. Let’s make them release within three days like the rest of us and see how they do.

I’m off to pack. Including a half marathon in my weekend plans has definitely added to my fashion worries. If you happen to be at Walt Disney World in the wee hours of Sunday morning, keep an eye out for me as I run through Cinderella’s Castle in bling that even Inga would envy. Otherwise, my next report will be from the HIMSS opening reception.

Contacts

Mr. H, Inga, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Travis, Lt. Dan, Lorre.

More news: HIStalk Practice, HIStalk Connect.

News 2/19/14

February 18, 2014 News 3 Comments

Top News

A SANS-Norse white paper investigating Internet traffic reports that 94 percent of healthcare organizations have been cyberattacked, with 72 percent of the compromised ports belonging to provider organizations. About a third of those compromised providers are practices with fewer than 10 doctors.The biggest target in healthcare is radiology imaging and teleradiology systems, often because nobody bothers to secure network-attached devices such as printers and cameras that are shipped as insecure and can be discovered by Internet search of IP addresses.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Listening: new from St. Paul & The Broken Bones, powerful Alabama Shakes-like soul music that would be equally at home at a Saturday night bar or a Sunday morning church.

Inga put together our guide to exhibitor giveaways, pointing out the sponsor swag that will be available.

HIStalk’s Booth #1995 at HIMSS

It’s a small starter home in a sketchy neighborhood, but it’s ours and it’s paid for. Drop by Booth #1995 and say hello to Lorre. Here’s what we’ll be doing there other than possibly regretting spending the money.

We will be giving away temporary HIStalk tattoos for folks who are somewhere on the continuum between “I sort of like reading HIStalk occasionally” and “I would disfigure my body permanently for HIStalk using actual needles and ink.” Take a photo of the creative anatomical feature on which you’ve applied it and I’ll run it.

We’ll have our first HIMSS conference lapel/lanyard pin as well as our “10 Years of HIStalk 2003-2013” commemorative pin. You’ll be kicking yourself for not picking one up when these babies are selling for $500 on eBay in a few years. As Lorre says, “I know they aren’t iPads, but consider my budget and come and get them anyway. You will look cool and make me feel good. I may even have items left over from the sponsor event and will selectively dole those out to people who go out of their way to entertain me.”

dr gregg

Dignitaries will be on hand in the booth to say hello, including DOCtalk contributor Dr. Gregg Alexander (Monday, 1:00 to 2:00 p.m.); CIO Unplugged’s Ed Marx (Tuesday 9:30 to 10:30 a.m.); and Memorial Hermann CMIO Bob Murphy, MD (Wednesday 10:00 to 11:00 a.m.) If your celebrity status warrants a spot on the HIStalk rental carpet with these supporters, contact Lorre. We appreciate it.

HIMSS Conference Social Events

Send us your event details if it’s a good one (i.e., free food and drinks at minimum) and you promise that all HIStalk readers are welcome to attend, even if they work for your most hated competitor as a given reader might well do.

Tuesday from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. Patientco, in partnership with Georgia.org , will host a reception in booth 4021 with drinks and hors d’oeuvres.

Presidio will offer light hors d’oeuvres and drinks at its reception in Booth 3129 on Tuesday from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m.

Hopefully not a foreshadowing of things to come: I received an email from my HIMSS hotel confirming my stay. Unfortunately the reservation appears to be in the name of Chad Somebody. While I am sure Chad is a lovely person, spending a few nights in a hotel together is not my idea of an appropriate first date. The HIMSS reservation service told me to check directly with the hotel. The hotel tells me there is not a reservation in my name, just in my new friend’s name with my confirmation number. Really, who has time for figuring out such nonsense? Chad: if you are reading this, feel free to drop me a note so maybe we can have a Skype date before heading to Orlando.

On Monday we posted our rundown on the many free treasures you can collect while cruising the exhibit hall. I plan to schedule my day around the best offerings, starting with coffee at First Databank (1965); a cake pop from PerfectServe (5293); registration for a few high-tech goodies like an iPad from Santa Rosa Consulting (5689), a Fitbit from GetWellNetwork (2219) or one of several other vendors, or a tablet from Versus Technology (3673); freshly baked cookies from T-System (2071); bottled water from CTG Health Solutions (944); and afternoon cocktails at RelayHealth (1665) and Vital Images (1677). I am leaving out details on a couple of dozen other great giveaways but be assured I will do my best to sample all the hospitality the exhibit hall has to offer.

Mr. H (@HIStalk), Dr. Jayne (@JayneHIStalkMD), Lorre (@Lorre_HIStalk), and I (@IngaHIStalk) will be Tweeting throughout the conference to keep readers posted on the latest happenings, so be sure to give us a Twitter follow.

HIStalkapalooza

The band for the evening will be Party on the Moon. They sound good if you like cover bands more than I do, which Imprivata’s events people insisted is the case after hiring them without asking for my input. They’re probably right.

This year I’m feeling like those unheralded Woodstock organizers whose event was more popular than they could handle. I issued the invitations I was given as best I could, but huge demand left 1,000 or so folks — the majority of those who registered, in fact — without one. It feels like at least 500 of those have emailed me pleading for tickets I don’t have, except my own single ticket, which I’m considering just giving to someone else and hitting a bar instead. Next year I’ll either run the event my way or I won’t do it at all.

Upcoming Webinars

February 19 (Wednesday), 1:00 p.m. ET. What is the Best Healthcare Data Warehouse Model for Your Organization? Choosing the right data model for your healthcare enterprise data warehouse (EDW) can be one of the most significant decisions you make in establishing your data warehousing and foundational analytics strategy for the future. The strengths and weaknesses of three primary data models will be discussed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Cerner shares touched off an all-time high Tuesday, dropping a bit by the market’s close but still rising nearly 1 percent to $60.74. A $10,000 investment in 1990 would be worth $3.4 million today.

Sales

North Mississippi Medical Center selects Wellsoft’s EDIS.

ColumbiaDoctors (NY) will deploy Wellcentive’s population health management solutions.

Blessing Hospital (IL) adds Allscripts dbMotion population health management and Allscripts Sunrise Financial Manager to compliment its existing Sunrise Clinical implementation.

Greater New York Hospital Association contracts with Premier, Inc. for advisory services and for Premier’s Population Advisor suite, which includes population health analytics solutions from Verisk Health.

BJC HealthCare (MO) selects ZeOmega’s Jiva population health management software to enhance care coordination and patient engagement for patients in the BHC ACO.

People

SA Ignite hires Jeff Galowich (Initiate Systems) as president.

Kindred Healthcare (KY) names C. Scott Blanchette (Vanguard Health Systems) CIO, replacing the recently retired Richard E. Chapman.

Health Catalyst appoints Bryan Oshiro, MD (Loma Linda University School of Medicine) chief medical officer.

Announcements and Implementations

Carroll Hospital Center (MD) upgrades from McKesson Horizon to Paragon. According to the hospital’s interim CIO Jennifer Moore, Carroll stayed with McKesson because project costs were “significantly lower than if we had gone to find another vendor for a new product.’ Jed Rosen, MD, chief of surgery and CMIO, said Horizon is “a product that was a conglomeration of multiple database programs that were squished together … to add functionality on a piecemeal basis. We used to bounce around through several programs to access information, whereas now we can open one program and get everything at a glance.” He didn’t mention why they bought Horizon since that was pretty obviously the case.

Voalte will offer an Android-based version of its Voalte One mobile communications platform running on Motorola MC40-HC devices.

Caradigm and Microsoft will demo at the HIMSS conference a Windows 8.1 tablet-based platform that lets clinicians launch apps such as an EHR session from a clinical desktop and switch back and forth among them. It was developed with UPMC’s commercialization arm and includes Caradigm’s single sign-on and context management, the former Sentillion products.

Nordic Consulting moves into expanded space in Madison, WI. The four-year-old company reported $81 million in revenue in 2013 and has 400 employees, 350 of them Epic consultants and two-thirds of those being former Epic employees. Most of them live in areas other than Madison. It also took in $38 million of investment funds.

QPID Healthcare announces the release of Q-Guide, its procedure decision support application developed with Mass General Hospital and its physician organization.

Government and Politics

The FDA posts a final rule requiring medical device manufacturers to electronically submitting reports on adverse events beginning in August 2015.

Other

Black Book Rankings names CPSI the top ranked inpatient EHR vendor for hospitals under 100 beds based on customer satisfaction

The HEALTHeLINK HIE (NY) estimates that use of the exchange contributed to $1.3 million in cost savings over a six-month period due to the reduction of unnecessary and duplicate CT scans.

Hospitals often underestimate the costs associated with EMR implementations, according to a study published in JAMIA.The most commonly underestimated line items are training, project planning, staff backfill, and system testing.

In Australia, opening of the new, paperless Fiona Stanley Hospital is delayed by six months due to an overly ambitious IT implementation schedule that will cost an extra $151 million. The government expects to spend another $25-50 million to get its systems ready. According to West Australia’s under-treasurer, “You never build stuff that you can buy off the shelf; you never build bespoke stuff that then has to be integrated with generic products; you change your business processes rather than changing the systems to suit the business processes. You never do big bang because big bang goes boom.”

In England, NHS postpones go-live date of a planned national medical records data sharing project after doctors and patients express concerns that it wasn’t made clear how patients could opt out or how their data might be used commercially without their knowledge.

A Bloomberg Businessweek article points out that more than half of ACOs don’t include hospital members. According to the CEO of Amarillo Legacy Medical ACO (TX), “Hospitals, they want to do your robotic surgeries, your heart catheterizations, your PET scans, your MRIs—all the expensive items. We actually felt that hospitals were part of the problem.” Another ACO CEO adds, “If we make people a whole lot healthier, they’re not going to go to the hospital. You’re going to need 20 percent or 25 percent less hospital beds, which means 20 percent are going to close. If we’re successful, the hospitals are going to get killed.”

US News lists its “100 Best Jobs of 2014” based on growth, salary, stress, and work-life balance. The The top 10:

Software developer
Computer systems analyst
Dentist
Nurse practitioner
Pharmacist
Registered nurse
Physical therapist
Physician
Web developer
Dental hygienist

The local newspaper interviews Paul Clark, MD, CMIO of Concord Hospital (NH). “I think this whole concept of population management is really where things are heading. In the past, it was all about the person in front of me at the moment. Now it’s about, ‘Am I providing the best care for all my diabetes patients? Are we making sure we’re preventing readmissions? Are we taking care of everyone’s hypertension?’ Systems need to be made to account for those population measurements.”

The New York Times highlights India’s launch of a spacecraft bound for Mars that cost only $75 million, less than the expense of making the Hollywood movie “Gravity.” NASA’s launch of a similar spacecraft a few days later cost $671 million. It points out GE Healthcare’s research there to develop low-cost medical innovations.

Sponsor Updates

The National Testing Program for ICD-10 readiness of HIPAA transactions extends certification Greenway SuccessEHS.
SimplifyMD version 14.0 achieves 2014 Edition Complete EHR Ambulatory ONC HIT Certification from ICSA Labs.
HIT Application Solutions will integrate its Notifi platform with Merge Healthcare’s Merge RIS and market the product under the name Merge Notifi.
Medhost launches YourCareCommunity, which incorporates features of and HIE and an enterprise MPI.
Coastal Healthcare Consulting introduces Catalyst to rapidly respond to healthcare organizations in urgent need of assistance.
Frost & Sullivan recognizes Allscripts with the 2013 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for New Product Innovation Leadership for its open API.
NewCrop, an e-prescribing service provider, enables CoverMyMeds prior authorization capability.
Greenway is awarded three patents which work together to advance population health through automated medical research.
Porter Research publishes a case study highlighting its work with Covisint.

Sponsor Speaking Engagements at HIMSS

InterSystems highlights featured presentations in the InterSystems theater (2741).
Imprivata posts the Imprivata Theater schedule (2541).
CTG offers multiple in-booth sessions (944) featuring industry experts and discussions of hot HIT topics. Also, CTG and Erie County Medical Center (NY) co-present an educational session February 25 at 1:00 p.m. on “Improving Western NY’s Population Health Using Patient Centered Medical Home.”
HealthMEDX participates as the first LTPAC EMR in the HIMSS Interoperability Showcase.
The HCI Group leads two CHIME CIO focus groups on the complexities of ICD-10 and on the total cost of ownership for enterprise systems.
Craneware’s Kathy Schwartz presents during the HIMSS Supply Chain pre-conference Symposium February 23 from 10:00-11:00 on costs, quality, and outcomes.

Contacts

Mr. H, Inga, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Travis, Lt. Dan, Lorre.

More news: HIStalk Practice, HIStalk Connect.

HIStalk’s Guide to HIMSS14 Exhibitor Giveaways

February 17, 2014 News Comments Off

Access

Booth 5175

To enter a drawing for an Apple TV, visit the Access booth and ask “What is the Green Paper Monster?” We’ll do the drawing on the last of the show and e-mail the winner to come pick up their prize. If you can’t make it before the close of the show, we will mail you the Apple TV.

Accreon, Inc

Mention you were referred to Accreon through HIStalk and receive 15 percent off any resulting business established at HIMSS.

AirStrip

Booth 6144

While at HIMSS, come by AirStrip booth 6144 to register to win an UP wristband. We’ll be giving away one wristband each afternoon to a lucky winner.

Aprima Medical Software

Booth 2621

We will hold a raffle each day at HIMSS for a $250 gift card.

Aventura

Booth 1831

Experience the magic of Brandon K. Parker throughout exhibit hours. Join Aventura for food, drinks, magic, and fun at the 1800 row block party from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. at booth 1831.

Beacon Partners, Inc.

Booth 4165

Stop by our booth on Monday and Tuesday afternoons for food and beverages and to speak with our team of experts.

Bottomline Technologies

Booth 1545

Don’t forget to enter to win our daily grand prize, a $500 Delta Airlines eGift certificate. Just ask about the HIMSS14 #Captureit contest.

Capsule Tech., Inc.

Booth 2329

Visit Capsule’s booth 2329 and enter to win a GoPro Hero 3.

CareSync

Booth 7293 (Startup Showcase)

We will be offering product demonstrations and holding numerous giveaways throughout the show, including CareSync Plus subscriptions and an iPad Mini.

Certify Data Systems, Inc.

Booth 3729

Stop by booth 3729 for a healthy smoothie.

CommVault

Booth 3482

Stop by booth 3482 and you’ll receive a complementary set of ear buds and hear how Simpana is much more than a backup and restore recovery solution.

CTG Health Solutions

Booth 944

Visit us at booth 944 for the HIMSS Survival Kit from your friends at CTG Health Solutions. We will also have coffee and bottled water in the booth.

Divurgent

Booth 4372

Visit booth 4372 and help Divurgent raise $5,000 towards the Florida Children’s Hospital. Simply “Spin to Win” and Divurgent will donate the amount you select.

Emdeon

Booth 5151

Come by booth 5151 to discover how Emdeon can help you achieve your business goals and also learn how you can win one of 13 Nike FuelBands that will be given out during the show.

Extension Healthcare

Booth 1441

Enter to Win a Kindle Fire HD. Extension Healthcare will be raffling three Kindle Fire HD during the HIMSS conference. Stop by our booth to enter to win.

ESD

Booth 2128

This year, we featuring a giveaway for a free two-week assessment of our Automated Testing Solutions.

GetWellNetwork

Booth 2219

Giveaways: Samsung Galaxy Gear and Fitbit.

Greenway

Booth 2503

You can enter to win your choice of unique adventures, including spa getaways, vacations, all-inclusive flights, and more.

Greythorn

Booth 4379

At our booth, we will have a scratch and win prize giveaway, including USB drives pre-loaded with great industry insight, collapsible water bottles (perfect for traveling), and a TV.

Health Care Software, Inc. (HCS)

Booth 4464

Visit HCS booth 4464 to register to win a $250 AMEX gift card. Get social with HCS by mentioning HCS in a photo and posting it to LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram with #HCSatHIMSS14 and you cold win a $100 AMEX gift card.

Health Catalyst

Booth 6076

Come checkout our double-decker booth and learn how to win one of several FitBits and the grand prize, an iPad Mini.

healthfinch

Booth 3493

Visit us to learn how we save physicians 30 minutes daily and you’ll be entered to win a copy of Innovation with Information Technologies in Healthcare, edited by healthfinch Co-Founder, Chairman, and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Lyle Berkowitz.

Iatric Systems, Inc.

Booth 3217

Booth 3217 is going to be entertaining as well as educational, with Chef Anton providing his amazing magic tricks and giving out great prizes like Visa gift cards and Apple iPod shuffles after each show.

Infor (formerly Lawson)

Booth 3049

Visit us at HIMSS and enjoy free beverages and popcorn in our Relaxation Zone. Take a survey and be registered to win a $2,500 American Express card.

Ingenious Med, Inc.

Booth 471

Stop by booth 471 to learn more about the new patient encounter platform and enter for a chance to win an Apple TV.

Innovative Healthcare Solutions

Booth 1729

IHS, along with several of our exhibiting neighbors, will be hosting a block party on Tuesday, February 25th from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. Please stop by to enjoy a variety of catered food and drinks.

InterSystems Corporation

Booth 2741

Step into InterSystems’ must-see presentations at HIMSS to win a Fitbit Flex. Each time you step into an InterSystems-sponsored presentation at HIMSS14 you gain another chance to win one of 30 Fitbit Flex Wireless Activity and Sleep Wristbands we’re giving away.

Legacy Data Access, LLC

Booth 3130

This year Legacy Data Access has partnered with Zoo Atlanta on a “Protector” level sponsorship for the elephant exhibit. Legacy Data Access will be handing out “I Love Elephants” buttons. For each person that comes by and agrees to wear the button all day, we will donate a dollar to the sponsorship.

Leidos Health

Booth 3753

What’s the biggest challenge you’re facing today? Let us know at booth 3753 and you’ll have an opportunity to win a free Health Check to help with your biggest healthcare challenge. We’ll also make a donation in your name to the Tour de Cure Leidos team which supports the American Diabetes Association.

Lifepoint Informatics

Booth 6069

Visit our booth for a chance to win a Google Chromecast. Hourly drawings during exhibit hours will be made.

Logicare

Booth 7867

We will be giving away an ipad. Also, we are offering Starbucks gift cards for attendees interested in viewing a WebEx demo after convention.

MedData

Booth 513

HIMSS giveaways: $1,000 Amazon gift card, three $100 American Express gift cards, fresh baked scones every day.

Medfusion

Booth 8354

Come see us at booth 8354 as well as the interoperability showcase and meet our team and pick up an infuser water bottle.

Medicomp Systems

Booth 2703

Everyone receiving Quippe training and seated in Quipstar’s live studio audience will have a chance to win one of the latest tablets and an opportunity to become a Quipstar contestant and compete for cash prizes. Maybe you will be chosen to compete against Inga or another HIT heavy hitter!

MediQuant Inc.

Booth 1929

Stop by our booth 1929 for a chance to win a gift card.

Nordic

Booth 2130

Enter for a chance to win an Optimization Assessment or Affiliate/Connect Planning Visit. The Optimization assessment is a $7,500 value and includes trip to an Epic customer site with shadowing of users and a system evaluation, followed by a written report listing workflow and system optimization opportunities. The Affiliate/Connect planning visit is a value of $5,000 and includes a one- to two-day visit to an Epic customer site to assist in the development of a written strategy to extend an Epic system to the organization’s affiliated or acquired practices and hospitals. We will contact the winners the week after HIMSS.

Park Place International

Booth: 2186

Stop by booth 2186 to learn more about Park Place International and enter our raffle for a chance to win an Amazon.com gift card.

Passport Health Communications

Booth 2134

Come by for a demo and you will be entered to win an American Express gift card.

PatientSafe Solutions

Booth 3983

PatientSafe will be raffling a GoPro Hero3+ each day. Come by booth 3983 to visit.

PerfectServe

Booth 5293

Grab a yummy cake pop – they’re sure to be a crowd favorite and will give you that needed spurt of energy to get you through the rest of the day.

Qlik

Booth 3111

Join Qlik at booth 3111 to hear customer testimonials, experience a live demonstration, receive a massage, and more.

Quest Diagnostics

Booth 3064

Stop by our booth on Tuesday, February 25 to meet New York Giants Super Bowl Champion Stephen Baker “The Touchdown Maker” and get an autographed mini-football. Steve will speak on the value of wellness programs in improving health and outcomes through diagnostic insights.

The first 100 attendees to stop by the Quest Diagnostics booth will be eligible for a special Blueprint for Wellness screening voucher. This screening offers a current snapshot of your health featuring simply-stated insights and highly personalized content that provides an understanding of your health.

ReadyDock Inc.

Booth 8056

Free disinfection during exhibit hours: come by our booth and bring your dirty device with you … we’ll take care of it.

RelayHealth

Booth 1665

Please join us for a cocktail reception and presentation with Jersey Health Connect in the RelayHealth booth on Monday during HIMSS.

Shareable Ink

Booth 2117

Shareable Ink has two special special promotions and one giveaway:

1) Special giveaway – ask for a demo and enter for a chance to win an iPad mini.
2) Special promotions – patient intake starter kit. Includes three patient intake forms: general consent; HIPAA consent; patient history intake, MU structured data. And, 15 percent discount off Anesthesia Cloud for iPad with ShareMU sign-ups before March 31, 2014.

Siemens Healthcare

Booth 3165

Let us swipe your badge for a donation to StandUp 2 Cancer.

The SSI Group, Inc.

Booth 1745

Stop by our booth to refuel at the beverage station while you charge your mobile devices at the “Power Tower.” The SSI Group, Inc. is “Powering the Business of Healthcare” but we are also powering YOU at HIMSS14.

Streamline Health

Booth 2829, Knowledge Center Booth 883

Stop by and play our interactive memory game. Daily $100 winner for fastest time.

Summit Healthcare

Booth 1021

Enter our drawing to win a free iPad. Stop by our booth for a warm, freshly baked chocolate chip cookie.

Sunquest Information Systems, Inc.

Booth 4447

We will be giving away Labrador puppy plush toys (“Sunquest Lab”), Sunquest tote bags, ChapStick, and pens.

Surgical Information Systems

Booth 6465 and the Intelligent Hospital

Schedule a meeting http://info.sisfirst.com/himss14-request-demo to see SIS Analytics at HIMSS and be entered to win a Bose SoundLink Bluetooth speaker. Register to see your perioperative data in SIS Analytics

Symantec

Booth 1041

Mingle with the experts! Join us Monday, February 24 and Tuesday, February 25 from 3:30-6:00 p.m. for drinks, hors d’oeuvres, and great conversation with leading healthcare industry experts.

Enter to win! Stop by Symantec booth 1041 and enter to win a home theatre system complete with a 70” 3D Flat-Panel TV, 3D Blu-ray Player, home theater sound bar, and installation.

Talksoft Corporation

Booth 4466

Visit our booth 4466 to utilize our free charging station for your phone or computer and to pick up your luggage tag.

T-System

Booth 2071

Stop by our booth every day starting at noon for freshly baked cookies and more information on our end-to-end solutions for emergency care.

Versus Technology

Booth 3673

To reduce HAIs (HIMSS-acquired infections), look for the SafeHaven hand hygiene dispensers throughout the convention center. Tear off an entry card from the display to win one of five tablet computers. Or, visit booth 3673 to enter.

Vital Images, Inc.

Booth 1677

The company will be hosting receptions at booth1677 on Monday starting at 4 p.m. and Tuesday starting at 5 p.m

VitalWare

Booth 735

Visit VitalWare in booth 735 to view a demo, receive a daily prize, and be entered to win a full one-year license to iDocuMint.

Monday Morning Update 2/17/14

February 15, 2014 News 1 Comment

From The PACS Designer: “Re: Another smart glasses solution. Researchers at Washington University it St. Louis have developed a solution that can help surgeons find all cancer cells. The technique uses custom software that makes cancerous cells glow blue by using a molecular imaging agent to give the cancer a unique color that can be viewed with special glasses.”

From Mark in Marketing: “Re: HIStalk interview tips. Refreshing! I work in marketing and even I hate marketing people.” I send people I’m going to an interview (or their handler) a tips sheet so they don’t waste my time, so Mark was complimenting me on that as he prepped his client. I’m really lucky because people want to be interviewed on HIStalk, so I get to make the rules in favor of readers. The bad interviews I’ve done weren’t for lack of trying. Some of my guidelines are:

I only interview CEOs because readers want to hear from the top person in a company who can talk about the broad strategic landscape, not a VP of sales pitching product.
Get on a landline, not a cell phone, and on a handset rather than a speakerphone. People never know how crappy they sound on a cell phone. It takes me an extra 1-2 hours to finish an interview transcription when the person ignores this advice, so now I just stop the interview and tell them to get on a landline or we’re done.
I use the CEO’s background to decide whether I’ll do an interview because if the person seems boring, it doesn’t matter how non-boring their company is.
Marketing and PR people can join the call, but can’t speak. I also don’t want to hear long pauses as the marketing people thrust boilerplate under the interviewee’s nose trying to get them to read it verbatim.
I don’t provide questions in advance and I don’t allow review after the fact. CEOs earn should be able to earn their paycheck without having someone else reviewing their every word for accuracy or intent.
I’m an industry person, so I won’t be asking the usual dumb reporter softball questions. It will be a conversation and I’ll ask whatever I think is interesting.
My first question is always an invitation to tell readers a little bit about the interviewee and the subject, the emphasis being “little bit.” I emphasize this strongly because in one interview, the executive spent literally 10 minutes answering that question, leaving me little time to ask anything else.
Nobody wants to read a company pitch, so put a lid on that and speak honestly about the industry as a whole.

Two-thirds of poll respondents say “Best in KLAS” products aren’t really the best ones. New poll to your right: does your business card list any certification credentials after your name? That means CPHIMS, CHCIO, PMP, etc. rather than educational credentials or professional licensure.

My language pet peeve du jour: companies whose announcements say they have “more than 500 customers” or “more than 200 employees.” Either give us an exact number (“we have 502 customers”) or, better yet, just round down and skip the “more” part (“we have 500 customers”) and trust us not to think less of you because you have two fewer customers. Inga’s example was a company whose press release said its product is installed in “more than 87 hospitals.” Others: using the almost never necessary word “currently”; saying “utilize” instead of the simpler and equivalent “use”; using “leverage” for anything other than physics or finance topics; and using the non-word “anymore.”

Here’s something you need even if you don’t know it, especially with the HIMSS conference coming up when your phone’s battery will drain quickly trying to lock onto a cell signal. This little $30 gadget is an external charger for your smartphone. Charge it up and you can then recharge your iPhone 2-3 times, even while on the go (like on the exhibit hall floor). I used mine this week to recharge my phone when I lost electricity. Many choices exist, ranging from lipstick-sized models to big boys.

Here’s another thank you note from a teacher who HIStalk readers helped with a grant. I confess this was my favorite project of the several I funded – buying a lectern and supplies for the very poor school’s first National Junior Honor Society ceremony.

Thanks to the following sponsors, new and renewing, that recently supported HIStalk, HIStalk Practice, and HIStalk Connect. Click a logo for more information.

Upcoming Webinars

February 18 (Tuesday), 1:00 p.m. ET. Epic 2012 Training and Support: Building Your Team. Sponsored by MBA HealthGroup. The webinar will present a case study of creative staffing solutions for an Epic 2012 upgrade at an academic medical center, describing the institution’s challenge, its out-of-the-box solution, and the results it obtained working with a consulting firm.

HIMSS Rundown

Our sponsor social event will be Sunday evening.
Lorre will be in our tiny HIStalk Booth #1995 all week saying hello and giving away fun trinkets. Stop by on your way to (or preferably from) the restroom, which is conveniently co-located.
HIStalkapalooza will be Monday evening.
We will use Lorre’s Twitter to tell you about cool stuff Inga, Dr. Jayne, and I find in roaming the exhibit hall, such as interesting giveaways or fun comestibles (the cake pops and freshly baked scones sound good).
Our HIMSS Guide describes what our sponsors will be featuring (and giving away).

For overachievers already plotting your candidacy for HIStalk King or Queen at HIStalkapalooza next Monday evening, our judges (Bonny Roberts, Dave Lareau, and Jennifer Dennard) have put together some tips for you. Bonny provides an overview:

Since the secret is out, I can hardly be “Mr. H’s Secret Crush” two years in a row. Fortunately, I will be hitting HIStalkapalooza with another goal in mind: crowning this year’s King and Queen! Many of you may be wondering, “How do I win?” Granted winning may be tough, but being in the running is EASY.

Arrive at the House of Blues on Monday night dressed to the nines.
Be sure to catch the eye of one of three esteemed judges. Don’t worry, we will be sashed and easy to locate.
Strut, preen and smile!

Speaking of HIStalkapalooza, these are the folks bringing it to you.

Imprivata is the primary sponsor, meaning they are writing a check with lots of zeroes and doing all the planning. Make sure to thank them. It’s a huge financial and logistical commitment given the visibility and size of HIStalkapalooza.

The support of HIStalkapalooza’s co-sponsors (Greenway, Hill-Rom, Nordic, RFIDeas, and VMware) allows us to provide some really nice extras that you’ll appreciate at the event. Three of these five, like Imprivata, are also HIStalk Platinum sponsors and I appreciate them even more (Greenway, Nordic, and VMware.)

The Valley Hospital (NJ) decides to upgrade from Meditech Magic to 6.1 instead of choosing other finalist Epic, giving the company a win in a bed size (450) that usually goes to Epic or Cerner.

I told ReadyDock Founder Dave Engelhardt last year that he should create a video showing how the company’s mobile device disinfection system works. He’s doing that, but in the mean time, he whipped up a little HIMSS promo video that’s fun. They will also disinfect your device in your booth at the conference, which would be even more fun if there was a way to show what’s growing on it beforehand since I see them used in the bathroom all the time.

The US Patient Office grants a cloning patent to a Korean researcher whose work was found to be criminally fraudulent 10 years ago, in essence granting him a broad patent for something that doesn’t exist. The Patent Office says its system operates on an honor code and its examiners can’t verify patent claims, adding that while it was aware of the researcher’s history, the patent application complied with all laws.

Vermont lawmakers are upset that the state’s new 25-bed psychiatric will open this summer using a combination of paper and electronic medical records. The state couldn’t reach an agreement with the incumbent EHR vendor and also noted that the product didn’t have an integrated pharmacy module. It then tried to piggyback the hospital on Fletcher Allen Health Care’s Epic system, but decided it wasn’t worth the $3 million upfront cost and $600,000 in annual maintenance. The state is preparing an RFP and will use its old systems in the mean time. Legislators are also unhappy that the hospital will cost $20 million per year to operate.

Federal technology magazine FCW profiles the VA’s telemedicine program, which delivered 1.7 million episodes of care in 2013 and is growing 22 percent per year. According to a VA executive, “It’s not just a question of saying, have we got the telecommunications and have we got the clinical model? We then have to think about how we have to train the clinicians to be able to do it. We have to think about how we have to put help desk support for both patients and clinicians in place. The volume of care we’re providing is such that we’re providing care that’s mission critical, and we roll it out with that in mind.” The article also mentions that Alaska’s tribal health system is a big telemedicine user and its CIO expects the EHR to run telemedicine services directly at some point, but for now the system’s 28 EHRs don’t communicate with each other. According to the CIO, “Our goal is to make telemedicine and EHRs look like one system to the clinician.” Another issue with the VA’s national rollout is that broadband service isn’t available everywhere and 45 percent of the VA’s patients live in rural areas.

The local New Hampshire newspaper profiles two acclaimed doctors who are retiring in their mid-60s. Peter Mason, MD isn’t a fan of professional communication via email and says the electronic chart is full of unnecessary insurance-mandated information and boilerplate notes, concluding, “We’ve lost the narrative of the medical record.”Mark Nunlist, MD of White River Family Practice (above) saw the value of the team approach and technology when he realized he wasn’t reminding patients to get tetanus shots. Now the practice is looking for population health management software and trying to find $25,000 to improve its EHR interface with Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s systems. The practice, an eClinicalWorks user, won the 2013 Ambulatory HIMSS Davies Award and will be recognized at the HIMSS conference.

In Canada, Alberta Health Services blocks Web streaming video after employees watching the Olympics slow down its network. Interim CIO Penny Rae’s email to AHS’s 95,000 employees says, “We do not have unlimited Internet bandwidth capacity. Since we have a limited ability to prioritize the Internet traffic, video streaming competes for the same resources as a clinical or business system would. When large amounts of video are streaming through the Internet gateway, all applications that depend on that are at risk of slowdown. Patient care is our priority and we need to ensure that our core services have the capacity they need to run as expected. You can help by catching up on the Olympic coverage from home and refraining from using the Internet for personal use … Thanks for your understanding of this and in the meantime, we join you in cheering on our Olympians! GO CANADA GO!”

A Greek news portal reports that Papageorgiou General Hospital will install a cell phone blocking system in its OR to prevent surgeons from talking on their phones while operating.

In Ireland, at least five hospitals may lose 20 percent of their funding for failing to comply with requirements that limit lavish executive salaries.

Not healthcare related, but bizarre: a former state judge in Alaska sues the state’s bar association, saying its members hazed him mercilessly after noticing that his 2007 appointment letter from Governor Sarah Palin thanked him for his “pubic service” and suggested that his appointment was sexually motivated. He says the typo caused him to experience stress and medical problems and caused him to lose his re-election bid the next year. The bar association has asked the Supreme Court to order the former judge to submit to a psychological exam to determine if he’s fit to practice law.

Contacts

Mr. H, Inga, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Gregg, Lt. Dan, Dr. Travis, Lorre.

More news: HIStalk Practice, HIStalk Connect.

HIStalk’s Guide to HIMSS14

February 14, 2014 News Comments Off

Download the printable PDF version of this guide to bring along to the conference here.

Access

Booth 5175

Contact: Lindsey Eaton, sales and marketing operations manager
lindsey.eaton@accessefm.com
913.752.9938

Hundreds of hospitals worldwide use paperless Access solutions to integrate e-forms, electronic patient signatures, and clinical data into EHRs.

Access Passport is a web-based forms solution that removes all paper from your forms processes — making them completely electronic from start to finish. Using any device from any location, your clinical and administrative staff can quickly access the forms they need, collect information in record time, and capture patient and other signatures without printing or scanning. Once a form is complete, Passport can kick off a workflow process, instantly deliver the data to the people and systems that need it, perform valuable management tasks and more. Visit the Access booth (5175) at HIMSS to see Passport in action and learn more at www.accessefm.com

Giveaway: to enter a drawing for an Apple TV, visit the Access booth (5175) and ask “What is the Green Paper Monster?” We’ll do the drawing on the last of the show and e-mail the winner to come pick up their prize. If you can’t make it before the close of the show, we will mail you the Apple TV.

Accreon, Inc

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Gareth Kenton, sales leader
gareth.kenton@accreon.com
617.899.5394

We do look forward to connecting with you in our meeting space at the conference. Accreon is a healthcare technology and business services firm focused on integrating and managing health information.

We assist healthcare organizations to: achieve interoperability by integrating their IT ecosystem; establish an analytical environment that empowers learning, agility, and performance resulting in improved outcomes, finances, and satisfaction; and enhance IT innovation by providing knowledgeable healthcare expertise and tools to bring solutions to market faster.

Accreon has delivered services and built solutions across North America for healthcare provider organizations, government entities, medical device companies, and EMR vendors.

Mention you were referred to Accreon through HIStalk and receive 15 percent off any resulting business established at HIMSS.

ADP AdvancedMD

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Jim Elliot, vice president of marketing
jelliot@advancedmd.com
435.729.0343

ADP AdvancedMD executives will be available at HIMSS to discuss the impact that big data and business intelligence will have on the private physician and how ADP AdvancedMD is addressing the needs of medical practices. They also will be available to address what key challenges doctors are facing in 2014, including Meaningful Use adoption, weathering the implementation of ACA within the industry and its impact on patient population and reimbursements, preparing for the switch to ICD-10, and juggling everyday issues and challenges to ensure today’s claims will get paid in a reasonable amount of time.

AirStrip

Booth 6144

Contact: Chris Lato, marketing communications manager
chrislato@airstrip.com
608.219.7231

Join AirStrip, the leader in clinical mobility, at HIMSS14. Learn more about AirStrip ONE, the first enterprise-capable, vendor-, platform-, and data-source-agnostic clinical mobility solution. AirStrip ONE can help you transform healthcare, giving clinicians access to patient information anytime, anywhere, across the care continuum. Contact us today to request a meeting with AirStrip executives or schedule a demo.

While at HIMSS, come by AirStrip Booth 6144 to register to win an UP wristband. We’ll be giving away one wristband each afternoon to a lucky winner.

Alere Accountable Care Solutions

Booth 5345

Contact: Natalie Pietrzak, director of marketing
Natalie.Pietrzak@alere.com
855.935.5644

The only health information exchange platform that leverages the products and services necessary to enable patient participation, improved communication, and access to information throughout each healthcare team:

Health information exchange platform
State of the art analytics engine
At-home monitoring devices and wearable sensors
Patient-friendly and comprehensive patient health record
National care management staff

See for yourself at HIMSS14 Booth 5345. Learn more by visiting http://www.alere.com or set up a meeting on the HIMSS showroom floor with any of our division CEOs by contacting Natalie.Pietrzak@alere.com.

API Healthcare

Booth 2664

Contact: Christine Hoxworth, vice president of marketing
christine.hoxworth@apihealthcare.com
262.670.2727

API Healthcare, the largest healthcare-specific vendor focused on workforce management solutions, is also the architect of the Healthcare Workforce Information Exchange (HwIE): a revolutionary solution that facilitates the sharing of workforce data across the entire continuum of care.

Driven by the mission to elevate quality and performance across the healthcare community through innovative workforce solutions and services, API Healthcare has been dedicated to the healthcare industry for more than 30 years. The company’s staffing and scheduling, patient classification, human resources, talent management, payroll, time and attendance, business analytics, and staffing agency solutions are used by more than 1,600 hospitals and staffing agencies.

API Healthcare has been rated by KLAS in the Top 20 Best in KLAS Awards Report as the top time and attendance provider system for the last 12 years (2002-2013) and the top staffing and scheduling solution in 2012 and 2013.

Aprima Medical Software

Booth 2621

Contact: salesinfo@aprima.com
866.960.6890, option 7

Aprima provides innovative electronic health record, practice management, and revenue cycle management solutions for medical practices. The Aprima EHR/PM is an integrated system built on a single database. Aprima uses a fast, flexible design that adapts automatically to a physician’s workflow and sets the benchmark for ease of use, speed and flexibility. Aprima is one of the few companies with a 15-year track record of success, including Certification for Meaningful Use Stage 2 in 2013. To learn more about the details of this and other certifications click here.

Thousands of Aprima users are benefiting from improved quality of care, improved patient satisfaction, improved quality of life, and an improved bottom line. Based in Carrollton, TX, Aprima performs all development, support, and implementation from the US.

We will hold a raffle each day at HIMSS for a $250 gift card.

Arcadia Healthcare Solutions

Booth 2029

Contact: Greg Chittim, senior director
greg.chittim@arcadiasolutions.com
603.496.1242

Come visit our booth (2029, right down the street from Epic) to relax, refresh, and learn more about a Arcadia. You may not of heard of us, but you certainly know our clients. Five Pioneer ACOs, leading academic medical centers, national health systems, managed care organizations, and leading Blues. We’ve been implementing vendor-agnostic analytics and real system transformation for years, driving real demonstrable value and proven ROI.

Founded in 2002 and headquartered outside Boston, with offices in New York, Seattle, and Nashville, Arcadia Healthcare Solutions is an innovative and nationally recognized leader in the healthcare technology and services industry. Arcadia provides services and technology for EHR outsourcing and consulting; data integration and population analytics; and care delivery transformation and coaching. With a focus on both healthcare provider and payer solutions, Arcadia has a unique cross-industry perspective on using data to drive healthcare transformation.

Aspen Advisors

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Dan Herman, founder and managing principal
info@aspenadvisors.net
800.697.4350

Aspen Advisors is a world-class professional services firm dedicated to helping healthcare delivery organizations enhance processes and streamline operations through the strategic and effective use of technology.

From strategy to execution to optimization, our core services have been tailored to help address industry priorities:

Reduce operating costs
Implement and realize the full benefit of Electronic Health Records
Transition from volume to value
Harness the power of data and analytics
Enable the connected community
Position for the future of revenue cycle management

Ultimately, our goal is to help you realize the value of your IT investments and continue to improve the effectiveness of your organization in improving the patient experience of care and the health of populations, while reducing the per capita cost of healthcare.

AT&T

Booth 4465

Contact: Candace James, senior marketing manager
cj8362@att.com
678.230.7100

In the network of possibilities, wireless and cloud-based solutions enable providers to focus on what they do best. AT&T is working with healthcare providers to embrace the spirit of innovation and collaboration needed to improve care quality and reduce costs. Its AT&T ForHealth practice is developing and delivering advanced IT solutions in five areas: care collaboration platform and health information exchange; cloud-based medical imaging; mHealth; remote patient monitoring; and telehealth. AT&T is committed to utilizing its network, scale, and technological expertise to help the healthcare industry address and solve its challenges.

See the complete AT&T ForHealth portfolio in booth 4465 to learn how healthcare can be more accessible, more affordable, and more connected.

Aventura

Booth 1831

Contact: Catherine Loop, marketing associate
catherine.loop@aventurahq.com
970.218.1630

As the leading provider of awareness computing for the healthcare industry, Aventura provides instant-on roaming for virtual and mobile applications in hospitals.

Based on user, role, location, device, and patient awareness, Aventura immediately delivers a virtual desktop and dynamically provisions the applications a user needs, eliminating wasteful clicks and keystrokes. Set up an appointment to see how awareness computing revolutionizes clinical workflow support with roaming desktop at booth 1831.

Scott Raymond, ‎executive director of information services at MemorialCare Health System, explores how Orange Coast’s awareness-based solution provides clinical workflow support with roaming desktops.

Glenn Mamary, vice president and CIO, and Dr. Wayne Fellmeth reveal how awareness computing enhances patient-centered care delivery and facilitates improved clinician collaboration at Hunterdon Healthcare System.

Experience the magic of Brandon K. Parker throughout exhibit hours. Join Aventura for food, drinks, magic, and fun at the 1800 row block party from 4:00 to 6:00 pm at booth 1831.

Awarepoint

Booth 1817

Contact: Tarah Kading, marketing coordinator
tkading@awarepoint.com
858.345.5000 x745

Visit Awarepoint’s booth 1817 to learn how the technology optimizes healthcare workflow with the industry’s only cloud-based, Real-time Location System (RTLS) in an integrated solution of software, technology and managed services on a single platform. Dedicated exclusively to healthcare, Awarepoint offers the experience, reliability and proven solutions that drive positive clinical and financial outcomes in the largest healthcare active RTLS deployments in the world.

Key differentiators include:

Self-healing mesh network. Utilizing existing electrical outlets, our wireless mesh network is reliable, accurate, and self-healing, and eliminates the risks of WiFi interference and bandwidth burden, with no additional wiring or hardware required.
Fully integrated solution. The integrated hardware and software package optimizes identification and resolution of workflow issues, and drives proactive improvements.
Managed services. Awarepoint supports and maintains the network infrastructure and hardware devices, lifting the burden from hospital staff.
Single point of contact. http://www.awarepoint.com

Beacon Partners, Inc.

Booth 4165

Contact: Jeannette Pforr, marketing and events specialist
jpforr@beaconpartners.com
781.982.8400

Stop by our booth on Monday and Tuesday afternoons for food and beverages and to speak with our team of experts.

Billian’s HealthDATA / Porter Research

Booth 3303

Contact: Jennifer Dennard, social marketing director
jdennard@billian.com
678.569.4872

Find out how your sales and marketing teams can sell smarter, not harder, with the help of Billian’s HealthDATA and Porter Research. Stop by booth 3303 at HIMSS14 to learn more about Billian’s HealthDATA provider benchmarking and vendor sales solutions. While you’re there, learn more about Porter Research’s Go-to-Market Strategy service line and pick up our latest white paper on consumer engagement.

BlueTree Network

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Nicole Meidinger, VP of sales and business development
nicole@bluetreenetwork.com
574.360.9029

BlueTree has built a network of over 400 specialized and trusted healthcare IT experts. Our fresh model attracts and supports the best talent and allows us to offer customized and flexible solutions to health systems. Here’s an overview of our unique model which has helped us to become the premier Epic consulting group.

At BlueTree, our philosophy centers on providing and recognizing value. We have some of the strongest healthcare IT people around and have been fortunate to work with incredible healthcare organizations. We enjoy collaborating with our clients to create custom solutions to difficult problems.

Feel free to get in touch by phone or email with any questions or opportunities.

Bottomline Technologies

Booth 1545

Contact: Molly Plank, manager of healthcare marketing
mplank@bottomline.com
330.569.4753

Bottomline Healthcare makes it easy to more efficiently complete the longitudinal patient record by eliminating paper from information, signature, and data capture processes – and seamlessly integrates with any downstream system. Don’t forget to enter to win our daily grand prize, a $500 Delta Airlines eGift certificate. Just ask about the HIMSS14 #Captureit contest.

During your visit, you can:

Learn more about our partnership with Hyland Software
Discuss best practices for replacing paper with mobile tablets, such as iPads, to capture clean, discrete patient data and eSignatures
Learn how to simplify operational processes by making captured, completed forms instantly accessible to any area of the facility without document scanning
Review enhancements to existing on-demand forms automation products and understand how they can be applied in your environment

CareTech Solutions

Booth 5275

Contact: Joe Pascaretta, sales executive
Joseph.Pascaretta@caretech.com
248.709.4794

CareTech Solutions brings its “Best in KLAS” Clinical Service Desk experience to you at HIMSS14.

Spend a few minutes or stay as long as you like – this is not a sales presentation. In a “live” help desk setting, clinical service desk analysts will be available to answer all of your help desk questions in booth 5275, including:

How do I implement a clinical service desk?
How are analysts trained to resolve my EMR calls?
How can I use the data collected to reduce my call volumes?
What is a best-in-class resolution and escalation process?
How does a Clinical Service Desk improve the productivity of my IT staff?
And so many more…

Additionally, three CareTech customers, Central Maine Healthcare, Broward Health, and Oakwood Healthcare, were selected to speak at HIMSS14 to discuss multiple IT improvement initiatives, including data security, website strategy, and mobile design.

Denis Tanguay, CIO of Central Maine Healthcare, and Jeff Bell, director of IT security and risk services at CareTech Solutions, will present on the “Journey to Encryption of Data at Rest,” Wednesday, February 26 at 8:30 a.m. in room 204A.
Jennifer Silverio, web and social media manager at Broward Health, and Ted Balowski, web executive at CareTech Solutions, will present on “Aligning Hospital Web Strategy with Generational Shift and Values,” Thursday, February 27 at 10:30 a.m. in room 224A.
Mary Zatina, senior vice president of government relations and corporate communications at Oakwood Healthcare, and Anthony Hepp, formerly of CareTech Solutions and now with Team Detroit, will present on “Mobile Website Innovation: The Case for Responsive Design,” Thursday, February 27 at noon in room 330A.

For more information about CareTech Solutions, visit http://www.caretech.com.

Capsule Tech., Inc.

Booth 2329

Contact: Brianna Roy, marketing and events coordinator
briannar@capsuletech.com
978.482.2339

Capsule’s SmartLinx Medical Device Information System allows hospitals to not only move patient point-of-care data but also use it. As the leader in device integration, Capsule delivers real-time active monitoring with predictive clinical and operational analytics to optimize clinical workflow. With proven connectivity for more than 670 medical devices, Capsule’s flexible platform with centralized management facilitates clinical efficiency and quality patient care across your organization.

Visit Capsule’s booth 2329 and enter to win a GoPro Hero 3.

CareSync

Booth 7293 (Startup Showcase)

Contact: Amy Gleason, COO
amy.gleason@caresync.com
813.701.1811

Feel free to reach out to us in advance by completing this form: http://info.caresync.com/himss14 which will get you on our HIMSS mailing list.

Meet the CareSync team at the Startup Showcase to learn more about how the patient-centered engagement platform is changing the way patients, care teams, and providers are communicating. CareSync helps all stakeholders in healthcare by giving patients access to their medical information, transcribing, and organizing it into custom Care Reports, making it meaningful and easily shareable so that families and caregivers can collaborate with patients and providers to work together for better outcomes.

We will be offering product demonstrations, and holding numerous giveaways throughout the show, including CareSync Plus subscriptions and an iPad Mini.

Caristix

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Stephane Vigot, president
stephane.vigot@caristix.com
1.877.872.0027 ext. 153

Caristix technology serves to simplify the development, deployment, and maintenance of healthcare applications for hospitals. We’re building products that help vendors and hospital become more productive. Carisitix enables interoperability and gets your software systems playing well together.

Visit us at the Interfaceware booth 2229 to get a look at out latest software and discuss how we help you get control of the HL7 interface lifecycle.

Certify Data Systems, Inc.

Booth 3729

Contact: David Caldwell, EVP, sales and marketing
dcaldwell@certifydatasystems.com
408.236.7494

Together with Humana, Certify and Anvita are redefining value-driven health care. Our fully-integrated population health management platform seamlessly connects disparate health care systems and transforms patient data into real-time Actionable Health Intelligence for improved care coordination.

We empower providers, administrators, and ACOs with the insights necessary to deliver the right information, at the right time, to the entire care team, for better outcomes. Our collective expertise and advanced technologies achieve new care delivery model objectives and improve the health and well-being of populations.

Stop by booth 3729 for a healthy smoothie.

Clinical Architecture

Booth 1077

Contact: Marck DuBois, vice president, sales
marck_dubois@clinicalarchitecture.com
317.694.5333

Change is here. Clinical Architecture is changing the way terminology and ontology are created, updated, extended, normalized, distributed, and utilized in healthcare. Symedical allows you to manage all terminology and ontology assets from one centralized tool and automates the process of content delivery. Come by our booth and let us show you how Symedical can empower your organization to maximize the value of your terminology assets. Change is here, it’s at booth 1077.

Coastal Healthcare Consulting

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Amy Noel, CEO
Amy.Noel@coastalhealthcare.com
206.321.9840
Gay Fright, EVP of business development
gay.fright@coastalhealthcare.com
760.333.0294

Coastal Healthcare Consulting, Inc. (“Coastal”) has been a premier provider of healthcare IT consulting services since 1995. We are a national firm based in the Seattle area. We have a proven track record of performance having completed more than 850 projects for more than 80 clients and were awarded “Best in KLAS,” clinical implementation, supportive for 2005-2009.

We began the company with a focus on providing EMR implementation services for healthcare clients. We have expanded our services to include the major EMR vendors, additional vendor partnerships, legacy support, and project management.

CommVault

Booth 3482

Contact: Al Richards, healthcare marketing
arichards@commvault.com
908.442.3402

See how CommVault Simpana 10 can help you protect, manage, and access your healthcare information like never before.

Stop by booth 3482 and you’ll receive a complementary set of ear buds and hear how Simpana is much more than a backup and restore recovery solution.

CommVault will also be revealing results from its latest healthcare IT survey. Come by the CommVault booth and learn how organizations like yours are overcoming their healthcare IT challenges. Learn how you can transform healthcare data management with Simpana software.

If you’d like to schedule a dedicated appointment with one of our healthcare IT experts, please email us at CVHealthcare@commvault.com and indicate your preferred time. A CommVault representative will get back with you to confirm shortly.

Connance, Inc.

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Brian Graves, vice president of marketing and communications
bgraves@connance.com
617.512.6971

Connance brings world-class predictive analytics and insights from hundreds of clinical settings to transform the performance of financial processes at hospitals, physician groups, and outsourcing organizations. Connance solutions sustainably increase cash flow, reduce operating costs, and improve policy compliance in self-pay, denial management, charity, and outsourcing processes. With clients like Centura Health, CHRISTUS Health, Florida Hospital, and Geisinger Health System, Connance is changing the expectations of financial executives.

CoverMyMeds

Booth 4495

Contact: Scott Rybak, SVP, business development
srybak@covermymeds.com
410.340.8895

Health plans, pharmacies, and physicians use CoverMyMeds to automate their prior authorization (PA) process. In doing so, they reduce prescription abandonment and administrative waste. Our network includes several hundred thousand physician offices and most pharmacies in the U.S.

We just launched ePA Now, our EHR integration program. By integrating with our REST API, our partners get a solution that:

Supports the NCPDP ePA standard transaction
Works for all plans, not just those that support ePA – turns PA faxes and phone calls from more than 80 percent of US pharmacies into a task-list in the EHR.

To sweeten the deal, we couple our API with a:

Financial incentive program that adds a very meaningful revenue stream for the EHR
Programmers to fly out to your office to complete the integration with you — marketing and rollout support to help turn your new PA solution into a competitive advantage and revenue driver.

Covisint Corporation

Booth 6751

Contact: Kimberly Leonard, marketing manager
kimberly.leonard@covisint.com
313.227.7000

Join Covisint at HIMSS in booth 6751 to discover and learn more about Covisint’s integrated healthcare platform. As the leader in today’s cloud computing market, Covisint offers “One” platform that securely integrates health information wherever it exists, maximizes performance incentives, reduces avoidable healthcare expense, and delivers care more effectively.

At HIMSS, we’ll highlight four key areas: population health management, predictive analytics, care coordination, and our cloud engagement platform. Through informative product demonstrations, engaging client-led presentations, and solutions-oriented one-to-one interactions, you’re sure to see why many providers and payers are using Covisint Healthcare to manage care more effectively.

Craneware

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Ann Marie Brown, EVP of marketing
a.brown@craneware.com
913.548.2810

Craneware (AIM: CRW.L) is the leader in automated revenue integrity solutions that improve financial performance for healthcare organizations. Craneware’s market-driven, SaaS solutions help hospitals and other healthcare providers more effectively price, charge, code, and retain earned revenue for patient care services and supplies. This optimizes reimbursement, increases operational efficiency, and minimizes compliance risk.

By partnering with Craneware, clients achieve the visibility required to identify, address and prevent revenue leakage. Craneware Revenue Integrity Solutions encompass four product families: Access Management & Strategic Pricing, Audit & Revenue Recovery, Revenue Cycle, and Supply Management. To learn more, visit craneware.com and stoptheleakage.com.

CTG Health Solutions

Booth 944

Contact: Amanda LeBlanc, managing director of marketing and communications
amanda.leblanc@ctghs.com
225.772.8865

CTG Health Solutions, the healthcare division of CTG, is a leading IT consulting firm dedicated solely to helping provider and payer organizations achieve clinical and financial goals through effective technology and business solutions. In more than 25 years of operation, we have provided healthcare IT, operational, and strategic consulting support to over 600 organizations. CTG Health Solutions offers a comprehensive suite of advisory and application/IT support services, including planning, assessment, EHR implementation and optimization, analytics, legacy and production application management/support, revenue cycle recovery and optimization, care management, and solutions to meet regulatory requirements of ICD-10, meaningful use, and accountable care.

Visit us at booth 944 for the HIMSS Survival Kit from your friends at CTG Health Solutions. We will also have coffee and bottled water in the booth.

Culbert Healthcare Solutions

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Brad Boyd
bboyd@culberthealth.com
857.919.2003

Culbert offers comprehensive management consulting services for physicians, hospitals, and healthcare systems to improve the delivery of patient care in today’s challenging environment.

Culbert’s seasoned healthcare professionals possess strong patient access, clinical, and revenue cycle operations experience combined with IT vendor focused expertise which uniquely qualifies the firm to select, implement, and optimize technology solutions in complex healthcare organizations.

Cumberland Consulting Group

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: David Vreeland, partner
david.vreeland@cumberlandcg.com
615.335.5272

Cumberland is hosting a hospitality suite at the Hyatt Regency (formerly the Peabody) during the conference. Cumberland Consulting Group, LLC is a national technology implementation and project management firm serving ambulatory, acute, post-acute and long-term healthcare providers, health plan and payors, and life sciences companies. Through the implementation of new technologies, Cumberland helps health organizations nationwide advance the quality of services they deliver and improve overall business performance.

For more information on Cumberland, visit http://www.cumberlandcg.com.

DataMotion

To schedule a meeting:

Contacts:
Bob Janacek, CTO, bobj@datamotion.com, 973.452.5321
Andy Nieto, health IT strategist, andyn@datamotion.com, 502.905.0230
Hugh Gilenson, director business development, healthcare hughg@datamotion.com, 201.417.1090

DataMotion provides HIPAA-compliant solutions using strong encryption techniques for secure email and file transfers containing PHI. We are also an ENHAC-accredited Health Information Service Provider (HISP) delivering Direct Secure Messaging services via 18 EHRs including Epic’s EMR. We help EHRs and HIEs certify for 2014 ONC-ACB using DataMotion Direct as “relied upon software.”

The DataMotion Direct solution allows vendors of certified health IT products to rapidly certify their solutions and enable providers to meet MU2s Direct Secure Messaging requirements. Capabilities include:

Interoperability for Direct Secure Messaging
Support for both incoming and outgoing messages
Routing of CCD/CCDAs through DataMotion’s HISP and exchanged via XDR

You can meet with us at HIMSS by contacting Bob Janacek, Andy Nieto, or Hugh Gilenson.

Divurgent

Booth 4372

Contact: Shane Danaher, VP, business development and marketing
shane.danaher@divurgent.com
757.232.3273

Visit booth 4372 and help Divurgent raise $5,000 towards the Florida Children’s Hospital. Simply “Spin to Win” and Divurgent will donate the amount you select.

As a nationally recognized healthcare consulting firm, we strive to be different, to think outside of the box for innovative healthcare solutions. Our goal is simple: to transform healthcare to our clients and the communities they serve.

Focused on the business of hospitals, health systems, and affiliated providers, Divurgent believes successful outcomes are derived from powerful partnerships. Recognizing the unique culture that every organization offers, we leverage the depth of our experienced consulting team to create customized solutions that best meet our client’s goals. Utilizing best practices and methodologies, we help improve our client’s operational effectiveness, financial performance, and quality of patient care.

DrFirst

Booth 1891

Contact: Ellie Whims, marketing communications manager, corporate marketing team lead
ewhims@drfirst.com
301.231.9510 x 2808

DrFirst pioneers software solutions and services designed to optimize healthcare provider access to patient information, improve the doctor’s clinical view of the patient at the time of care, and enable more effective, efficient administration and collaboration across a patient’s circle of caregivers. Our growth is driven by a commitment to innovation and reliability across a wide array of service areas, including medication history and e-prescribing, secure messaging and clinical data sharing, and patient behavioral education and medication adherence. We are a Surescripts White Coat of Quality provider, and have the #1-ranked standalone e-prescribing software as rated by Black Book Rankings. We are proud of our track record of service to 40,000 providers and over 290 EMR/EHR/HIS vendors nationwide. For more information please visit http://www.drfirst.com.

eClinicalWorks

Booth 2515

Contact: Heather Caouette, marketing
heather.caouette@eclinicalworks.com
508.836.2700

EClinicalWorks delivers ambulatory healthcare IT solutions. Using modern Web-based technology, its solutions extend the value proposition far beyond the practice walls and bring meaningful use of technology within reach of every eligible professional. Healthcare professionals across all 50 states that are part of ACOs, physician practices, outpatient departments of hospitals, health centers, departments of health, and more rely on eClinicalWorks.

Be sure to visit the eClinicalWorks booth to experience live demonstrations showcasing the latest advancements in EHRs, population health management, patient engagement, and revenue cycle management. Learn how 10 recipients of the HIMSS Davies Award achieved excellence in the use of health information technology.

eHealth Technologies

Booth MP-10 and the Interoperability Showcase

Contact: Deanna Peters, director of business development, eHealth Imaging Solutions
Deanna.Peters@eHealthTechnologies.com
585.704.2671

eHealth Technologies is improving continuity of care for more than half of America’s top 100 hospitals and leading HIEs. Our eHealth Connect suite of services improve, expedite, and provide analytics on the entire patient referral process, retrieving any external medical record and image, streamlining communication with referring physicians and simplifying medical image access and sharing across the healthcare continuum.

We invite you to stop by meeting room MP10 or the Interoperability Showcase to learn about the latest in technology and interoperability with a human touch. Visit http://www.eHealthTechnologies.com to sign up for a demo or to meet with us at HIMSS.

Elsevier Clinical Solutions

Booth 6352

Contact: Jaime Cheng, senior marketing manager
j.cheng@elsevier.com
215.239.3651

With a suite of products that integrate into clinical workflows, Elsevier Clinical Solutions delivers the content trusted by healthcare professionals throughout your institution. By focusing on innovative ways to deliver the knowledge your teams need, we can help drive outcomes today and prepare you for the challenges of tomorrow. Experience it for yourself at booth 6352.

Emdeon

Booth 5151

Contact: Adrienne Lisoskie, director of product marketing
alisoskie@emdeon.com
615.390.9039

Emdeon is the largest healthcare network, connecting providers, payers, and pharmacies to maximize business performance and improve payment integrity. Come by booth 5151 to discover how Emdeon can help you achieve your business goals and also learn how you can win one of 13 Nike FuelBands that will be given out during the show.

Emdeon is the single largest clinical, financial, and administrative healthcare network in the nation. In 2013, we processed over seven billion transactions with a value of over $900 billion. Our network moves information between physicians, hospitals, labs, pharmacies, and payers through our interoperable connectivity to their software systems. Emdeon will host several practical, real-world discussions at our booth this year. Three Nike FuelBands will be given away at each session.

Visit us at http://www.emdeon.com/HIMSS2014 to view the details.

Etransmedia

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Connie Smith, marketing
sales@etransmedia.com
518.283.5418

Since 2000, Etransmedia has developed and delivered integrated cloud-based software and services to hospitals, health systems, and physicians nationwide. Etransmedia’s solutions include revenue cycle management service, the Connect2Care software platform which includes an integrated EHR/PM, financial analytics, care coordination, and patient engagement.

Etransmedia is committed to providing the right solutions to build an effective community of care, driving revenues and efficiencies for ambulatory, acute and diagnostic facilities, and increasing the availability of information to providers making critical care decisions. Etransmedia serves over 12,000 providers and 40,000 users.

Etransmedia is the recipient of seven consecutive Inc. 500/5000 awards, and three consecutive Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Awards. http://www.etransmedia.com.

Extension Healthcare

Booth 1441

Contact: Whitney St. Pierre, director of marketing
wstpierre@extensionhealthcare.com
773.368.0911

Visit Extension Healthcare in booth 1441 to view the next-generation alarm safety solutions and learn why the healthcare community is choosing Extension Healthcare to improve the lives of staff and patients.

Top Six Reasons to Visit Our Booth

Alarm fatigue was recently named as the number one health technology hazards for 2014 by ECRI Institute. Learn how Extension Engage helps reduce alarm fatigue in healthcare facilities by combining advanced alarm management software with unique secure text messaging solution to enable an optimized clinical event response workflow.
Learn about Extension Evaluate, a “black box data recorder” program offered to qualifying hospitals at no charge that collects baseline alarm data for up to 30 days from various system. Extension will generate reports designed to assist an alarm safety committee with the initial evaluate of unfiltered clinical alarms and events recorded from patient monitoring and some bedside medical devices.
Alarms (regulated systems) and alerts (unregulated systems) notifications. Learn about some of the most common alarm and alert generating workflows that include: medical device alarm notification, nurse call alerts, critical lab notifications, clinical order notifications and full report notifications.
Event response and care team collaboration. Clinicians can determine the most appropriate event response to each alarm not matter where they are located. Alarms are delivered via a clinicians’ preferred wireless device, which means they are able to receive vital patient information and communicate with the entire care team through event driven secure text messaging or by phone.
Automated clinical presence. Extension Engage platform enhances event response workflow by automatically narrating elements of the event response dialog with Cisco Jabber, ultimately providing an entirely new level of care team awareness and response orchestration.
Enter to Win a Kindle Fire HD. Extension Healthcare will be raffling three Kindle Fire HD during the HIMSS conference. Stop by our booth to enter to win.

To sign up for a demo or meeting with us at HIMSS, visit http://go.extensionhealthcare.com/HIMSS-2014-Conference

ESD

Booth 2128

Contact: Jessica St. John, business development director
jstjohn@contactesd.com
419.841.3179

ESD provides full-cycle implementation services, starting at the point of the system build and continuing through all phases of the implementation process. Our team of clinical and experienced professionals support adoption at the point-of-care through the billing cycle to optimize reimbursement. Our goal is to ensure your system works for your team – from start to finish and everything in between.

This year, we featuring a giveaway for a free two-week assessment of our Automated Testing Solutions. Testing is an essential preparation element when going live with a new system, upgrading to a new version, or even preparing for the transition to ICD-10. By automating the testing process, you can cut the time it takes to test by 80 percent, as well as reduce the amount of resources needed to do the testing itself.

To learn more and to get a free USB featuring our Automated Testing Experience, stop by booth 2128 to talk with one of our ESD team members to learn more about how testing can benefit your organization.

First Databank (FDB)

Booth 1965, Interoperability Showcase participant

Contact: David Manin, director of marketing
davidmanin@fdbhealth.com
650.872.4588

First Databank (FDB) provides drug knowledge that helps healthcare professionals make precise medication-related decisions. With thousands of customers worldwide, FDB enables our information system developer partners to deliver a wide range of valuable, useful, and differentiated solutions. As the company that virtually launched the medication care guidance category, we offer more than three decades of experience in transforming drug knowledge into actionable, targeted, and effective solutions that improve patient safety and healthcare outcomes. Come have a cup of gourmet coffee with us and meet with FDB specialists.

Learn more about best practices for the utilization of FDB solutions to meet Meaningful Use requirements and improve outcomes. Tackling medication alert fatigue; enhancing medication ordering, and hospital discharge and ambulatory prescription writing; facilitating medication interoperability; improving medication reconciliation outcomes; ensuring medication safety/compliance with REMS; and, controlled substances content.

More information is at http://www.fdbhealth.com/himss14.

Forward Health Group, Inc.

Booth 1694

Contact: Barry Wightman, VP marketing
bmw@forwardhealthgroup.com
608.7297.522

Does your data drive improvement? Do you trust your data? Is your data guiding your practice forward? The secret to data aggregation, the key to successful population health management, live at booth 1694.

While everybody’s talking about improving health care outcomes, we are actually doing it. Forward Health Group is equipping health care institutions across the country with the necessary tools to impact quality and financial outcomes in the new health care landscape.

With its best-in-class data collection, validation, and analytics tools, Forward Health Group’s PopulationManager helps turn data from disparate sources into fuel to manage populations of patients, driving improvements in the quality outcomes equated with both clinical improvement and financial success.

FUJIFILM Medical Systems U.S.A., Inc.

Booth 4074

FUJIFILM Medical Systems U.S.A., Inc. is showcasing its comprehensive Synapse portfolio. Synapse allows management of the complete patient record including non-DICOM imaging, while providing fast, secure access to clinical users via web and mobile platforms. To see how all data – including PACS, RIS, cardiovascular, VNA, and cloud services– is organized all together, by patient, in one seamless system.

For more information, visit http://www.fujimed.com.

GetWellNetwork

Booth 2219

Contact: Tony Cook, vice president of marketing
himss@getwellnetwork.com
240.482.4212

Visit booth 2219 and learn how GetWellNetwork’s patient engagement solutions help health care providers engage, educate, and empower patients along the care continuum. Our patient-centered platform, delivered across multiple technology platforms including mobile devices, computers and televisions, enables providers to implement a revolutionary care delivery model called Interactive Patient Care to improve performance and patient outcomes. The company further extends the value of existing IT investments by integrating seamlessly with electronic medical record and patient portal applications.

GetWellNetwork was just recognized by KLAS as the leader in the Interactive Patient Systems category for the fourth consecutive year.

GetWellNetwork will be showcasing its newest solutions, including the new patient experience and ambulatory solution. CEO Michael O’Neil and CIO David Muntz, former principal deputy director of the ONC, will be available for one-on-one meetings with hospital executives. Contact us at himss@getwellnetwork.com or call 240.482.4213 to schedule a meeting.

Giveaways: Samsung Galaxy Gear and Fitbit.

Greencastle Associate Consulting

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Joe Crandall, director of client engagement solutions
crandallj@greencastleconsulting.com
856.685.0737

Greencastle consultants are agents of change. Our people have the skill and the experience necessary to assume leadership and take responsibility for the success of large-scale clinical projects and business initiatives.

Founded by US Army Rangers in 1997, Greencastle specializes in bringing a sense of purpose to the task of furthering the missions of hospitals, health systems, acute care centers, clinics, medical practices, ambulatory care providers, and other healthcare organizations. We realize the potential of change through disciplined teamwork, innovation, and systematic methods.

With loyalty and integrity as our compass, we partner with healthcare organizations to complement the existing expertise and passion of your teams. Our change agents inspire people, help them perform, and get results. We maximize the value of change for healthcare organizations. By implementing mission-critical solutions, Greencastle helps hospitals increase revenue, reduce costs, and improve patient outcomes.

Greenway

Booth 2503

Contact: Leeann Fleming, event marketing director
info@greenwaymedical.com
770.836.3100

If your destination is adventure, the journey awaits. The first stop is booth 2503 at HIMSS, where you will experience the latest innovations in health information technology from Greenway. From there, you can enter to win your choice of unique adventures, including spa getaways, vacations, all-inclusive flights, and more.

Greythorn

Booth 4379

Contact: Amanda Kocefas, marketing manager
usmarketing@fivetengroup.com
312.283.8510

We appreciate that it takes more than technical knowledge to excel in today’s healthcare environment.

At Greythorn, we understand how electronic medical records provide accessible patient information, improve clinical processes and ultimately, transform patients’ lives. As experienced sector specialists with outstanding market knowledge, we have access to the best health IT career opportunities with the most respected organizations. That’s why we pride ourselves on being the best healthcare IT recruiters in the market.

At our booth, we will have a scratch and win prize giveaway, including USB drives pre-loaded with great industry insight, collapsible water bottles (perfect for traveling), and a TV.

Hayes Management Consulting

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Pete Butler, president and CEO
pbutler@hayesmanagement.com

Hayes Management Consulting is a leading national healthcare consulting firm focused on healthcare operations. This includes strategic planning, interim leadership, revenue cycle optimization, clinical optimization, project management, IT consulting, and preparation for federal initiatives such as ICD-10, Meaningful Use, and HIPAA compliance.

We also provide software such as MDaudit and other proprietary tools to ensure our clients are operationally efficient. We won’t have a booth, but would like to meet you.

The HCI Group

Booth 4992

Contact: Joshua Cossey, senior vice president of operations
joshua.cossey@thehcigroup.com
904.337.6356

Quality, agile, cost-effective solutions set the HCI Group apart. The HCI group is a specialized global healthcare IT consultancy and currently the fastest growing company in the whole healthcare sector in the USA as awarded by Inc Magazine. Our consultants possess unique expertise in Epic, Cerner, Allscripts, McKesson, CPSI, Eclipsys, Cardinal Health, Meditech, HealthStream, and Siemens.

Key service lines include:

Software implementation and training
Strategic guidance and project management
EHR sustaining support
Integration and testing
Go-live services
ICD-10
Revenue cycle optimization

For more information, visit http://www.theHCIgroup.com.

Health Care Software, Inc. (HCS)

Booth 4464

Contact: Tom Visotsky, EVP of sales and marketing
tvisotsky@hcssupport.com
800.524.1038 x325

HCS has delivered healthcare information technology to providers since 1969. HCS Interactant is an integrated platform of clinical and financial modules exceeding the expectations of facilities across the spectrum of care including long-term care, long-term acute care, inpatient, outpatient, behavioral health, and rehabilitation. Visit HCS at HIMSS to learn more about how you can lower costs and improve the quality of your care.

Visit HCS Booth 4464 to register to win a $250 AMEX gift card. Get social with HCS by mentioning HCS in a photo and posting it to LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram with #HCSatHIMSS14 and you cold win a $100 AMEX gift card.

Health Catalyst

Booth 6076

Contact: Chris Keller, VP of marketing research
chris.keller@healthcatalyst.com
801.230.9223

Are you challenged to turn your data into clinical improvements? Struggling to know how to get your data aggregated? Wish you could more quickly deliver more business intelligence into your organization? We can help. Get a deep-dive demonstration that suits your needs. Visit us at booth 6076.

Health Catalyst provides a transformational approach to healthcare data warehousing and analytics. Catalyst’s award-winning Late-Binding data warehouse platform, analytics solutions, and clinical improvement services help healthcare providers make sense of clinical, financial, operational, and patient experience data to identify care improvement opportunities and eliminate waste.

Come checkout our double-decker booth and learn how to win one of several FitBits and the grand prize, an iPad Mini. Booth 6076. Click here to learn more.

healthfinch

Booth 3493

Contact: Mark Citrone, director of partnerships
mark@healthfinch.com
508.596.4493

HealthMEDX, LLC

Booth 4483

Contact: Mary Senesac, director of health systems
mary.senesac@healthmedx.com
417.582.1816 x6738

Healthcare reform requires post-acute care technology with advanced clinical, financial, and marketing solutions to support health systems in managing patient care.

Leading health systems select the HealthMEDX EMR to drive post-acute care strategies for care coordination, readmission management, transitional care, and accountable care programs.

HealthMEDX integrates with Epic, Cerner, McKesson, and Siemens.

Healthwise

Booth 2077, Interoperability Showcase 9001-19

Contact: Dave Mink, business development manager
dmink@healthwise.org
208.921.4918

Experience the Healthwise difference at HIMSS14. We’re everywhere! Get to know us better. Tour the Healthwise information, interaction, and innovation stations in booth 2077. Visit the Interoperability Showcase, 9001-19,to demo the Healthwise Population Health Solution featuring a readmissions prevention program (joint demo with Prompt Alert.) Hear “Meaningful Use Insider” Leslie Kelly Hall at 10:00 a.m., Tuesday, February 25 at the Learning Gallery.

Since 1975 our singular mission has been to help people make better health decisions. The Healthwise mission, combined with our innovative spirit, leads to revolutionary solutions that improve the impact of health education. Healthwise information embedded within the EMR lets physicians deliver patient education within the workflow. Patients can access relevant content, videos, and tools wherever they are on any device. Deliver the right solution for clinicians and patients. Simply.

The most important patient engagement challenge is the one you’re having right now. Let’s solve it on The Whiteboards at booth 2077. Tell us your biggest challenge for engaging patients. Together, we’ll work it out on The Wwhiteboards. You’ll walk away with an action plan to tackle your problem.

Have you had thoughts like these?

Herding cats would be easier than getting all of our existing patient education to line up.
So much accreditation criteria. So little time. So little staff.
My patients are engaged. But how do I prove it?

Those are exactly the kind of challenges we mean. Our experts are ready to listen and roll up their sleeves to help you tackle it. Chances are we’ve already solved a problem like yours. Let us match our experts to your problem. Book your appointment for a complimentary one-on-one expert session at The Whiteboards. http://www.healthwise.org/himss14.

Don’t have a problem to bring, but want to learn more about Healthwise? Take our in-booth tour to experience the Healthwise difference. Visit Healthwise at booth 2077.

Iatric Systems, Inc.

Booth 3217

Contact: John Danahey, SVP, sales and marketing
john.danahey@iatric.com
978.805.4153

Join Iatric Systems in booth 3217 at HIMSS14. Iatric Systems helps healthcare providers achieve success by delivering the most comprehensive healthcare IT integration. From connected devices to connected communities and everything in between, Iatric Systems has the knowledge, products, and services to help you leverage your EHR investment.

Regardless of your EHR, we can help you with:

Meaningful Use attestation
HIE implementation
Patient privacy monitoring
Patient engagement
Medical device integration

In addition to the exhibit hall, make sure to visit us in the Interoperability Showcase where our medical device integration solution, Accelero Connect, will be featured. Booth 9001-62.

ICSA Labs, an independent division of Verizon

Booth 3937 and the Interoperability Showcase

Contact: Sonia Robins, accounts manager, healthcare
sonia.robins@icsalabs.com
224.500.5421

ICSA Labs provides third-party testing and certification of security and health IT products, as well as network-connected devices, to measure product compliance, reliability, and performance. For more information on the following, visit ICSA Labs at booth 3937 or at the HIMSS Interoperability Showcase.

Learn more about ICSA Labs healthcare programs for testing and certification.

ONC Health IT Certification Program. ICSA Labs tests and certifies EHR technology for the ONC’s Health IT Certification Program. ICSA Labs is an NVLAP Accredited Health IT Testing Laboratory and an ANSI Accredited and ONC-Authorized Certification Body for EHR Technology. www.icsalabs.com/technology-program/onc-ehr

IHE USA Certification. ICSA Labs and IHE have partnered to provide an IHE USA Certification program to test and certify advanced interoperability capabilities of EHRs, HIEs, patient dare devices and more. IHE USA Certification was created to bring technologies to market which enable healthcare providers and hospitals to meet today’s requirements for clinical integration. Visit the IHE USA Certification booth in the Interoperability Showcase. For more information: www.icsalabs.com/ihe

Mobile App Testing. ICSA Labs delivers mobile app testing for companies that have developed custom-made mobile apps in-house or through the use of a third party. ICSA Labs examines a mobile app across more than twenty high-level assessment objectives mapping back to four key categories: maliciousness, vulnerability, reliability, and privacy. For more information: www.icsalabs.com/technology-program/mobile-app-testing

Imprivata

Booth 2541

Contact: Maria LoBrutto, marketing events manager
mlobrutto@imprivata.com
603.703.9371

Imprivata is a leading provider of identity and access management and secure clinical communications solutions that simplify healthcare IT for better focus on patient care. Imprivata OneSign single sign-on and authentication management deliver fast, secure No Click Access to clinical applications. Imprivata Cortext is a powerful communications platform that enables more efficient care team coordination.

By removing technology barriers, Imprivata allows doctors to spend more time being doctors.

Infor (formerly Lawson)

Booth 3049

Contact: Tara Waldron, healthcare field marketing manager
healthcare@infor.com
651.767.6142

Lawson and Cloverleaf are now even stronger with Infor. Visit us at HIMSS and enjoy free beverages and popcorn in our Relaxation Zone. Take a survey and be registered to win a $2,500 American Express card.

To learn more about our solution strategy, “Health 3.0 – The Path Forward” and our products, including financials, supply chain, HCM, analytics, and integration, and HIEs, schedule a demo with an Infor Healthcare representative by visiting http://www.infor.com/himss.

Also, don’t miss our interoperability showcase presentation February 26 from 1-1:30 p.m.

Ingenious Med, Inc.

Booth 471

Contact: Courtney Schickel, VP of marketing
courtney.schickel@ingeniousmed.com
678.336.1721

With a 15-year tradition of innovation and excellence, Ingenious Med is excited to make its biggest announcement yet at HIMSS14. Beyond debuting substantial changes and upgrades to the existing product line, we at Ingenious Med are unveiling a host of brand new functionality as well as announcing a redefinition of the market space itself, with the introduction of the patient encounter platform. The PEP is a new concept built to serve today’s needs while preparing healthcare enterprises for tomorrow’s challenges.

Ingenious Med continues to break new ground under the leadership of its founder, Dr. Steven Liu, developing useful solutions to increase the quality of care, reduce cost, protect and bolster revenue, and most importantly of all, put physicians’ time where it is needed most: with their patients. Come by booth 471 and find out more.

Stop by booth 471 to learn more about the new patient encounter platform and enter for a chance to win an Apple TV.

Innovative Healthcare Solutions

Booth 1729

Contact: Dan Hereid, vice president of business development
dhereid@ihsconsulting.com
303.579.5419

IHS, along with several of our exhibiting neighbors, will be hosting a block party on Tuesday, February 25th from 4-6 pm. Please stop by to enjoy a variety of catered food and drinks.

IMO – Intelligent Medical Objects

Booth 3341

Contact: Dennis Carson, director of marketing and tradeshows
dcarson@e-imo.com
847.272.1242

IMO – Intelligent Medical Objects is the most widely-used and physician-preferred terminology service for EHRs. Our technology allows clinicians to use the language they are most familiar with to better capture and preserve true clinical intent. We’re ready to support your transition to ICD-10 and your attestation for Meaningful Use. Visit us at booth 3341 and learn more about how IMO can help.

Our presentations include:

All About IMO Problem (IT) Terminology
All About IMO Procedure (IT) Terminology
Achieving Meaningful Use with IMO
Are You Ready for ICD-10-CM?
Clinically Coherent Problem Lists with IMO Problem List Management

Click to reserve your spot: http://www.e-imo.com/event/himss-14. www.e-imo.com

InterSystems Corporation

Booth 2741

Contact: Jerry Hinch, director of North American marketing
jerry.hinch@intersystems.com
617.621.0600

What is strategic interoperability and why do you need it?

You need strategic interoperability if your organization is to efficiently:

Engage patient and clinician communities
Coordinate all patient care
Manage population health
Turn big data into insights and action

Visit InterSystems at HIMSS14, booth 2741, Hall B to learn more about strategic interoperability. Step into InterSystems’ must-see presentations at HIMSS to win a Fitbit Flex. Each time you step into an InterSystems-sponsored presentation at HIMSS14 you gain another chance to win one of 30 Fitbit Flex Wireless Activity and Sleep Wristbands we’re giving away.

Juniper Networks

Booth 3703

Contact: Ryan Witt, global managing director of healthcare industry practice
rwitt@juniper.net
650.492.3480

Juniper Networks is in the business of network innovation. From devices to data centers, from consumers to cloud providers, Juniper Networks delivers the software, silicon and systems that transform the experience and economics of networking.

Additional information about Juniper Networks for the healthcare industry can be found at www.juniper.net/healthcare.

LDM Group

Booth 3544

Contact: Todd Helmink, vice president of business development
thelmink@ldmgrp.com
312.391.4233

LDM Group, LLC (LDM) is a leading provider of behavior based prescription management programs. LDM provides timely and clinically relevant healthcare messaging through its patented process which serves to improve patient compliance and outcomes, while preserving privacy. As a targeted healthcare communications company, LDM connects prescribers, pharmacists, and patients. LDM’s network is made up of e-prescribing, electronic medical record (EMR), and electronic health record (EHR) applications, chain and independent pharmacies, and sponsors of healthcare-related educational materials such as pharmaceutical manufacturers, health plans, payors, and PBM’s.

LDM’s products and services:

Are delivered in workflow through the trusted healthcare professional thus building better provider-patient relations
Allow for a configurable solution that adapts to specific protocols to support consistent and reliable outcomes
Provide customized patient education and engagement programs that help meet Meaningful Use and ACO requirements
Ensure multiple delivery methods for patients based on patient preferences (print, email, SMS, etc.)

Legacy Data Access, LLC

Booth 3130

Contact: John Hanggi, director of customer services
jhanggi@legacydataaccess.com
678.701.5589

Running old applications just to get to the old data? We need to talk!

As an innovator in data storage and web-based solutions, Legacy Data Access provides the industry’s most comprehensive set of software tools for working with data from retired systems. Whether you’re looking to retire old applications, simplify your IT landscape, or meet long-term data retention requirements, Legacy Data Access successfully stores data from health care systems that are being retired and provides secure, web-based and interactive access to the information.

We have been using elephant imagery for many years now. When we first thought of this idea, it was based on the saying “the elephant in the room“; i.e., that large issue that no one wants to acknowledge but is there and needs care and feeding. This year Legacy Data Access has partnered with Zoo Atlanta on a “Protector” level sponsorship for the elephant exhibit. Legacy Data Access will be handing out “I Love Elephants” buttons. For each person that comes by and agrees to wear the button all day, we will donate a dollar to the sponsorship.

Leidos Health

Booth 3753

Contact: LeAnne Hester, SVP of strategy and marketing
LeAnne.Hester@leidoshealth.com
877.652.4099

lifeIMAGE

Booth 2009

Contact: Jackie Leckas, director of marketing
jackie@lifeimage.com
617.990.2262

Medical image exchange has become a mainstream solution for healthcare enterprises. More and more hospitals are adopting it to improve the efficiency of clinical staff, increase patient safety and satisfaction, increase referral volumes, and eliminate wasteful spend. If your team hasn’t already been asked to evaluate image sharing, chances are it will come up at some point this year.

Let lifeIMAGE give you an introduction to image sharing at HIMSS. Why lifeIMAGE? Because hundreds of leading hospitals use our solutions to electronically receive outside study data, integrate it with the EMR, and securely publish exams to referring physicians and patients. We’ve got a proven Epic integration and we were recently named Cerner’s exclusive partner for image sharing. Lastly, lifeIMAGE was given “Category Leader” designation by KLAS as part of its recent 2013 Best in KLAS Awards: Software & Services, an honor based on customer feedback. Leverage our experience to learn how medical image sharing could be the next big thing at your institution.

Lifepoint Informatics

Booth 6069

Contact: William Seay, CEO
jsierra@lifepoint.com
201.447.9991 x359

Visit our booth for a chance to win a Google Chromecast. Hourly drawings during exhibit hours will be made.

LightSpeed Health, Inc.

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Michael Justice, president
mjustice@lightspeedhealth.com
305.799.0990

LightSpeed Health is a healthcare software and services company focused on solving IT related issues for ambulatory practices. We are experts in archiving and migrating EMR/EHR and PM systems, our archive systems have been deployed in the largest physician networks in the country, in over 15 states. We work with health systems to develop and execute the IT strategies related to physician practice acquisition – data migration, clinical and financial interfacing (HL-7 and X-12), implementation support, training, workflow analysis, and ongoing user support.

Our team has particular expertise in Allscripts Enterprise and GE Centricity EHR and PM systems.

Specialties: EMR/EHR data archives and migration, Allscripts Enterprise EHR and PM systems, GE Centricity EMR and PM systems, EMR/EHR selection and implement support, and EHR/PM facilities management agreements.

Logicare

Booth 7867

Contact: Michele Mick, account executive
michele.mick@logicare.com
414.335.5361

LOGICARE provides patient-specific education and discharge instructions across healthcare organizations to support workflow of clinical users and integrate with all major EHR systems. LOGICARE is ONC-Certified for Meaningful Use Stages 1 and 2, helps improve HCAHPS scores, and reduce hospital re-admission.

LOGICARE is a division of The Wellness Network, the largest, most comprehensive in-hospital health TV network in the US. www.logicare.com

We will be giving away an ipad. Also, we are offering Starbucks gift cards for attendees interested in viewing a WebEx demo after convention.

The Loop Company

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Gino Johnson, founder and managing director
info@loopcompany.org
802.857.5464

The Loop Company is a research advisory firm with more than 20 years’ experience helping healthcare technology organizations grow their business. Our focus is on delivering actionable strategic and tactical learnings to help your organization successfully launch new products/services, enter new target markets, win more new business, and build loyal customer relationships.

What we do:

Collaboratively design customized qualitative feedback loop mechanisms to help your organization understand how it is being perceived in the marketplace, by your customers and prospects.
Advance organizational improvement across all areas of your business including: sales, marketing, positioning and messaging, brand awareness, product development, roadmap validation, operations, installations/implementation, support, account management.

MBA HealthGroup

Booth 3695

Contact: Ethan Bechtel, CEO
ethan.bechtel@mbahealthgroup.com
866.383.8932

MBA HealthGroup has been one of the fastest-growing healthcare consulting groups in North America for three years. We specialize in strategic consulting, Epic and Allscripts consulting, ICD-10, and revenue cycle management services. Our vision is to improve patient care experiences by making hospitals and physician practices stronger and smarter. Our products include OHMD, a secure mobile messaging platform to improve patient engagement, and, FormMation, a form automation tool for EHRs.

McKesson Corporation

Booth 1365

Contact: Ed Domansky, communications manager
edward.domansky@mckesson.com
404.338.3710

McKesson is a leading healthcare services and information technology company dedicated to making the business of healthcare run better.

At HIMSS14, our key Better Health 2020 solutions will be on display in the McKesson and RelayHealth booths (1365 and 1665). You won’t want to miss the latest in solutions for population and risk management, connectivity/interoperability, strategic management, physician performance improvement, Paragon integrated health IT, enterprise imaging and more!

And, McKesson is pleased to offer Expert Chats in booth 1365. A broad range of subject matter experts will be available for discussions on contemporary topics, including population health, the use of analytics to reduce administrative and clinical variation, and profitable medical group management, to name a few.

http://sites.mckesson.com/himss14/

MedAssets

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: solutions@medassets.com
888.883.6332

MedAssets (NASDAQ: MDAS) is a healthcare performance improvement company focused on helping providers realize financial and operational gains so that they can sustainably serve the needs of their community. More than 4,200 hospitals and 122,000 non-acute healthcare providers currently use the company’s evidence-based solutions, best practice processes and analytics to help reduce the total cost of care, enhance operational efficiency, align clinical delivery, and improve revenue performance across the care continuum.

For more information, please visit www.medassets.com.

MedData

Booth 513

Contact: Dustin Whisenhunt, VP of client services and sales – Patient Pay
dustinw@meddata.com
954.531.5235

MedData eliminates confusion and frustration with the medical billing process. We simplify the communication process, consolidating each patient’s bills and focusing on patient satisfaction while increasing our clients’ revenue. We work with patients to make sure they understand their bills and payment options, and help them navigate any insurance issues.

Our proprietary workflow is built around the patient, our ability to consolidate all their bills and help them understand what they owe, and ultimately increase the patient satisfaction scores for our clients. The result is a minimum revenue increase from the patient responsibility portion of the payer mix of over 30 percent while finding an additional 15 percent or more of unfilled insurance, all while generating an ROI of over 100 percent in the first few months. Visit our booth for a quick demo of our proprietary service – no appointment required.

HIMSS giveaways: $1,000 Amazon gift card, three $100 American Express gift cards, fresh baked scones every day.

Medfusion

Booth 8354

Contact: Jolene LoFrese, marketing manager
jolene_lofrese@medfusion.com
919.882.2816

Come see us at booth 8354 as well as the interoperability showcase and meet our team and pick up an infuser water bottle.

Medicity, A Healthagen Business

Booth 6150 (Healthagen)

Contact: Peter Martin, marketing director
pmartin@medicity.com
404.245.1830

Medicity is one of the most trusted partners in health information exchange, providing industry-leading technology to physicians, hospital systems, and government agencies for more than 15 years. We proudly power a network of more than 1,000 hospitals, 250,000 end users, and 20 regional and state-wide HIEs, all processing more than 2 billion clinical transactions each year. But we aren’t stopping there – we are constantly innovating to put our clinical integration expertise to work in a changing healthcare environment.

Visit http://medicity.com to learn more or schedule an appointment with us today.

Medicomp Systems

Booth 2703

Contact: David Lareau, chief executive officer
info@medicomp.com
703.803.8080

See Inga do it all! Come by booth 2703 to check out the one solution for all clinical documentation and see Inga headlining Quipstar on Tuesday, February 25 at 3:00 p.m.

Medicomp Systems will host Quipstar, world’s favorite HIT quiz show. The interactive health information technology quiz show kicks off on Monday, February 24 at 2:30 p.m. Additional shows will be on Tuesday at 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. and Wednesday at 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. Contestants and those seated in the live studio audience will use Medicomp’s easy-to-use nursing and physician documentation tool, Quippe, to answer questions about documentation and coding requirements.

MediQuant Inc.

Booth 1929

Contact: Mindy Morris, marketing manager
mindym@mediquant.com
800.917.6379

MediQuant provides a feature rich active archiving solution for any clinical, PFS, or ERP application that needs to be retired. Simplify your IT world and reduce the cost of system conversions with DataArk, an active archiving solution that allows you to decommission old systems, maintain interoperable access to old data, and realize up to 80 percent cost savings. FirstComply and AccuRules are MediQuant solutions for medical necessity and ABN compliance.

Stop by our booth 1929 for a chance to win a gift card.

Netsmart

Booth 3952 and Interoperability Showcase

Contact Mike Sheppard, vice president of marketing
msheppard@ntst.com
631.968.2024

What is the “missing population” and why should you care about it? If you’re managing an ACO, health home, or integrated care organization where value-based contracts are top of mind, you need to know about one of the highest cost, most underserved populations in healthcare: people with behavioral health disorders. Integrating acute care and behavioral health services is critical to improving overall health outcomes in a population where the severely mentally ill die 25 years earlier than the general population, and co-morbid physical and mental health illnesses drastically drive up Medicaid and other loss ratios.

Netsmart is the leader in clinical coordinated care technology for behavioral health and the larger health and human services provider communities, and the ideal partner to help you link your primary care initiatives with broader, coordinated care for the body and the mind.

Netsmart was selected to participate in the HIMSS Interoperability Showcase and with Epic will demonstrate the integration and care coordination of physical health and behavioral health.

Also visit us in booth 3952 to see how Netsmart CareManager seamless integrates clinical data between two or more organizations to efficiently and safely coordinate care delivery.

Nordic

Booth 2130

Contact: Adam Dial, vice president of client relations
adam.dial@nordicwi.com
608.469.6154

Nordic provides top-ranked Epic implementation consulting to over 87 clients across the country. With a team of over 350 Epic-certified consultants, we not only deliver the right resource at the right time, but also know there’s more to consulting than just having the answers. Our passion is in partnering with our clients: providing mentorship, knowledge transfer, and an extra set of hands during key build deadlines. We demonstrate the leadership and confidence that comes from having worked with more than 80 percent of Epic’s customers.

In addition to being ranked #1 by KLAS for Epic implementation and support, Nordic has also launched three lines of business that help clients realize more ROI from their EMR. Nordic’s Optimization Solutions, Affiliate Solutions, and Remote Solution groups all have dedicated experts who work with clients to create addition efficiency, usability, and satisfaction of their EMR.

Please visit us in booth 2130 to hear more about how we can assist with any Epic needs and enter for a chance to win an Optimization Assessment or Affiliate/Connect Planning Visit.

The Optimization assessment is a $7,500 value and includes trip to an Epic customer site with shadowing of users and a system evaluation, followed by a written report listing workflow and system optimization opportunities. The Affiliate/Connect planning visit is a value of $5,000 and includes a one- to two-day visit to an Epic customer site to assist in the development of a written strategy to extend an Epic system to the organization’s affiliated or acquired practices and hospitals. We will contact the winners the week after HIMSS.

NTT DATA, Inc.

Booth 765

Contact: Larry Kaiser, senior marketing manager
lawrence.kaiser@nttdata.com
631.824.5318

NTT DATA offers healthcare organizations a complete IT solution with applications that increase efficiency, reduce medical errors, and enhance the revenue cycle. Led by our flagship solution, Optimum, NTT DATA helps bring together healthcare consumers and providers to share data and manage care effectively. We back that engagement process with a full range of clinical, RCM, accounting, and mobile solutions.

nVoq

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Debbi Gillotti, vice president and general manager
deborah.gillotti@nvoq.com
206.465.1765

nVoq provides a cloud-based speech recognition platform (SayIt) exclusively endorsed by the AHA. We support real-time dictation for any EMR as well as voice-enabled workflow through automated shortcuts and scripting. SayIt can be used on both Windows and Mac OS computers.

SayIt in Healthcare is sold exclusively through channel partners. Unlike other vendors in this industry, nVoq has no direct sales force and does not provide transcription services. We want to grow, not compete with, our reseller network.

We welcome inquiries from app developers, EMR resellers, and HIT services firms interested in becoming channel partners. We’re also happy to make contact directly with providers or IT leaders to discuss your requirements and connect you with one of our certified resellers.

Talk to us about building a SayIt practice or using the SayIt SDK to voice-enable your applications platform. Learn why SayIt from nVoq is the sensible alternative for your organization.

Visit http://www.nvoq.com for more information.

Optum

Booth 5665

Contact: Alena Larson, marketing
alena.larson@optum.com

Find balance in fee-for-service and fee-for-value. Optum helps the health system work better for everyone. We’re a global team of over 65,000 people working collaboratively across the health system to improve care delivery, quality and cost effectiveness. Our innovative technology, services and applications help our clients achieve better patient outcomes and optimize their financial performance today. Visit us at HIMSS and see how our next generation clinical and financial analytics can help you navigate the journey from providing care to managing health.

Orchestrate Healthcare

Booth 2935

Contact: Charlie Cook, president
charlie@orchestratehealthcare.com
970.963.0251

We’re an agile boutique consulting company delivering back-to-back Best in KLAS technology services with an old-fashioned commitment to customer service. Our healthcare IT consultants concentrate solely on EMR clinical implementation with an Epic concentration, integration, health information exchanges (HIEs) and staff augmentation.

Come see us to learn more about our laser-like focus which attracts the best talent resulting in on-time, within-budget projects and delighted organizations.

Orion Health

Booth 965

Contact: Kristin O’Neill, senior marketing manager
kristin.oneill@orionhealth.com
857.488.4740

Today’s healthcare challenges are driving major change in how we deliver care. Now more than ever, conversations are taking place around the concept of a “coordination of care” platform that provides a single version of the truth regardless of where patients receive care.

Orion Health has you covered with the technology you need to succeed in the age of accountable care. Visit us at booth 965 and see first-hand how our collaborative care and integration solutions can help position your organization for success.

View a demo. Meet our clients. Attend informational sessions. It’s all here for you with Orion Health at HIMSS14. Visit http://www.orionhealth.com/himss14 to learn more.

Park Place International

Booth: 2186

Contact: Bryan Blood, VP of sales
bryan.blood@parkplaceintl.com
877.991.1991

Park Place International provides technology integration, technical consulting, and OpSus|Cloud Services designed to help customers achieve operational sustainability with their Meditech Electronic Health Record.

Park Place is an approved provider of technology solutions for all versions of the Meditech HCIS and offers a full selection of Meditech-certified server and storage platforms.

The Park Place team has extensive Meditech experience and technology expertise and is uniquely qualified to architect, deliver, and support Meditech solutions.

Stop by booth 2186 to learn more about Park Place International and enter our raffle for a chance to win an Amazon.com gift card.

Passport Health Communications

Booth 2134

Contact: Stacy Gillespie, vice president of marketing
stacy.gillespie@passporthealth.com
615.661.5657

Passport Health Communications Inc. provides software and solutions to help hospitals and health care providers improve business operations and secure payment for their services. Passport serves more than 2,500 hospitals in addition to more than 9,000 physicians, clinics, and ancillary offices across all 50 states and processes more than 485 million transactions annually through its Passport eCare brand of patient access and payment certainty solutions for the revenue cycle. Passport was recently acquired by Experian Healthcare in November 2013.

Come by our booth to learn more about our revenue cycle solutions and how they can help make workflow more efficient. Come by for a demo and you will be entered to win an American Express gift card.

Patientco

Booth 4021

Contact: Pete Heydt, SVP of business development
pete.heydt@patientco.com
770.329.8579

Patientco provides an intuitive suite of cloud-based revenue cycle automation tools designed to work seamlessly together to maximize patient revenue like never before. From the initial statement to the last payment made, we take a patient-centric approach to handle each step of the process with the same level of care you give to your patients, improving your business, one patient at a time.

Features include:

Patient-centric statements and eBills
Simple and secure online bill pay
Point-of-service payment processing
Automated phone payment system
Secure patient-to-provider messaging
Lockbox paper check processing
Correspondence handling
Returned mail processing
Business intelligence reporting

PatientKeeper Inc.

Booth 1603

Contact: Kathy Ruggiero, senior director of corporate marketing
kruggiero@patientkeeper.com
617.899.6521

PatientKeeper is a leading provider of healthcare applications for physicians, with over 50,000 users across North America and the UK. At HIMSS14, visitors can see live, commercially available versions of PatientKeeper’s CPOE (ranked easiest-to-use by KLAS®), med rec, physician documentation, electronic charge capture, and other applications that streamline physicians’ workflow, running as a native app on popular smartphones and tablets, as well as on desktop and laptop computers.

See how PatientKeeper makes healthcare IT painless for physicians and IT professionals alike.

PatientSafe Solutions

Booth 3983

Contact: Tim Needham, vice president
tneedham@patientsafesolutions.com
760.712.7343

PatientSafe Solutions is leading the way in smart point-of-care mobile solutions, driving safe and high-quality care throughout the patient experience. The PatientTouch mobile technology platform supports enhanced clinical workflows and voice/messaging communications on a single, handheld device. Through safety improvements, increased productivity, workforce engagement and satisfaction, and EMR optimization, the PatientTouch solution drives enhanced financial performance in the hospital environment. PatientSafe Solutions works with clients leveraging the PatientTouch system to improve performance management by eliminating harm, reducing waste, and improving productivity.

PatientSafe will be raffling a GoPro Hero3+ each day. Come by booth 3983 to visit.

PDR Network

Booth 454

Contact: Andrew Gelman, SVP of corporate development
andrew.gelman@pdr.net
917.655.5431

PDR Network is the nation’s leading aggregator and distributor of FDA-approved drug safety information and patient support services, reaching healthcare providers directly through the Physicians’ Desk Reference suite of digital and print services. PDR Communications provides direct access to more than one million healthcare professionals with both promotional vehicles (PDR Addenda, drug approval notifications, eDrug updates, and clinical/professional updates), and clinical vehicles (drug alerts, recall/withdrawal warning notifications, and dear HCP letters).

Healthcare professionals access trusted PDR content across channels, including via: the Physicians’ Desk Reference (PDR), the most recognized drug information reference available in the US, now available in multiple formats; PDR interactive drug services for EHR systems; PDR.net, the online home of the PDR; and mobilePDR for handheld devices.

For more information on our products and services, please stop by booth 454 or visit www.PDRNetwork.com.

Perceptive Software

Booth 4765

Contact: Jeneane Crawford, global campaigns manager
jeneane.crawford@perceptivesoftware.com
650.255.5504

Healthcare organizations and providers are struggling with an incomplete patient story when relying on the EMR alone for patient information. The reason? There’s a vast collection of unstructured content that the EMR does not manage – clinical images, digital photos, scanned documents, and video files – and the volume of this content is growing exponentially.

Join Perceptive Software at HIMSS14 in booth 4765 where we’ll demonstrate how you can deliver a complete patient record by bridging the content gaps in your existing applications. We will show you how to optimize your EMR and other IT systems by bringing all content, no matter the source, into view.

At booth 4765 solution experts will be available to discuss how we can help you:

Capture all unstructured content including clinical images, videos, photos and documents making them accessible from the patient record
Improve collaboration across content-centric departments and processes
Image-enable your EMR
Streamline finance and human resources workflows by eliminating manual tasks
Unlock valuable content regardless of where it exists with enterprise search.

PerfectServe

Booth 5293

Contact: Leigh Ann Myers, chief clinical officer
lmyers@perfectserve.net
865.212.6140

PerfectServe is a single, intelligent, unified communications platform that connects clinicians in any care setting—across the care continuum. Whether you’re part of a solo medical practice or a world-class health system, PerfectServe can help you drive meaningful improvement in your care delivery processes.

Visit us in booth 5293 to learn how we’re helping clinicians connect with each other quickly, easily and securely. And while you’re there, grab a yummy cake pop. They’re sure to be a crowd favorite and will give you that needed spurt of energy to get you through the rest of the day.

To learn more about PerfectServe, visit http://perfectserve.com.

PeriGen

Booth 2092

Contact: Suzanne Trajkoski, director of marketing
suzanne.trajkoski@perigen.com
609.480.4428

Visit PeriGen booth 2092 to learn how our evidence-based fetal surveillance solutions are helping leading hospitals save moms and babies. Meet our client, Baystate Health, a 2014 HIMSS presenter and 2014 Healthcare Informatics Innovator of the Year semi-finalist about the ROI of data-driven obstetrics and the policy they instituted to restrict early labor inductions.

pMD

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Chrissy Braden, director of business operations
sales@pmd.com
800.587.4989

pMD develops software that is powerful, flexible, reliable, and easy-to-use. pMD’s mobile charge capture solution enables physicians to enter billing charges anywhere, at anytime from iPhone, iPad, and Android devices. pMD eliminates the tedious paper processes and administrative elements that burden doctors and their practices, while reducing charge capture lag from weeks to less than a day.

Charge capture is unbelievably easy with pMD’s advanced code search functionality, which gives providers a quick and convenient way to select customized codes. pMD’s ICD-10 Converter automatically maps codes in one click and allows customers to incorporate the ICD-10 code system instantly or incrementally. Additionally, pMD’s secure messaging allows physicians to send sensitive information quickly and securely, all directly from within the pMD app.

The pMD team is committed to developing the best solution on the market and providing superior customer service.

Predixion Software

Booth 4893

Contact: Jennifer Dodos, director of marketing
jdodos@predixionsoftware.com
949.322.6181

Predixion helps healthcare organizations leverage data to predicatively manage a variety of population health challenges that are distributed via clinical systems or portable devices.

Predixion is a disruptive predictive analytics software company with a unique focus on the development of portable predictive applications via its patent pending Machine Learning Semantic Model and the Last Mile of Analytics – the deployment of powerful predictions to the people who need to act upon them. Predict Everything.

HIMSS products showcased:

Predictable Length of Stay: Predixion’s newest predictive health management solution is Predictable Length of Stay (LOS). Predictable LOS gives healthcare providers the ability to identify patients that are at risk of experiencing an extended LOS and, most importantly, directing frontline care providers to interventions that are most likely to reduce the excess LOS as well as measuring the outcomes of those interventions.
Predixion and Azure: Predixion’s solutions are now available for deployment utilizing the Azure Cloud Services and available HIPAA BAA.
Predictable Readmissions: Predixion’s market-proven solution, Predictable Readmissions, helps identify patients at risk of readmission from the moment they are first admitted to the hospital allowing for more tailored care during the patient’s stay and better continuity of care post discharge.

Prominence Advisors

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Bobby Bacci, president and CEO
HIMSS@prominenceadvisors.com
bobby.bacci@prominenceadvisors.com

Prominence Advisors will be hosting an event for current and prospective customers on Tuesday evening. Anyone interested in attending can get details by using the email HIMSS@prominenceadvisors.com.

Refreshing: that’s the word that comes to mind when talking about Prominence Advisors. This fast-growing healthcare IT consulting firm is doing things differently and finding new ways to apply technology, strategy, and analytics within the healthcare industry.

Proximare Health

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Shawn Wagoner, president
swagoner@proxhealth.com
512.635.4059

If patient access, leakage, and referral management are words you are hearing a lot of lately please take time out to learn how Proximare has helped several organizations with these challenges. Our product was developed in collaboration with clinicians and operations leaders over a decade ago at one of the largest systems in Chicago and has managed over two million patient transitions to date.

Sample client results:

Referral processing time was reduced from three months to 5.5 days
22 percent of referrals were screened out as inappropriate
Referral volume increased sevenfold with fewer employees needed to manage it.

Qlik

Booth 3111

Contact: Tracy Behar, national director of healthcare
Tracy.Behar@QlikView.com
919.931.9994

Qlik (NASDAQ: QLIK) is committed to changing the world by making it easier to make more insightful decisions and act on them. The QlikView Business Discovery software platform and Qlik Customer Success Framework provide people, technology and service, helping organizations optimize data as a strategic resource. QlikView uses Natural Analytics to support the way people naturally analyze information. It enables users to see associations, make comparisons, and anticipate outcomes in a natural way, rather than forcing them down inflexible drill paths. QlikView gives the immediate insights businesses need with the enterprise governance IT requires. Qlik serves approximately 30,000 customers in 100+ countries.

Join Qlik at booth 3111 to hear customer testimonials, experience a live demonstration, receive a massage, and more.

QPID Health

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Amy Krane, marketing
amy.krane@qpidhealth.com
617.308.5476
Connie Thompson, sales
connie.thompson@qpidhealth.com
404.964.1478

EHRs offer huge promise and great challenges. But as any clinician will tell you, it’s frustrating and time consuming to get the patient story you need for a specific clinical encounter. QPID solves that problem.

Developed and proven through use by thousands of clinicians at the Mass General and other leading hospitals, QPID finds and delivers digests of relevant patient history from anywhere in the patient’s record. From structured data fields and free-form text notes. And across EHRs, HIEs and other data repositories.

Learn why QPID users say, “I can’t believe I ever practiced without this.” If you’re ready to optimize your EHR, let’s talk.

Quest Diagnostics

Booth 3064

Contact: Geena Berry, ChartMaxx marketing
Geena.K.Berry@QuestDiagnostics.com
513.204.2455

Quest Diagnostics – more than a world leading lab company. Every day, more than 2400 hospitals and 300,000 physicians count on Quest Diagnostics HIT solutions to help improve patient outcomes and empower connectivity. We invite you to visit our HIMSS booth 3064 to learn about the full HIT solutions Quest Diagnostics offers and hear from industry leaders giving brief educational presentations on technology topics including data analytics and security, achieving the financial value of integrated care coordination, and Meaningful Use.

Visit our booth 3064 at HIMSS to learn more about our integrated solutions including:

Our award-winning ChartMaxx Enterprise Content Management helps your organization better manage documents and data with integrated clinical, financial, and administrative workflows
Care360 Data Exchange and Care360 EHR empowers physicians, health systems, patients, and ACOs to stay synchronized and connected
Hospital Diagnostics Services to create lab benefits and value
Health IT Quality Solutions to streamline and enhance the quality of your EHR interoperability with us
IntelliTest Manager to access and effectively manage new test information, test updates, and changes based on specific account utilization
Joint Directory of Services (JDOS) combining Quest Diagnostics laboratory tests and your hospital’s laboratory tests in one succinct directory
Patient portal and mobile health app technology to empower better health, promote information exchange, and transparency
Blueprint for Wellness to empower measurable health improvement, improve productivity and lower healthcare costs

We are more than a world leading diagnostic lab company, we empower enterprise connectivity. Visit our booth to find out how we are elevating interoperability and helping healthcare organizations maximize their HIT investments.

For more information visit http://QuestDiagnostics.com.

ReadyDock Inc.

Booth 8056

Contact: David Engelhardt, founder and president
david@readydock.net
860.729.8170

ReadyDock:UV for mobile devices is the first and only chemical-free disinfection multi-bay docking station on the market. Tablet PCs are high-touch surfaces that require frequent disinfection in clinical and germ-sensitive settings. ReadyDock is a complete solution providing secure storage, charging, and disinfection all in one workflow friendly solution.

ReadyDock will be showing its new mobile device disinfection tray now allowing USB compliant charging and disinfection of tablets and other mobile devices. ReadyDock also provides a free iOS application called CleanMe available on the iTunes store to help remind and education users to clean and disinfect their devices per their own personal disinfection policy.

Free disinfection during exhibit hours: come by our booth and bring your dirty device with you … we’ll take care of it.

RelayHealth

Booth 1665

Contact: Nastran Andersen, executive director
nastran.andersen@mckesson.com
770.237.7016

RelayHealth Clinical solutions provide aggregated, relevant information at the point of care to help organizations coordinate care across settings and make financial reimbursement decisions in evolving care models. Our vendor-neutral ability to capture and aggregate data from a variety of disparate sources including clinical, financial, payer, pharmacy, and government setting provides the broad data aggregation you need for a truly comprehensive view of your patients’ longitudinal records. Efficient, workflow-integrated solutions help your providers access clinically relevant information on the spot and minimize redundant tests, hospital readmissions, and medical errors.

Please join us for a cocktail reception and presentation with Jersey Health Connect in the RelayHealth booth on Monday during HIMSS.

Sandlot Solutions

Booth 5783

Contact: Rosalind Bell, director of marketing
rbell@sandlotsolutions.com
817.810.5210 or 512.294.5200

Sandlot Solutions is a physician-inspired healthcare IT company with the expertise to build the connection for any organization exchanging healthcare information to improve the quality of care, manage risk, and reduce costs supporting accountable care and other payment models.

The company’s configurable technology streamlines data-sharing, supporting provider organizations with health information exchange, data analytics, and care management solutions. Sandlot was founded in 2006. Visit http://sandlotsolutions.com for more information.

Stop by the Sandlot Solutions booth to learn about our new product Sandlot Connect Lite. Based on the proven technology of Sandlot Solutions, Sandlot Connect Lite is our simple, entry-level notification solution designed to help you gain immediate efficiencies – encouraging adoption among the physician community and serving as the stepping stone to greater exchange of information, analytics, and community care management.

Shareable Ink

Booth 2117

Contact: Chris Driscoll, vice president of sales
crdiscoll@shareableink.com
978.273.5082

Shareable Ink is the clinical documentation and analytics company that allows hospitals and physician practice groups to extend their existing EHR investments.

Using your forms, your efficient workflows powered by our enterprise cloud-based platform. We digitize your workflow starting with your forms. We use natural input tools such as the iPad and digital pen and paper to quickly capture clinical documentation at the point of care. Access to your data becomes immediate, effortless, and actionable, allowing clinicians to stay efficient, focus on delivering quality patient care, and improve financial performance.

Shareable Ink has two special special promotions and one giveaway:

Siemens Healthcare

Booth 3165

Contact: Suzanne Edison, marketing specialist
suzanne.edison@siemens.com
954.260.7719

Siemens Healthcare will showcase premier HIT solutions that help providers advance their mission of better financial performance and a better patient experience across the continuum of care. From the EHR, to revenue cycle management, mobility, cloud computing, health information exchange, and population health management, Siemens has solutions for providers in this era of accountability. Stop by to see our newest product: CareXcell.

Siemens has answers for provider initiatives including patient safety, strengthening the revenue cycle, and enabling technology to improve patient care. Let us swipe your badge for a donation to StandUp 2 Cancer.

The SSI Group, Inc.

Booth 1745

Contact: Amanda Elmore, sales promotions manager
amanda.elmore@ssigroup.com
800.880.3032

SSI is a forward-thinking innovator that is powering the business of healthcare through improved flexibility, connectivity and integration. The company offers a single-vendor, end-to-end Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) solution featuring front-end eligibility; industry-leading, best-in-class billing and claims transmission; contract management, denial management and attachment processing; and an advanced analytics and business intelligence product suite. With over 1,000 payer connections through its EHNAC-certified clearinghouse, SSI processes 600 million transactions annually, totaling in excess of $800 billion in billed electronic claims revenue.

Streamline Health

Booth 2829, Knowledge Center Booth 883

Contact: Matt Seefeld, senior vice president of solutions strategy
matt.seefeld@streamlinehealth.net
858.964.8558

Streamline Health is a leading provider of SaaS-based healthcare information technology solutions that enable faster, more informed decisions to help providers meet the challenges of an ever-changing healthcare industry. The company’s comprehensive suite of solutions includes: business and clinical analytics, clinical documentation improvement, computer assisted coding, enterprise content management, and integrated workflows.

Stop by and play our interactive memory game. Daily $100 winner for fastest time.

Summit Healthcare

Booth 1021

Contact: Jason Behan, national sales director
jbehan@summit-healthcare.com
781.519.4840 ext. 154

Summit Healthcare delivers the right results — every time, guaranteed. Offering an easy-to-use, flexible, and robust technology platform with proven industry experience, Summit Healthcare is the smart choice. With a complete toolset for addressing integration, workflow automation, and business continuity needs, taking control of your healthcare systems has never been easier. We strive to provide the industry with the most flexible technology with complimentary tailored services and solutions.

Enter our drawing to win a free iPad. Stop by our booth for a warm, freshly baked chocolate chip cookie.

Sunquest Information Systems, Inc.

Booth 4447

Contact: Auna Emery, manager, marketing communications
marketing@sunquestinfo.com

Sunquest is the market leader in the laboratory, delivering diagnostic information technology and outreach solutions designed to fulfill the business objectives of today’s healthcare leaders. Sunquest is committed to providing comprehensive solutions that deliver quality diagnoses, optimize efficiency, improve patient safety, and respond to a changing market.

With more than 30 years of experience, Sunquest continues to be the chosen partner for more than 1,700 laboratories and over 300,000 end users worldwide. Sunquest serves the global marketplace with reliable technology for mission critical applications, enabling providers to deliver optimal care across their network.

Sunquest has redefined the lab, empowering its partners to turn results into knowledge.

We will be giving away Labrador puppy plush toys (“Sunquest Lab”), Sunquest tote bags, ChapStick, and pens.

Surgical Information Systems

Booth 6465 and the Intelligent Hospital

Contact: Steven Litton, market analyst
slitton@sisfirst.com
800.866.0656

Transform your EHR data into information that can drive big results.

SIS Analytics is now available for use with all leading EHRs (http://bit.ly/1cE2zPL) and perioperative systems, making it easy for you to deliver the insight perioperative leaders need to reach peak performance.

Schedule a meeting http://info.sisfirst.com/himss14-request-demo to see SIS Analytics at HIMSS and be entered to win a Bose SoundLink Bluetooth speaker.
Register to see your perioperative data in SIS Analytics
See SIS in action at booth 6465 and in the Intelligent Hospital
Find out how Robert Wood Johnson used SIS Analytics to add $3.5 million in additional revenue to their bottom line at the HIMSS Clinical and Business Intelligence Knowledge Center

SIS’s proven perioperative IT solution helps hospitals increase operational efficiencies, improve financial performance, and deliver better patient outcomes.

Symantec

Booth 1041

Contact: Margaret Turano, healthcare marketing
Margaret_Turano@Symantec.com
617.242.7809

Symantec understands healthcare security. Hospitals and providers are struggling to ensure that the sharing and exchange of patient data is private and secure. They are implementing complex IT systems to support and protect EHRs, as well as computerized physician order entry (CPOE) to reduce preventable errors. Simultaneously, they are tasked with meeting regulatory compliance, optimizing IT service levels, and gaining clinician acceptance—all without being distracted from the main focus: delivering quality patient care.

Symantec understands the unique needs of the healthcare market and is working with providers, industry organizations, and technology partners to find the best possible solution to meet their IT challenges.

Visit Symantec booth 1041 and learn:

How to best address the rise of mobile devices in your environment
How to comply with industry best practices and standards, discover your information vulnerabilities, establish security across the healthcare organization, and help protect your reputation
How to harness your clinical and administrative data and ensure it is managed, protected, and stored efficiently and effectively
How to maintain secure 24×7 operation of clinical IT systems

Mingle with the experts! Join us Monday, February 24 and Tuesday, February 25 from 3:30-6:00 p.m. for drinks, hors d’oeuvres, and great conversation with leading healthcare industry experts.

Enter to win! Stop by Symantec booth 1041 and enter to win a home theatre system complete with a 70” 3D Flat-Panel TV, 3D Blu-ray Player, home theater sound bar, and installation.

Talksoft Corporation

Booth 4466

Contact: Ken Walsh, president
partners@talksoftonline.com
866.966.4700

Founded in 1997, Talksoft is an applications service provider (ASP) of reminder and notification services using phone, text, email, and mobile app.Talksoft’s service based approach provides affordable solutions for businesses of any size.

Our appointment reminders, recall, bill reminder, outreach, and broadcast services utilize the latest technology to improve your office’s efficiency and patient engagement.

Visit our booth 4466 to utilize our free charging station for your phone or computer and to pick up your luggage tag. Additional information can be found at http://www.talksoftonline.com or by calling 866.966.4700.

TeraMedica, Inc.

Booth 3843

Contact: Robin Schroeder-Janonis, VP, sales
sales@teramedica.com
414.908.7719

Visit TeraMedica at booth 3843. Schedule your booth appointment by clicking here.

While at HIMSS14, learn more about Evercore Univision EV, a zero-footprint, multi-modality enterprise viewer supporting a full spectrum of patient images and data, both DICOM and non-DICOM. Univision EV meets a wide a range of clinical needs by providing a robust toolset. Through next-generation integration with TeraMedica’s Evercore VNA, a comprehensive patient view is delivered using a browser-based, tremendously scalable solution supporting all devices in the enterprise, including iOS and Android mobile devices.

T-System

Booth 2071

Contact: Ann Baty, senior marketing manager
abaty@tsystem.com
469.791.2445

T-System advances the practice of emergency medicine with technology solutions proven to solve clinical, financial, operational, and regulatory challenges for hospitals and urgent care clinics. Approximately 40 percent of the nation’s emergency departments leverage T-System solutions to provide an unmatched patient experience.

Through gold-standard documentation, revenue cycle management, and performance-enhancing solutions, T-System optimizes care delivery from the front door through discharge and beyond. Today, more than 1,900 hospitals rely on T-System solutions. For more information, visit http://www.tsystem.com or follow @TSystem on Twitter.

Stop by our booth every day starting at noon for freshly baked cookies and more information on our end-to-end solutions for emergency care.

Valence Health

Booth 4249

Contact: Stacey Pearson, director of sales operations
spearson@valencehealth.com
312.526.7394

Valence Health (www.valencehealth.com) helps healthcare providers better manage their patient populations and accept financial responsibility for the quality of the care they provide. With unique data collection and analysis tools, Valence Health has emerged as a leader in population management, serving dozens of clients from small physician groups to Cleveland Clinic.

In-depth actuarial analysis combined with operational excellence allows Valence to not only advise but also provide ongoing services to provider organizations operating under various value-based reimbursement models. From risk-based contracting to accountable care organizations (ACOs) to administering provider-sponsored health plans, Valence has been helping providers appropriately accept and manage financial responsibility while improving clinical quality since 1996.

With headquarters in Chicago and three other office locations, Valence Health helps manage the health of more than 13 million patients nationwide. Follow Valence Health on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Please visit our booth 4249 and stop by for a technology demo.

Versus Technology

Booth 3673

Contact: Stephanie Bertschy, director of marketing
info@versustech.com
877.9VERSUS

Oh yeah, we’ve got “BIG” data. And better yet, it’s accurate, unbiased and collected without data entry.

Our real-time locating system (RTLS) is the most-deployed for patient flow and process improvement, producing analytics that are hard to capture in any other way.

See it in action at our new Experience Center — a live, real-time demonstration — and learn why Versus is the only RTLS accurate enough to automate workflows and effectively monitor hand hygiene. Be one of the first to see our new mix-and-match RTLS platforms, offering interchangeable wi-fi, wireless, and wired options, all featuring the same infrared accuracy Versus is known for.

The new platforms work with the same badges and tags, including two new options: the Mini Asset Tag, the smallest available on the active RTLS market, and our waterproof, wearable Patient Wrist Badge.

And back to that “BIG” data, we’re also unveiling version 5.0 of our advanced reporting software, Reports Plus Analytics. This major upgrade features several new reports developed hand-in-hand with healthcare administrators and clinicians, offering unprecedented insight into facility workflows. Proven software, proven solutions, and multiple platforms including both wireless and wi-fi options — there’s never been a better time to invest in RTLS. To reduce HAIs (HIMSS-acquired infections), look for the SafeHaven hand hygiene dispensers throughout the convention center. Tear off an entry card from the display to win one of five tablet computers. Or, visit booth 3673 to enter.

Virtelligence, Inc.

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Akhtar Chaudhri, CEO and founder
achaudhri@virtelligence.com
Nicole Francen, marketing communications specialist
nfrancen@virtelligence.com
952.548.6601

Virtelligence, a national healthcare and IT consulting firm, offers a unique consulting model that provides a results-driven partnership with clients and a work environment that offers colleagues a path for professional growth unequaled in the industry.

Key service offerings include:

Strategic guidance and project management
Software implementation and optimization
Software development and integration
Revenue cycle optimization
Clinical transformation
Meaningful Use and ICD-10 projects

Virtelligence consultants have practical hands-on expertise and training with major healthcare and technology vendors, including: Allscripts/ Eclipsys, Cerner, Epic, MEDITECH, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, and Lawson.

Virtelligence has earned national recognition and numerous awards for being a rewarding work place and delivering lasting client successes: Best Places to Work in the Minneapolis/ St. Paul area, HCI 100, Inc. 5000, and the Minnesota Business Journal’s Fast 50.

Vital Images, Inc.

Booth 1677

Contact: Nichole Gerszewski, marketing manager
ngerszewski@vitalimages.com
952.487.9500

Vital Images, Inc. will be providing real-life examples of how it is helping healthcare organizations image-enable their EHRs, HIEs, and EMRs. The company will be hosting receptions at booth(1677 on Monday starting at 4 p.m. and Tuesday starting at 5 p.m. It will also be participating in the Interoperability Showcase throughout the week with a featured live case study presented by Dr. Rab of Hackensack University Medical Center on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. in Hall F.

Stop by the Vital booth to learn more about image-enabling your EHR, HIE, or EMR.

VitalWare

Booth 735

Contact: Ashlee Piper, marketing coordinator
ashleepiper@vitalware.com
509.941.8018

Visit VitalWare in booth 735 to view a demo, receive a daily prize, and be entered to win a full one-year license to iDocuMint.

Vonlay LLC

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Casey Liakos, director of client relations
casey@vonlay.com
612.209.8255

Since 2009, Vonlay has been handpicking the best application, technical service and development experts from across the HIT ecosystem to work with our clients. And we are proud of the results: a creative, supportive, hardworking company that has a deep commitment to client success.

Vonlay has a unique focus on technology, leadership, and design in the Epic space and beyond. We’ve helped new clients build strong foundations with their implementations. We’ve helped established clients innovate and create a competitive edge with staffing, portals, development, and reporting services.

For more information, visit http://www.vonlay.com

Wellsoft Corporation

Booth 4364

Contact: Denise Helfand, VP, sales and marketing
dhelfand@wellsoft.com
800.597.9909

Consistently ranked #1 emergency department information system (EDIS) by KLAS (most recently awarded Best in KLAS 2013), Wellsoft EDIS offers an exceptional combination of experience, extensive workflow analysis, and award winning customer support. Wellsoft EDIS is certified for Meaningful Use. Software features include patient tracking, clinical documentation, CPOE/results, charge capture including infusion charge capture, risk management, and CCD/CCDA document exchange. Wellsoft is EDIS at its BEST.

Visit Wellsoft at booth 4364 to have a brief demonstration and discuss how Wellsoft EDIS fully integrates with HIS and ancillary systems.

Winthrop Resources

Booth 1693

Contact: Dan Mandy, director of business development
dmandy@winthropresources.com
952.656.7687

Winthrop Resources Corporation specializes in financing information technology projects and clinical equipment to the healthcare industry. Our goal is simple – to provide hospitals a cost-effective solution with the flexibility to migrate, upgrade or change equipment when/if required during the lease term.

Winthrop is a financially stable single investor owned by TCF Financial (NYSE: TCB); we retain ownership in all of our transactions and are not dependent on 3rd parties for funding. All of this allows us to provide a unique, strategic, high value method to manage change as your technology needs and desires evolve. Cash or simple bank financing work well for other asset classes, but are not designed to accommodate the dynamics associated with technology equipment.

Xerox

Booth MP06

Contact: Kirsten LeMaster, VP of marketing and communications
kirsten.lemaster@xerox.com
877.414.2676

Today’s Xerox simplifies the way work gets done in surprising ways. Like supporting healthcare professionals in over 1,700 hospitals. With consulting services, Midas+ analytics and adoption solutions from The Breakaway Group, A Xerox Company, we help healthcare providers apply, manage, and use technology that simplifies caregiver workloads. So you have more time to focus on delivering the level of care everyone deserves.

Visit us at MP06 Contact us at hpsmarketing@xerox.com or 877.414.2676 http://services.xerox.com/healthcare-solutions/enus.html

News 2/14/14

February 13, 2014 News 9 Comments

Top News

ONC reports that RECs have “far exceeded” their goal to support the adoption and use of HIT by 100,000 small practices, CHCs, and rural and public hospitals, while continuing to support providers to reach MU. The “exceeded” goal must involve something other than the 100,000 figure since only 85,000 PCPs had met the MU milestone by the end of November.

Reader Comments

From No Love: “Re: vendor management organizations. I would be interested in hearing feedback from healthcare organizations that contract with them to manage their consulting needs. Our consulting firm spends endless hours meeting client needs. Through vendor management groups, sometimes months go by before we hear anything about the candidates presented if we get a response at all. I’m amazed at the lack of management, coordination, communication, and relevant industry knowledge that the representatives of some of these firms possess. The only thing we are doing is populating the databases of these vendor management groups with contact information for great consultants.”

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

A few things on HIStalk Practice this week that you may love: ICD-10 implementation costs for physician practices could be almost three times higher than estimates from 2008. Fifty-one Northeast Georgia Physicians Group clinics win Stage 7 Ambulatory awards from HIMSS Analytics. HealthPoint Medical Group becomes the first practice to earn NCQA Patient-Centered Specialty Practice Recognition. Proposed legislation repealing the SGR formula eliminates future MU and PQRS penalties, provide technical assistance for small practices, and require EHR interoperability. Its the season for love, so show me some by signing up for email updates when checking out these stories. Thanks for reading.

Listening: Year of the Rabbit, a one-album (2003) band formed by Ken Andrews, a former member of my current favorite band, Failure (which reunited after a 16-year absence for a live show Thursday night in LA).

Those who are new to healthcare IT may wonder why significant news (which is only about 2 percent of total even in a good week) is so scarce this week. Reason: companies save up their big announcements until the HIMSS conference, which starts next weekend, hoping to draw traffic to their expensive booths. What nearly always happens instead is that their announcements get lost because every vendor is equally unimaginative. For me, the newsworthiness bar is raised a lot during the conference because I’m busier, meaning I won’t mention announcements that I might have this week or next because I don’t have time. Less-earthshattering announcements have a better chance of getting exposure if held until the week after the conference, when there’s nothing left to write about.

Just a reminder: we’ll have our first-ever HIStalk booth (#1995) at the HIMSS conference. Our price range and lack of HIMSS clout means it will be a microscopic, sparsely furnished patch of rental carpet in Booth Siberia near the restrooms, but for intrepid seekers, Lorre will be dispensing trinkets and the occasional visiting celebrity will be on hand to say hello. Lorre will also be tweeting out reports from Inga, Dr. Jayne, and me about who has cool giveaways and which booths are interesting, so follow her if you want to know who is giving chair massages or serving margaritas at 10 in the morning.

HIStalkapalooza

I’ll have more information about the HIStalkapalooza schedule, entertainment, food, and co-sponsors next week. The basics are that buses will run a circuit between the convention center’s Hall F and the House of Blues from 6:30 until 11:30 p.m. We’ll have a full dinner buffet and open bar. Entertainment will include music outside, a live band, our usual red-carpet entrance with video and still photographers, and several activities inside the HOB. There will be IngaTinis and spiffed up ladies wearing hot shoes. Beauty queen sashes will be donned. Handling the HISsies awards will be Ross Martin, MD of AMIA and Missy Krasner of Box. We’ll have the winners of three big categories on hand to accept their awards in person – Most Effective Provider HIT Executive, HIT Lifetime Achievement Award, and HIT Industry Figure of the Year. The long-range weather forecast is looking good so far with highs around 80 degrees. Stay tuned and use hashtag #histalkapalooza if your level of anticipation warrants tweeting.

People who apparently don’t read HIStalk keep emailing to ask if they can bring guests. Answer: no, unfortunately, but we turned down 900 people and it wouldn’t have been fair to hold spots for an undetermined number of guests. Print your invitation and bring it along since the nice registration folks will let you in only if you were invited.

In case you’re wondering what HIStalkapalooza is all about, here’s the official Medicomp video from last year’s event in New Orleans. That’s Jennifer Lyle from Software Testing Solutions deftly handling the red carpet interviews, a role she will reprise this time.

HIMSS Conference Social Events

EHealth Initiative will host a Mardi Gras cocktail reception sponsored by Elsevier Clinical Solutions Monday, February 24 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the Rosen Centre Hotel. Register here.

Upcoming Webinars

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Welltok, developer of the CaféWell Health Optimization platform, raises $22.1 million in Series C funding. IBM was an investor and and will work with Welltok to build a Watson-powered application that will guide consumers through health questions.

Specialists on Call, a provider of specialty physician teleconsult services, closes $32 million in financing.

GetWellNetwork reports 86 percent revenue growth in 2013, as well as the addition of 50 new client facilities and a 60 percent increase in employees.

Sales

The Seniors Wellness Group of Michigan selects WRS Health to provide EMR and PM solutions for its 170 skilled nursing facilities.

Meritage ACO (CA) will implement CareInSync’s Carebook evidence-based mobile care coordination platform and expand its use of the Mobile Care Navigation Network.

Philips Healthcare will provide home monitoring technology to the home care program of Partners HealthCare (MA), including alert and medication dispensing systems.

People

Catholic Health Initiatives names Rand Strobel (UW Medicine Valley Medical Center) CIO of its Franciscan Health System region.

LDM Group hires David Green (Eli Lilly) as VP of payer market solutions, Wes Galbo (A&K Global Health) as VP of product management, and Jim Rockel (The Breakaway Group) as senior director of business development.

Consultant and former Cerner EVP Jack Newman is appointed to the University of Kansas Hospital Authority.

MedHOK appoints Troy Smith (Computer Science Corporation) COO.

Announcements and Implementations

Memorial Medical Center (IL) upgrades to the Carestream Vue PACS and Vue for VNA.

Hilo Medical Center (HI) and its outpatient clinics launch the East Hawaii Patient Portal.

The Tiger Institute Health Alliance (MO) and Lewis and Clark Information Exchange (MO) begin sharing patient information.

Scribes STAT, which offers scribe programs and EMR implementation services, rebrands as Essia Health and appoints Matthew J. Kirchner (Medtronic) president and CEO.

University of Michigan startup AlertWatch earns FDA marketing clearance for its anesthesia monitoring system.

AirStrip launches an Innovation Marketplace program to push evidence-based research results into clinical practice, extending its initial partnership with Palomar Health that resulted in the development of AirStrip ONE.

Box says healthcare was its fastest-growing sector of 2013, up 400 percent.

Government and Politics

A group of 111 lawmakers urges HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to reform the auditing system for Medicare claims, citing a massive backlog of more than 460,00 claims and an audit system that gives contractors an inventive to deny claims.

A Congressional panel investigates how the government is safeguarding MU funds following the recent indictment of Shelby Regional Medical Center’s (TX) former CFO for falsely attesting to MU.

Other

Epic ranks number five on Glassdoor’s annual report on the “25 Highest Rated Companies Hiring Interns.”

John Lynn did a Google+ Video Hangout with Elsevier CMIO Jonathan Teich, MD, PhD this week on the topic of clinical decision support.

@IngaHIStalk Farzie award goes to @histalk for being only media publication that mentioned survey methodology (“seemingly self-selected”)

— Farzad Mostashari (@Farzad_MD) February 12, 2014

Farzad Mostashari gives HIStalk and HIStalk Practice kudos (a Farzie, actually) because on both sites we questioned the validity of a physician EMR survey performed by MPI Group and Medical Economics. The magazine loaded up the hype machine in screaming out its questionably obtained conclusions, calling it “physician outcry” that will “shake the health information technology sector.” However, the survey’s methodology was this: “Physicians were invited to respond to an online questionnaire.” Who was invited and from what information sources were there names obtained? How were the questions worded? Was participation limited to those invited or were haters emailing each other the link to pile on? Did anyone follow up with respondents to verify their identities? What was the response rate? What was the spread by geography, practice setting, and specialty? Online surveys are self-selecting and therefore are close to worthless, which is why I almost never run their results. The same publication did a “Top 100 EHRs” report a few weeks ago in which they contacted 549 vendors to ask them to self-report their annual revenue, received only 56 responses back, and then just winged it with phone calls and Web searches to finally SWAG it to the magic number of 100 EHRs (since Americans only like round numbers.) Plenty of sites and publications jumped all over both “studies” with their own catchy and uncritical headlines, desperate for eyeballs and hoping readers won’t question the value or validity of their story.

Pittsburgh-based hospital and insurance operator Highmark lays off 132 employees, 120 of them from its insurance business’s IT department, but says it will add 96 IT jobs in the next few months. Highmark acquired West Penn Allegheny Health System in April 2013 for $604 million, but that system is losing ground to UPMC, which says its hospitals won’t accept Highmark’s members after their contract runs out at the end of this year.

Weird News Andy opines that this pharmacist put the “harm” in “pharmacist.” A Tennessee pharmacist is charged with attempted murder after visiting his wife’s hospital room and injecting her with an unknown substance.

Sponsor Updates

HMFA extends the “Peer Reviewed by HFMA” standard to The SSI Group’s billing product.
ICSA Labs extends 2014 Edition Modular EHR ONC Health IT Certification to ChartMaxx, the enterprise content management solution from Quest Diagnostics.
RelayHealth Financial achieves full EHNAC HNAC accreditation for the 14th consecutive year.
Four Ellis Medicine (NY) primary care locations deploy PCMH transformation management and analytics tools from Arcadia Healthcare Solutions to earn Level 3 NCQA PCMH recognition.
The Drummond Group certifies Merge Healthcare’s Merge PACS, iConnect Access, and Merge RIS for MU under the 2014 criteria.
Consulting magazine recognizes Aspen Advisors with its 2014 Small Jewel award based on the company’s growth, culture, and accomplishments
Accreon partners with LCN Services to deliver technical integration services to hospitals and healthcare providers.
Predixion Software releases Predixion Insight 3.2.
SimplifyMD offers up to $5,000 for customer referrals.
Virtelligence posts its list of 2014 events.
Medhost officially adopts the EHR Developer Code of Conduct.
Truven Health Analytics announces the global availability of its Micromedex Pharmaceutical Knowledge solution to improve research for non-hospital environments.
Optum Labs, the healthcare research initiative created by Optum and the Mayo Clinic, adds seven new partners with interests in public health, pharma, and the biosciences.

EPtalk by Dr. Jayne

Saturday was National Girl Scout Cookie day. I admit I look forward to the time every year when the cookie order forms go up on the sides of people’s cubes or on the doors of those lucky enough to have doors. Office policy prohibits solicitation for fundraisers other than United Way, but employees can hang them as “decorations” in their personal work spaces as long as they don’t talk about them. Most of our readers know that Inga and I enjoy a nice glass of wine, so I was thrilled when I came across this article about pairing wine and Girl Scout cookies. I’m definitely going to try some port with my Samoas this year. Another site recommended Madeira to go with Tagalongs – another option to consider.

Speaking of my BFF, we’ve been working hard to put together our HIStalk Ladies’ Social Schedule for HIMSS. On Monday, we hope to hit an event or two prior to HIStalkapalooza. For those of you who didn’t receive invitations this year, there are a couple of other good events, including the Perceptive party at Margaritaville that is open to readers. Tuesday night is extremely packed, so we can’t promise that we’ll make it to every event we have on the schedule. If you attend any evening vendor events, feel free to be our roving reporters and share your opinion of the social scene.

I wanted to attend the IBM SmarterCare lunch on Monday, but it’s apparently full. Sunday is looking pretty light as well, so if you have an event where sassy bloggers are welcome, please let us know. On the other hand, it might be a good thing that Sunday is low key since I’ll be running the Disney Princess Half Marathon in the morning. I’m raising funds for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals and have an outstanding princess costume, so it should be a lot of fun. It starts bright and early at 5:30 (possibly dark and early depending on how you look at it) so I might be dragging later in the day. It’s also influencing my choice of hot shoes since I know I want something comfortable — suggestions are welcome.

Now that I have the fun social items out of the way, I’ll share a bit about my week as an end user. In two words, not great. I do beta testing for our EHR vendor, so I keep a local install of the application on my laptop. I ran into some issues applying a recent patch and needed some assistance. You know it’s bad when they ask, “Do you have any patient data in here that you really need?” I actually didn’t since it was full of test patients, but forgot to specify that indeed I did have a lot of provider-specific macros, defaults, and short cuts saved. That little tidbit would come back to haunt me later.

The analyst who was helping me out seemed very thorough and eager. He camped out in my office trying to fix it. Unfortunately, since it wasn’t an actual laptop problem, I wasn’t eligible for a loaner. I made do with my iPad and a Bluetooth keyboard. Although it’s a great setup for taking notes in meetings, I missed the full functionality of a laptop as well as all my files and data.

After nearly two full days’ of work, he had the database back up and running. I was ready to log in and get back to work since I owed the vendor some quick feedback on a new feature.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t log in. The analyst had changed my password to “something easier” but didn’t tell me what it was. After tracking him down and finding out it was changed to “password,” I changed it back and started testing. That’s when I found my macros and defaults were gone.

I called him on it and was informed that he had to do a “clean install” and it was all removed. It would have been nice to have that discussion while he was working on it rather than being surprised. I could have exported them somewhere that would be easy for me to pull them back in, but wasn’t given that chance. It felt like a patient must feel when they wake up from surgery to find that a slightly different procedure was performed than the one discussed.

I finished up my testing despite the challenges and got ready to email our vendor. The Desktop looked strange, but couldn’t put my finger on what it was. Not resolution, not font. After 15 minutes of digging, I figured out that the ClearType text settings had been manipulated. Why in the world would an analyst need to change my font appearance?

That was only the tip of the iceberg, however. Everywhere I turned I found something that was altered – window layout, window organization properties, default folders for searching, and more. He even renamed my C: drive. It took another 20 to 30 minutes to get everything back just the way I like it.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had an analyst adjust settings while they were working on my machine. Sometimes it makes sense, like when they extend the screensaver lockout interval so they don’t have to keep logging back in while they’re watching an upgrade). That’s OK as long as they change it back. This guy was all over the place however.

I asked our IT department if there is any policy on analysts adjusting end user settings. The answer was no. I would add creating such a polity to my to-do list if it wasn’t already so full that I’ll never complete it.

Does this happen at other places? Do you have a policy or is everyone kept on an institutional standard? Email me.

Contacts

Mr. H, Inga, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Gregg, Lt. Dan, Dr. Travis, Lorre

More news: HIStalk Practice, HIStalk Connect

News 2/12/14

February 11, 2014 News 12 Comments

Top News

2-8-2014 3-16-29 PM

I’ve confirmed with several sources that Epic will soon offer consulting services beyond implementation work, very much as described in the original rumor report from EpicConsulting. Epic employees with at least four years’ experience will be allowed to live somewhere other than Verona to take on more post-live consulting work. My sources say the consultants will offer work that isn’t strictly even in the systems domain, such as implementing clinical programs and doing Lean Six Sigma work for clients. Many questions remain: (a) how will this decision affect Epic’s relationships with consulting companies?; (b) how will Epic price its services?; (c) will skilled Epic people really want to stay with Epic, or just leave as they’ve been doing to take higher-paying jobs with consulting companies?; (d) is Epic going this route because customers want it, to try to reduce project cost by offering lower-priced consulting, to avoid losing experienced employees, or because they know implementation work will eventually dry up and the market will move toward other services?

Reader Comments

From Anonymous Health System CIO: “Re: HIStalk RFI Blaster. I recently used your RFI Blaster to solicit consulting company proposals. I have found your sponsors who responded to be capable and professional. Compliments to these companies that have good skills and follow-through: Aspen Advisors, Encore Health Resources, Impact Advisors, Leidos, Lucca Consulting, and Santa Rosa Consulting.” I created the RFI Blaster as suggested by a CIO who wanted an easy way to give HIStalk Platinum Sponsors a chance to earn his business. Filling out the short online form blasts your request out to companies of your choosing, and I specifically didn’t make “contact telephone” required since not everybody wants to be called about their request. I appreciate the report and the shout-out to the sponsors who were good to deal with.

From Jay: “Re: Melanie Pita, chief product officer and general counsel of Prognosis Innovation Healthcare. Has left the company.” Unverified, but her bio has been removed from the company’s executive page.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

We’ve posted our annual guide to HIMSS meet-ups, which includes details on how to connect with HIStalk sponsors that are not exhibiting but are available for one-on-one meetings. We will publish our full HIMSS14 guide this weekend, which includes details on over 100 vendors (all which happen to be sponsors). Look for our guide to exhibitor giveaways next week so you’ll know where in the exhibit hall to find the best free coffee, fun trinkets, and cookies during the day and of course cocktails before heading out on the town.

Speaking of HIMSS, I’ll be participating in Medicomp’s Quipstar HIT Quiz show Tuesday, February 25 at 3:00 p.m. and looking forward to having a big crowd in the live studio audience. Even though I came in last when I played a couple of years ago, I agreed to give the game another go because Medicomp is making a generous donation to my favorite charity.

Fans of the Smokin’ Doc now have another reason to drop by HIStalk’s HIMSS Booth 1995 and say hello to Lorre, who will selectively dole out these potentially collectible (probably not) HIStalk pins from her treasure trove of cool things that were in our price range.

I mentioned that I agreed to run a new short-term ad at the top of the HIStalk page only so I could donate most of the proceeds to the DonorsChoose charity that helps financially strapped classrooms (to which I’ve donated personally for years.) I fully funded the following projects totaling $2,870 on behalf of all HIStalk readers this week, all projects submitted by Teach for America teachers because I respect that organization’s work just as much as I do that of DonorsChoose. I’ll be funding more projects shortly thanks to the sponsors who have booked the ad space: VMware, InterSystems, GetWellNetwork, Aspen Advisors, IngeniousMed, Billians HealthDATA, and Greenway. Above are excerpts from some of the notes the teachers sent in response to the help we as readers provided to their students. We funded:

$604 for a New York City eighth grade teacher for a podium and certificates to create a National Junior Honor Society ceremony for her students in the poorest Congressional district in the US
$506 for a Glendale, AZ teacher to provide interactive math stations for her sixth graders
$255 for a La Place, LA teacher, whose second grade class is meeting in a trailer after their school flooded last year, to expand their Listening Learning Center of read-along books
$234 for a Baltimore teacher who needs a Chromebook to access learning websites that offer classroom practice
$226 for a Chicago teacher whose elementary school students need non-fiction books that the school can’t afford
$201 for a North Charleston, SC classroom whose high-poverty, at-risk students need white boards and supplies for interactive activities
$185 for a Jackson, MS elementary school class for write-and-wipe markers and erasers
$187 for a Rosedale, MS high school for toner and a file cabinet for printing college applications and practice standardized exams
$167 for notebooks and pencils for a Chicago teacher’s 35 freshman girls to create College Bound Journals
$185 for a Memphis teacher’s need for pencils for her third graders
$249 for a Salt Lake City, UT teacher’s need for fourth-grade books

A reader notified a friend who happens to be a DonorsChoose executive team member that I was donating on behalf of HIStalk readers. That DonorsChoose executive donated to a project of her own choosing in honor of HIStalk’s readers, which is pretty cool.

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor PDS. The Madison, WI-based company, founded in 1986, offers an ITIL-compliant, 24x7x365 Patient Portal Support Service Desk to assist patients with Epic MyChart, Medseek, and other patient portal systems. PDS offers HIPAA-trained analysts, transparent service, and a first-call resolution rate above 90 percent. Check out their site to see a list of health systems PDS supports across the country and to read a success story from Bon Secours Health System. Thanks to PDS for supporting HIStalk.

HIMSS Conference Social Events

Physician Technology Partners is hosting a dinner Tuesday, February 25 at Roy’s Fusion Cuisine to introduce a new Epic MyChart implementation and help desk solution. RSVP online or by email.

Perceptive Software will host an event at Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville at Universal CityWalk on Monday, February 25 from 8:00 to 11:00, with shuttle service provided to and from the major hotels. They will have food, drinks, and a live Caribbean band. RSVP here.

Upcoming Webinars

February 12 (Wednesday) 1:00 p.m. ET. Healthcare CO-OPs and Their Potential to Reduce Costs. Sponsored by Health Catalyst. Presenters: David Napoli, director of performance improvement and strategic analytics, Colorado HealthOP and Richard Schultz, VP of clinical care integration, Kentucky Health Cooperative. Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans (CO-OPs) were established by the Affordable Care Act as nonprofit health insurance companies designed to compete in the individual and small group markets. Their intended impact was to provide more insurance options for consumers to pay for healthcare.

February 13 (Thursday), 12 noon ET. Advancement in Clinician Efficiency Through Aware Computing. Sponsored by Aventura. In an age of information overload, a computing system that is aware of the user’s needs becomes increasingly critical. Instant-on roaming for virtual and mobile applications powered by awareness provides practical ways to unleash value from current HIT investments, advancing efforts to demonstrate meaningful use of EHRs and improve clinical efficiencies. The presenters will review implementation of Aventura’s solution at Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Nuance Communications reports Q1 results: revenue flat, adjusted EPS $0.24 vs. $0.35, beating estimates.

Employee health management site Castlight Health, co-founded by US CTO and athenahealth co-founder Todd Park, files for a $100 million IPO that values the company at $2 billion. Castlight reported a net loss of $62.2 million last year on revenues of $13 million.

The Advisory Board Company announces Q3 results: revenue up 13 percent, adjusted EPS $0.26 vs. $0.28, missing estimates.

Virtualization technology vendor Sphere 3D will acquire V3 Systems, which offers desktop cloud management solutions.

I wondered why Meditech was so late in posting its Q3 SEC report since I’ve been watching for it for months and now I know: the company reports that it improperly recognized revenue and is figuring out how to keep its auditors and the SEC happy. In the mean time, the company can’t issue new stock or complete its filings. Meditech isn’t publicly traded, but still has to comply with SEC rules. The issue sounds relatively minor and accidental – revenue was recognized in cases where the company’s implementation employees didn’t complete all the contractually required visits. Customers paid and the work got done, but 100 percent of visits must be completed to book the revenue. The company refreshingly concludes:

We are less embarrassed than you might think. There is no question of fraud or malfeasance here. We acknowledge we should have been following the revenue recognition rules as specified by our own policy, but one of the reasons we have auditors is to find issues like this promptly. They didn’t do it. However, because of the urgency of resuming our SEC filings, we’ve decided to put our unhappiness with them into abeyance at this point, and deal with that later. From an operational point of view, there should be absolutely no effect on the company, other than the additional expenses we are incurring with the auditors and the outside analysis firm to fix the problem (not to mention the huge amount of extra work our accounting and implementation staff are undergoing to provide the required information). The cash is still in the bank, free to be used – the only question is how the revenue was supposed to be reported on our filings. Customers should not be affected in any way. Our plans for the future remain the same.

Sales

Christus Health selects Wellcentive’s population health management platform.

MaineHealth chooses MediQuant’s DataArk active archiving system.

Privia Medical Group (VA) will implement athenahealth’s PM, EHR, patient communication, and care coordination services for its 154 providers and affiliated ACO.

Blanchard Valley Health System (OH) will deploy Merge Healthcare’s VNA interoperability and cardiology solutions.

Humana will implement CoverMyMeds to allow physicians to submit drug prior authorizations directly to Humana via an online portal.

Georgia Physicians for Accountable Care selects eClinicalWorks Care Coordination Medical Record.

Dean Health Plan (WI) chooses Health Language for terminology management.

People

AtHoc names Mary-Lou Smulders (Oracle) VP of marketing and Matthew Gloss (Mellanox Technologies) general counsel.

Healthfinch hires Sanaz Cordes, MD (Cogent Healthcare) as COO.

Kevin Fickenscher, MD, formerly of Dell and AMIA, is named president of health services for remote patient monitoring company AMC Health.

LDM Group names Paul Hooper (Emdeon) as VP of retail innovations and product commercialization.

Announcements and Implementations

Ontario’s Hôpital Montfort uses Summit Healthcare’s InSync and SST for dictionary migration to Meditech 6.0.

Healthcare Access San Antonio, Holon Solutions, and the Texas Organization of Rural and Community Hospitals will connect area hospitals, clinics, physician offices, and other providers to a regional HIE across 22 South Texas counties.

Memorial Health (CO) launches its $30 million Epic implementation.

Athenahealth announces that it has integrated drug monographs from its Epocrates acquisition into athenaClinicals.

Government and Politics

CMS and ONC introduce Randomizer, a tool that allows providers to exchange data with a test EHR in order to meet measure #3 of the Stage 2 transitions of care requirement.

ONC launches a challenge to develop a Javascript/HTML-based, easily understood Notice of Privacy Practices that can be incorporated into websites. Submissions are due by April 7 and the winner gets $15,000.

CMS announces that Healthcare.gov won’t accept new insurance enrollments this weekend because the Social Security computer system has a planned 62-hour maintenance downtime starting Saturday, which is also the deadline for applying for coverage that will become effective March 1.

Innovation and Research

A screening program for abdominal aortic aneurysms integrated into an EHR reduced the number of unscreened at-risk men by more than 50 percent within 15 months, according to a Kaiser Permanente study.

Penn Medicine (PA) announces that it will work with analytics vendor Teqqa, LLC to provide real-time antibiotic sensitivity information to physicians via a mobile app as part of its antimicrobial stewardship program. Penn received equity in Teqqa as part of the agreement.

Technology

I may have missed this article from a week or so ago even though I see Inga picked it up on HIStalk Practice. Walgreens clinics will use ePASS software from Inovalon (formerly MedAssurant) that prompts its clinicians to ask patient-specific questions based on data from 100 million patient visits and records of the patient’s own behavior. The software will suggest problems that the patient might have, walk the clinician through asking questions, and then create a SOAP note that goes back to the EHR. The same software is integrated with Greenway, NextGen, and Allscripts.

Other

The local paper highlights the struggles of United Hospital District (MN) in implementing Meditech. Administrators blame internal workflow problems for registration-related pains and interface issues for difficulties exchanging data between Meditech and the hospital’s NextGen system.

A TV station in Hawaii reviews the cost of implementing Siemens Soarian at taxpayer-supported Hawaii Health Systems Corporation (HHSC), originally budgeted at $50 million but now estimated at $109 million. The health system’s regional CEO says IT and support staffing estimates were so far off that headcount had to be doubled. The hospital workers’ union expressed concern that a Siemens employee serves as HHSC’s CIO, saying, “It’s like the wolves watching the henhouse,” but the health system responded that it hired another consulting firm “to oversee Siemens.” Siemens responded that the scope of the work of the original $29 million contract hasn’t changed, but HHSC keeps asking for more modules, services, and staffing that weren’t in the contract.

A survey of 1,000 physicians finds that 70 percent don’t think the HITECH program was worth its cost, 45 percent say EHRs have made patient care worse, and 43 percent say EHRs caused them to lose money. A third say they doubt their current EHR will even be around in five years. A key fact was omitted in the press release – what was the survey’s methodology? In other words, how were respondents selected; how were the questions presented; what was the demographic, specialty profile, and practice type of respondents, etc.? The findings are pretty big news if the survey’s methods were sound.

John Lynn hosted a Google+ video hangout on cloud technology and data centers that can be streamed from his site.

OCR files a HIPAA complaint against a Las Vegas hospital and Dignity Health, claiming the hospital used its medical records to contact former patients to get them to switch to the health plans the hospital accepts. The hospital denies the charge, saying its contacts were intended to be “informative.”

OK, who proofed this press release’s headline?

Sponsor Updates

HealthLogix from Certify Data Systems passes numerous Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise profile tests at the 2014 IHE North America Connectathon.
TeraMedica will debut its zero-footprint universal viewer for its Evercore vendor-neutral archive at the HIMSS conference.
ICSA Labs issues Passport’s CareCertainty service 2014 inpatient module ONC Health IT Certification.
Arcadia Healthcare CEO Sean Carroll discusses the struggles facing hospitals in a Boston Business Journal article.
MedAptus releases a risk severity toolkit to help provider groups with coding of patients covered under risk-based contracts.
Memorial Healthcare (MI) uses Iatric Systems Meaningful Use Manager to access data for a Meaningful Use audit.
An API Healthcare-commissioned survey reveals that the majority of Americans age 30 and older are concerned with the impact of healthcare reform on the quality of patient care and staffing at hospitals.
Providers have collected more than $10 million in CMS reimbursements over the last five years using the Covisint PQRS submission process.
Richard W. Zollinger, II, MD shares how Capario has helped his practice to accelerate cash flow, improve profitability, and remain independent.
Sandlot Solutions launches a channel partner program for healthcare consultants, software vendors, and payers.
iHT2 announces the details of its San Francisco summit on population health management and analytics.
FeedHenry and AirWatch partner to offer a joint solution that enables enterprises to quickly and securely create and manage multiple apps and devices.

REST and FHIR
By Brian Weiss
CDA PRO

REST is a techie thing. It’s another way for computers to talk to each other. Another flavor of API (application programming interface.)

What matters in this context is not how it works or why it’s better or worse than anything else, just that it’s a very well established and widely deployed standard that software developers are using today (and have for the past few years) to develop applications that work over the Internet, like smartphone applications that reflect data from Web servers in the cloud or Web servers that talk to each other.

FHIR uses REST as its technical underpinnings to do the same kinds of things that HL7 has always done — enable the exchange of healthcare information (patient clinical summaries, lab orders end results, etc.) between systems.

When most people say, "We’re using HL7," they usually mean HL7 version 2 messaging, which defines a format for one system to send healthcare information to another over a network. It’s a point-to-point communication (think email) between two systems, though often there is a specialized message router that sits in between to help translate the variations in the message format that each side understands.

The Meaningful Use (MU) regulations have ushered in broad use in the US of a newer generation of HL7 standards focused on something called CDA — clinical document architecture. In CDA, what gets transferred between systems is a document (think word processor file) that contains the same kind of information as HL7 v2 messaging, but using XML format. XML is a document format that is used a lot on the Internet when data is exchanged in document format. The HTML exchange between browsers and web servers today is a form of XML.

CDA is part of version 3 of HL7, which is a very broad framework that describes the underlying theoretical model for how data should be represented and encoded, regardless of whether it’s communicated via messages like HL7 version 2 or CDA documents (version 3) or other formats. There is thus a version 3 messaging protocol that replaces the version 2 messages, but it hasn’t caught on much, especially in the US. So as a practical matter, HL7 version 2 usually means point-to-point messages and HL7 version 3 usually means CDA documents.

HL7 data interchange today for most people is either version 2 messaging or version 3 CDA documents. The specific flavor of CDA called out in Meaningful Use Stage 2 today is termed C-CDA, which stands for consolidated CDA, so named because it "consolidated" various CDA-derived standards that came before it.

Though I speak on behalf of nobody other than myself and am not taking sides, there is a oft-cited position that HL7 standards historically have been a bit too formal and academic and also too open to varying interpretation. Even if both sides of an exchange are using HL7 v2 messaging or HL7 v3 CDA documents, there’s still a lot of work to do (one integration at a time) to ensure that what the receiver understand is what the sender intended.

FHIR is also part of HL7 v3, only instead of using XML documents like CDA does, it uses REST interfaces.

FHIR looks like it has passed the "shiny new object to get excited about" phase and is being worked on actively by many vendors and other clinical data interoperability stakeholders. Relative to the early stage of its lifecycle that it is currently in, FHIR has significantly more momentum than any previous HL7 standard. In addition to using REST (which makes it a great way to exchange healthcare data for things like mobile applications), the folks working on FHIR are doing their best to learn the right lessons (good and bad) from past generations of HL7 standards.

It will be a while before we can know for sure if FHIR delivers on its promise and even longer before we know for sure what it means for the evolution from the entrenched HL7 v2 messages or the currently MU-mandated CDA documents. Some of that probably depends on if, when, and how future editions of MU mandate the use of FHIR, but also how quickly it achieves critical mass of application developers.

I think for most HIStalk readers who work at healthcare providers and non-vendor stakeholders, FHIR is more something to be aware of than something that requires action right now. In the software development side of vendors and consultants (and IT groups within other healthcare interoperability stakeholder organizations,) more concrete action is required to learn FHIR, work on prototypes, and participate in some of the connectathon testing between servers and applications that are taking place.

Contacts

Mr. H, Inga, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Gregg, Lt. Dan, Dr. Travis, Lorre.

More news: HIStalk Practice, HIStalk Connect.

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HIStalk’s Guide to HIMSS14 Meet-Ups

February 10, 2014 News Comments Off

We are pleased to share information on HIStalk sponsors that are not exhibiting at HIMSS14 but would be happy to schedule one-on-one meetings during the conference.

Accreon, Inc.

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Gareth Kenton, sales leader
gareth.kenton@accreon.com
617.899.5394

We do look forward to connecting with you in our meeting space at the conference. Accreon is a healthcare technology and business services firm focused on integrating and managing health information.

We assist healthcare organizations to: achieve interoperability by integrating their IT eco-system; establish an analytical environment that empowers learning, agility, and performance resulting in improved outcomes, finances, and satisfaction; and enhance IT innovation by providing knowledgeable healthcare expertise and tools to bring solutions to market faster.

Accreon has delivered services and built solutions across North America for healthcare provider organizations, government entities, medical device companies, and EMR vendors.

Mention you were referred to Accreon through HIStalk and receive 15 percent off any resulting business established at HIMSS.

ADP AdvancedMD

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Jim Elliot, vice president of marketing
jelliot@advancedmd.com
435.729.0343

Aspen Advisors

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Dan Herman, founder and managing principal
info@aspenadvisors.net
800.697.4350

From strategy to execution to optimization, our core services have been tailored to help address industry priorities:

Reduce operating costs
Implement and realize the full benefit of Electronic Health Records
Transition from volume to value
Harness the power of data and analytics
Enable the connected community
Position for the future of revenue cycle management

BlueTree Network

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Nicole Meidinger, VP of sales and business development
nicole@bluetreenetwork.com
574.360.9029

Here’s an overview of our unique model which has helped us to become the premier Epic consulting group:

Quality verification – BlueTree employs a thorough process to vet quality and identify niche expertise. We secure targeted recommendations from clients and peers to ensure the excellence of all BlueTree consultants and identify perfect matches for our clients’ needs.
Remote support network – BlueTree created a unique web platform that connects consultants and customers, helping them share expertise and engage each other in remote support or targeted small projects. This provides a cost-effective, flexible alternative to the standard onsite consulting model.
Specialized service lines – BlueTree helps consultants innovate valuable new service lines and share in all revenue they generate. This attracts the very best talent and allows BlueTree to offer unique, customized solutions that keep up with the ever-changing world of healthcare IT.

Caristix

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Stephane Vigot, president
stephane.vigot@caristix.com
877.872.0027 ext.153

Visit us at the Interfaceware booth 2229 to get a look at out latest software and discuss how we help you get control of the HL7 interface lifecycle.

Coastal Healthcare Consulting

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Amy Noel, CEO
Amy.Noel@coastalhealthcare.com
206.321.9840
Gay Fright, EVP of Business Development
gay.fright@coastalhealthcare.com
760.333.0294

Coastal Healthcare Consulting, Inc. (“Coastal”) has been a premier provider of healthcare IT consulting services since 1995. We are a national firm based in the Seattle area. We have a proven track record of performance having completed more than 850 projects, for more than 80 clients, and were awarded “Best in KLAS,” clinical implementation, supportive for 2005-2009.

Connance, Inc.

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Brian Graves, vice president of marketing and communications
bgraves@connance.com
617.512.6971

Craneware

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Ann Marie Brown, EVP of marketing
a.brown@craneware.com
913.548.2810

Culbert Healthcare Solutions

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Brad Boyd
bboyd@culberthealth.com
857.919.2003

Culbert offers comprehensive management consulting services for physicians, hospitals and healthcare systems to improve the delivery of patient care in today’s challenging environment.

Culbert’s seasoned healthcare professionals possess strong patient access, clinical and revenue cycle operations experience combined with IT vendor focused expertise which uniquely qualifies the firm to select, implement, and optimize technology solutions in complex healthcare organizations.

Cumberland Consulting Group

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: David Vreeland, partner
david.vreeland@cumberlandcg.com
615.335.5272

For more information on Cumberland, visit http://www.cumberlandcg.com.

DataMotion

To schedule a meeting:

Contacts:
Bob Janacek, CTO, bobj@datamotion.com, 973.452.5321
Andy Nieto, health IT strategist, andyn@datamotion.com, 502.905-0230
Hugh Gilenson, director business development, healthcare, hughg@datamotion.com, 201.417.1090

DataMotion provides HIPAA-compliant solutions using strong encryption techniques for secure email and file transfers containing PHI. We are also an ENHAC accredited Health Information Service Provider (HISP) delivering Direct Secure Messaging services via 18 EHRs including EPIC’s EMR. We help EHRs and HIEs certify for 2014 ONC-ACB using DataMotion Direct as “relied upon software”.

Interoperability for Direct Secure Messaging
Support for both incoming and outgoing messages
Routing of CCD/CCDAs through DataMotion’s HISP and exchanged via XDR

You can meet with us at HIMSS by contacting Bob Janacek, Andy Nieto, or Hugh Gilenson.

Etransmedia

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Connie Smith, marketing
sales@etransmedia.com
518.283.5418

Etransmedia is the recipient of seven consecutive Inc. 500/5000 awards, and three consecutive Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Awards. http://www.etransmedia.com.

Greencastle Associate Consulting

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Joe Crandall, director of client engagement solutions
crandallj@greencastleconsulting.com
856.685.0737

Hayes Management Consulting

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Pete Butler, president/CEO
pbutler@hayesmanagement.com.

Hayes Management Consulting is a leading, national healthcare consulting firm focused on healthcare operations. This includes strategic planning, interim leadership, revenue cycle optimization, clinical optimization, project management, IT consulting, and preparation for federal initiatives such as ICD-10, Meaningful Use, and HIPAA compliance.

We also provide software such as MDaudit and other proprietary tools to ensure our clients are operationally efficient. We won’t have a booth but would like to meet you!

LightSpeed Health, Inc.

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Michael Justice, president
mjustice@lightspeedhealth.com
305.799.0990

Our team has particular expertise in Allscripts Enterprise and GE Centricity EHR and PM systems.

The Loop Company

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Gino Johnson, founder and managing director
info@loopcompany.org
802.857.5464

The Loop Company is a research advisory firm with more than 20 years experience helping healthcare technology organizations grow their business. Our focus is on delivering actionable strategic and tactical learnings to help your organization successfully launch new products/services, enter new target markets, win more new business, and build loyal customer relationships.

What we do:

Collaboratively design customized qualitative feedback loop mechanisms to help your organization understand how it is being perceived in the marketplace, by your customers and prospects.
Advance organizational improvement across all areas of your business including: sales, marketing, positioning/messaging, brand awareness, product development, roadmap validation, operations, installations/implementation, support, account management.

MedAssets

To schedule a meeting:

solutions@medassets.com
888.883.6332

For more information, please visit www.medassets.com.

nVoq

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Debbi Gillotti, vice president and general manager
deborah.gillotti@nvoq.com
206.465.1765

nVoq provides a cloud-based speech recognition platform (SayIt) exclusively endorsed by the AHA. We support real time dictation for any EMR as well as voice-enabled workflow through automated shortcuts and scripting. SayIt can be used on both Windows and Mac OS computers.

Talk to us about building a SayIt practice or using the SayIt SDK to voice-enable your applications platform. Learn why SayIt from nVoq is the sensible alternative for your organization.

Visit http://www.nvoq.com for more information.

pMD

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Chrissy Braden, director of business operations
sales@pmd.com
800.587.4989

The pMD team is committed to developing the best solution on the market and providing superior customer service.

Prominence Advisors

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Bobby Bacci, president and CEO
HIMSS@prominenceadvisors.com
bobby.bacci@prominenceadvisors.com

Prominence Advisors will be hosting an event for current and prospective customers on Tuesday evening. Anyone interested in attending can get details by using the email HIMSS@prominenceadvisors.com

Proximare Health

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Shawn Wagoner, president
swagoner@proxhealth.com
512.635.4059

Sample Client Results:

Referral processing time was reduced from three months to 5.5 days
22 percent of referrals were screened out as inappropriate
Referral volume increased sevenfold with fewer employees needed to manage it.

QPID Health

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Amy Krane, marketing
amy.krane@qpidhealth.com
617.308.5476
Connie Thompson, sales
connie.thompson@qpidhealth.com
404.964.1478

Learn why QPID users say “I can’t believe I ever practiced without this.” If you’re ready to optimize your EHR, let’s talk.

Virtelligence, Inc.

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Akhtar Chaudhri, CEO and founder
achaudhri@virtelligence.com
Nicole Francen, marketing communications specialist
nfrancen@virtelligence.com
952.548.6601

Key Service offerings include:

Strategic guidance and project management
Software implementation and optimization
Software development and integration
Revenue cycle optimization
Clinical transformation
Meaningful Use and ICD-10 projects

Vonlay LLC

To schedule a meeting:

Contact: Casey Liakos, director of client relations
casey@vonlay.com
612.209.8255

For more information visit http://www.vonlay.com

Monday Morning Update 2/10/14

February 8, 2014 News 16 Comments

From EpicConsulting: “Re: Epic going into the consulting business. What’s being said internally at Epic is that the program will be limited to employees with 4+ years of experience, it will provide some location independence, and the intention is to undercut in price most of the Epic consulting industry. It’s an attempt to give Epic employees less incentive to quit, sit out their one-year non-compete, and then come back doing the same job making twice the pay for half the hours. Epic has talked about doing this for years, formerly calling it Ongoing Services, but hasn’t actually gone this far until now. Consulting firm reaction has been, ‘Why would you want the same person who dug you into a hole to be the one to dig you out?’ but can they compete when Epic sells services at $75 per hour and they’re billing $150? Would a CIO pay double for a non-Epic voice? Will hospitals gain negotiating power with another option in the market? Fun question, too: will KLAS rate Epic’s consulting and will companies like Nordic, Sagacious, etc. score higher than Epic itself?” All unverified, but interesting.

From Please Please Me: “Re: HIStalkapalooza. I’ve never requested an invitation, so I’ve never been refused. But it sounds like fun and you guys are great to do that – don’t let the poor souls who don’t get in discourage you.” Inga reminded me that despite reader Gary’s insistence that he didn’t get an invitation for three years straight, we sent one to every single person who registered in 2013 and 2011, and I’m pretty sure we invited everyone in 2012 as well. Gary either didn’t register in time those years or his company’s spam filter trashed our emailed invitation, which happens a lot (and creates extra work for us because people always email us wanting individual assistance.) Demand this year was unprecedented – it will be the largest HIStalkapalooza yet, but around 900 more people asked for invitations than we have available. And to address the most commonly asked question, sorry, but we have no way to accommodate guests even though I’m sympathetic to those who want to attend with a spouse or friend – we’ve already had to turn away hundreds of loyal HIStalk readers.

Two-thirds of poll respondents haven’t been promoted in the last two years. New poll to your right: generally speaking, are the vendors and products named in the “Best in KLAS” report really the best ones? You won’t win favor for your position by simply clicking yes or no, but you might if you click the Comments link after voting to explain your rationale.

I mentioned that I decided to run an occasional ad at the top of the HIStalk page only so I can donate most of the proceeds to the DonorsChoose, which supports teachers whose classrooms need help buying books and supplies or paying for educational projects. I’m indifferent at best toward most charities (including hospitals) because they are inefficient, ineffective, and overly generous with executive compensation, but years ago my research led me to DonorsChoose and it has become (along with the Salvation Army) my charity of choice. I’ll be funding the first projects this week and updating the HIStalk giving page so we as readers and sponsors can feel good about the results – you’ll be able to see project details, status, photos, and the teacher’s letter of thanks and description of the outcome. I’m really excited about this. You are making it possible by reading HIStalk, for which I am grateful.

Listening: Blondfire, a Michigan-based dreamy indie pop brother-and-sister band that has new album coming out Tuesday.

Welcome to new HIStalk Gold Sponsor MEA | NEA of Norcross, GA. The company’s cloud-based solutions allow health plans and providers (both medical and dental) to electronically request and deliver images and documents that would previously have been printed and mailed. FastAttach improves revenue cycle management by allowing providers to submit documents to support their electronic medical claims via a Windows-based application that’s compatible with all practice management and revenue cycle systems. FastAttach also allows providers to quickly and securely respond to RAC and other audits through the company’s participation in Medicare’s Electronic Submission of Medical Documentation program (esMD) using the CONNECT gateway to send scanned images, print capture, screen capture, uploads, files, and mobile capture. Thanks to MEA |NEA for supporting HIStalk.

HIMSS Conference Social Events

Nordic is sponsoring an open house at King’s Bowl Orlando, International Drive, Tuesday from 6-8 p.m. Email to sign up.

Upcoming Webinars

REST and FHIR

I’m hearing buzz about REST and FHIR Web-based programming coming from various vendors and from ONC. It sounds important for future healthcare IT development and interoperability, so I decided to look up the concepts since I don’t know anything about them. This is my cartoonish, stick-figure understanding that certainly could use more informed (but simple) explanation from knowledgeable readers about what it means in healthcare and who’s using it.

REST (representational state transfer) is the architecture that runs the Internet, where your browser sits there waiting for you to enter data or click a button and then something cool happens. Applications developed using RESTful programming respect the fact that the Internet works perfectly fine without individual programmers screwing around with tricky or proprietary techniques. Your browser knows how to process your Amazon order even though you don’t know or care how Amazon’s servers are set up, the Firefox people didn’t customize their browser to work with Amazon.com, and Amazon didn’t develop its site so that it only works with Firefox. REST-built systems can interact with each other with minimal overhead. It’s pretty much the opposite of how most healthcare applications were built, in other words, since it presumes that all boats are equally floated when applications work and communicate in a common way using existing infrastructure and methods, making life easier for programmers and users alike.

FHIR (fast healthcare interoperability resources, pronounced “fire”) is an HL7 framework that further defines REST for specific building blocks for developing healthcare applications. Applications developed using FHIR are theoretically easier to develop and support, are inherently interoperable, and follow Web standards.

I’m not as interested in the technical underpinnings as the possible benefits. REST and FHIR concepts are new to healthcare IT and probably aren’t ready for prime time. I can understand why vendors would be cautious about chasing trendy standards that not only threaten their proprietary existence but also could go out of fashion faster than the Harlem Shake, but it’s still an interesting design that could make life better for everyone (including patients and providers) if everybody used it.

This is the cue for an reader who is unbiased, technical enough to understand what all this means strategically, and blessed with the ability to describe it simply (but not simplistically) to enlighten the rest of us who just want stuff to work.

iHealth 2014 Report

The only conference I attend regularly is HIMSS for a variety of reasons — cost, time required, and often because I don’t even know when or where a given conference is being held with enough lead time to plan. I always invite readers to provide a summary of their experiences.

Here’s ADG’s writeup of AMIA’s iHealth conference:

iHealth 2014 was a good excuse to get away from the cold and snow of wherever you were and come to Orlando for some warm rain. Farzad Mostashari in particular was seen immediately after the PBS-style fireside chat of the four previous national coordinators without a bowtie and in the company of a couple of cute kids. Getting the four on the same stage was a logistics coup and they were immensely personable. The two with the initials “DB” — David Brailer and David Blumenthal — cheerfully referred to each other as DB1 and DB2. Their themes included the coming penalties for non-compliance with MU, and DB1’s very sharp insights, which included the observation that he expects FDA regulation of EMRs within “single digit” years. Their advice to the current ONC coordinator Karen DiSalvo seemed to be a version of “buckle up.” DB1 in particular was praised by the others for his sharp organizational and entrepreneurial skills in getting the office started on the right foot.

We came to Orlando to get practical advice (and to get out of the cold, see above) and there is some comfort that all are struggling — large and less-large, academic and less-academic — with rapid change. Most noticeable was a sharp divide between the academics and the operational types, with the academics suggesting that if you do the right things, the “regulators will catch up,” which is an actual quote. The operational types knew that regulators will deny payment for any failure to cross the T and dot the i and that their organization would be out of business for lack of money by the time the regulators “caught up” to the “right thing.” There was a terrific dinner hosted by AMIA for recent diplomates of the board of Clinical Informatics, and we discovered we all have frighteningly similar backgrounds and tastes. Blackford Middleton, chair of the board of directors of AMIA, gave an excellent short toast. There were no grand insights, but lots of one-on-one incremental gains from each other, and HIStalk was mentioned at least a couple of times from the stage(s).

Jim Hansen of Lumeris / Accountable Delivery System Institute knows I like what we call “Judy-isms,” little nuggets of cynical wisdom from Epic’s Judy Faulkner. He culled these from last week’s HIT Policy Committee meeting:

“Be careful about prescriptive standards. If there was a usability committee for the iPhone, there wouldn’t be one.”
“We see a huge international move to EHRs without incentive money. We can’t test it here, but would it have happened anyway?”
“With regard to Meaningful Use and providers saying, “I paid for an EHR, therefore you as the government owe me,” I think of girls on dates and I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Brian Ahier provides the full text of the SGR Repeal and Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act that proposes to move the Meaningful Use program into the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System.

From athenahealth’s Friday earnings call:

Jonathan Bush talked up athenaCoordinator for Enterprise, “our first truly hospital-facing service” that will tie together the company’s services for pre-certification, pre-registration, scheduling, and population health management. It will cost hospitals 1 percent of revenue.
“The on-ramp that is turning out to be Epocrates” will be enhanced to include secure text messaging, a provider director, and clinical decision support tools and the rollout of Epocrates Prime that will allow non-physician secure messaging participants and referral capability.
New company locations include Austin, Atlanta, and San Francisco.
Sales to small hospitals, the only underperforming area, will be better supported by teams that include operational analysts rather than just a single salesperson.
Bush, responding to an analyst’s question about how cost-shifting to patients will affect the company, said, “As long as they don’t become uninsured self-payers and they keep their financial selves tangled up in impossible-to-understand bureaucratic health plans, which is now the law of the land, it doesn’t hurt us.”
Bush says the company may need to create a patient-facing division because patient portal use is low industry-wide.
In describing the company’s patient engagement efforts, “The goal is to just do everything possible for the doctor over the cloud, to the patient, at home where they get better answers to clinical questions. Like tell me about your diet and your life and all the things you need to know for the doctor, all your smoking, your seatbelts, your sex life. All those things are much easier to talk about at home or in private than sitting in the freaking waiting room, or worse, on that butcher paper with your knickers off. So we’re going to use the social good created by all of our increasingly sophisticated patient outreach to be way better than we are.”
Enterprise Coordinator will include the patient facesheet from athenaClinicals and clicking on the patient’s name, even by a practice that doesn’t use athenahealth, will launch a session of the hospital’s EHR.
Bush described the company’s future strategy as, “The goal here is to get into the front door and the back door of the hospital and work our way through the wards and departments with cloud-based services that allow them to virtualize, get business from more places, and focus more of their resources on actual clinical care. Other places we need to go is we need to go to patients. So every patient in America needs to have something in their wallet and something on their wrist, some sort of 2D barcode or in their iPhone that says, ‘This is me. Zap this thing and pull me up on athenaNet if I’m unconscious.’ So that’s some sort of patient outreach. I don’t know if it’s a partnership with the big dogs out in California, the Facebook or whatever — maybe I have to meet the Zuck, who knows. And then the other one is to get into the finance side. So health plans have been largely kind of strapped down and held still by regulation. They can’t be responsive to their customers. They need new ways of underwriting healthcare and a partner that could bring a claimless healthcare network where nobody sends a claim or receives a claim. All of this is instantaneous intelligence built into the wire. That should be us.”
In summarizing 2013, Bush said, “That wraps up a fantastic year. And over the last few days, we have given out beautiful crystal things, checks, and stock options. And if that wasn’t enough, we gave a few people hangovers so that they knew that what they had done in 2013 and then we took all their needles and returned them to 0. And we noticed last night that you all got excited about how the year went and the stock went up. And we want you to know that we have turned our needles with you to 0. We have a very long way to go and it is only to us about how we journey. There will be a healthcare Internet and we will be the ones who have created it. ”

Speaking of athenahealth, ATHN shares jumped 25 percent on Friday, the second-largest percentage gain on the Nasdaq, after Thursday’s earnings announcement, valuing the company at $6.5 billion. A $10,000 investment five years ago would be worth $52,000 today.

CMS extends the deadline for EPs to attest for MU 2013 by a month to March 31, 2014.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy announces that several drug chains have pledged to support or expand their use of the Blue Button initiative to allow patients to access their prescription information: Walgreens, Kroger, CVS Caremark, Rite Aid, and Safeway. Walgreens, always the technology leader in retail pharmacy and arguably in healthcare, says it will adopt BlueButton+ guidelines to allow customers to share their data and use third-party health applications.

The Federal Trade Commission approves a settlement with IP-based video camera vendor TRENDnet over a software vulnerability that allowed anyone to view a camera’s live feed over the Internet without a password. One marketed use of the secure video systems is monitoring hospitalized patients.

In England, a privacy group criticizes West Suffolk Hospital after it reports 20 documented breaches since 2010, including seven in 2013. All of breaches last year involved paper records that were filed or mailed incorrectly.

Weird News Andy includes an actor’s name pun in titling this story, “He’s a Lauriette.” A German doctor diagnoses a patient’s cobalt poisoning caused by a broken artificial hip after recognizing its symptoms from an episode of the TV series “House.” The doctor says he’s not thrilled at being called “the German Dr. House” since he finds rude behavior unacceptable, but concedes, “It’s important to be nice, but you don’t get patients healthy just by being nice.”

Sponsor Updates

Clinical Architecture announces Symedical for the iPad, which provides mobile access to map administration.
John Gomez of JGo Labs is working with investment bankers interested in investing in healthcare IT companies with $5 million to $30 million EBIDTA, a proven business model, and good revenue growth. He’ll be available to meet with interested companies at HIMSS.

Contacts

Mr. H, Inga, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Gregg, Lt. Dan, Dr. Travis, Lorre.

More news: HIStalk Practice, HIStalk Connect.

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News 2/7/14

February 6, 2014 News 6 Comments

Top News

Athenahealth reports Q4 results: revenue up 48 percent, adjusted EPS $0.57 vs. $0.29, beating analyst expectations for both and sending ATHN shares up 19 percent in after hours trading Thursday. Above is the one-year performance of ATHN (blue) vs. the Nasdaq (red).

Reader Comments

From OnTheFringe: “Re: KLAS. Sponsoring a Best in KLAS TweetChat Friday. Oh my, I think I might have a few beers and fire up my Twitter account.”

From Faithful Sponsor: “Re: HIStalkapalooza attire. While I did not make the cut to attend HIStalkapalooza 2014, one of my executives did and I wanted to touch base to see what the theme was this year.” Let me start by saying that no one is sadder than Mr. H and me that we were not able to accommodate all our faithful readers and sponsors due to capacity limitations. The only HIStalker more sad than us is probably Dr. Jayne, who was unable to score an invite for her “+1,” a gentleman that Dr. Jayne assures me is terrific, even if he did just cancel his HIStalk subscription over the perceived snub. Next year I am proposing we rent Soldier Field so we have plenty of room for anyone (though I suppose we might need to wear snow suits.) As for this year, we will once again be seeking contenders for the Inga Loves My Shoe contest, so please bring your A game. Overachievers who are able to pull off the whole package may be in the running for HIStalk King or Queen. If that’s not specific enough, here’s a good rule of thumb: leave the “just off the exhibit floor” company golf shirt in your hotel room and come adorned in something fun, flirty, and suitable for sipping Ingatinis. You’ll see some long gowns, a tux or two, plenty of cocktail dresses, and the occasional pair of blue jeans. It’s going to be fun.

From Gary: “Re: HIStalkapalooza. Rejected third year in a row. I have concluded that this is a hand picked, very political event, your own version of the Good Ole Boy network.” Every year I swear I’ll never do another HIStalkapalooza because of the endless complaining about who gets invited and the time and energy it takes to wade through hundreds of emails begging for (or demanding) invitations, insistence on bringing uninvited guests, or asking me to personally repeat event details that have already appeared several times in HIStalk. The event is a really nice, free party for maybe 1,000 people and neither the sponsor nor I get anything out of it except a ton of work, but somehow we end up being the bad guys when demand for invitations exceeds supply. The invitation process is clear and hasn’t changed since 2008: employees of non-profit providers (hospitals, practices, universities – hardly “political”) who request invitations come first. This year a huge number of providers signed up, leaving around 1,000 others without spots no matter how cool they are or how much I like them. It’s no different than a popular show or sporting event – not everybody is going to get a seat. Next thing you know scalpers will be lined up outside of the House of Blues.

Speaking of HIStalkapalooza, every year at least 40 percent of those invited don’t show up. This year I’m keeping a database of no-shows who don’t let me know in advance so that I can give someone else their spot – that will be the last HIStalkapalooza invitation they’ll get. A few invitees have already emailed to say their plans have changed and I really appreciate that.

From Reader: “Re: HIStalk. Thank you again for the wonderful service you offer our healthcare industry. So many of us wake up each morning to stay informed to the latest news via HIStalk. I am amazed at how well your content remains timely, fresh, and complete. We hope to see you at HIMSS, where we will release the next generation of our solution. Wishing you continued success in 2014.” Thanks. I don’t usually have enough time to watch demos at the HIMSS conference, but I will try to swing by at least briefly and anonymously.

From Silent: “Re: Epic. Going into the consulting business. This will greatly disrupt the current vendor marketplace.” Unverified.

From WildcatBelievers: “Re: The University of Arizona Health Network’s Diamond Children’s Hospital. Went live on Epic in November, recently put together this fantastic video with special guest band American Authors to celebrate the tremendous and impactful work they are doing to improve the lives of the children of Arizona.”

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

A few HIStalk Practice highlights from the last week include: Epic, eClinicalWorks, and Allscripts own 30 percent of the physician EMR market. Physician practices are far from ready for ICD-10. HHS finds that few health centers have the capacity to meet MU data sharing objectives. Reimbursements remained flat in 2013 for existing patient visits and declined for new patients. EHR alerts show promise in changing physician behavior when treating obese and overweight children. Dr. Gregg recommends taking time to step across the divide to reinvigorate your viewpoint. Culbert Healthcare’s Brad Boyd offers tips for optimizing clinical documentation. Thanks for reading.

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor CitiusTech, a leading healthcare technology services and solutions provider with 1,400 professionals (including 500 certified in HL7) serving over 50 leading healthcare organizations. The company has grown 55 percent year-over-year for the past five years and has won awards for being a great place to work. Its BI-Clinical healthcare business intelligence and clinical decision support system has been deployed at over 1,200 provider locations, with pre-built clinical, financial, operational, and regulatory reporting apps and 600 pre-built KPIs. Services include software product engineering, professional services, QA and test automation, and technology consulting. Specific practice areas are Meaningful Use compliance, interoperability, BI, consumer health, care management, and cloud and mobile health. The company serves all healthcare markets – vendors, hospitals, medical groups, medical device companies, HIEs, health plans, and pharma. Thanks to CitiusTech for supporting HIStalk.

Here’s an overview of CitiusTech.

HIMSS Conference Social Events

Aventura, Nordic Consulting, Avent, and IHS Consulting will host the Row 1800 block party from 4:00-6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 25. All will be serving food and drinks and Aventura will feature a magic show at booth 1831. All hated competitors are welcome.

Upcoming Webinars

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Private equity firm Thoma Bravo acquires supply chain solutions vendor Global Health Exchange.

Praesidian Capital invests $8.3 million in Etransmedia Technology.

Alere announces Q4 results: adjusted revenue up two percent, ajusted EPS $0.68 vs. $0.55, beating estimates. Net product and services revenue from Alere’s health information solutions segment was flat.

Bottomline Technologies will pay $8 million for Rationalwave Analytics, an early-stage predictive analytics company.

From Cerner’s earnings call:

The company signed 25 contracts over $5 million in the quarter
President Zane Burke says half of the market will reconsider their EHR supplier in the next few years, most of them will choose Cerner or Epic, and Cerner’s win rate against Epic has doubled in the past three years.
Cerner says it replaced 18 ambulatory competitors in signature accounts.
It says it sold an HIE to a 600-bed Epic hospital because Epic was “was unable to effectively connect to other systems.”
The company says providers are consolidating and Cerner hospitals are buying smaller ones at quadruple the rate of Epic hospitals.

Sales

FirstHealth of the Carolinas selects Truven Health Unify for population health management.

Bozeman Deaconess Hospital (MT) will implement Merge Healthcare’s VNA and interoperability solutions.

Metro-North ACO (PR) selects eClinicalWorks Care Coordination Medical Record to advance its physician-led ACO objectives.

Adventist Health System selects HealthMEDX to automate Adventist Care Centers, its long-term care division.

Genesis Medical Center (IA) will implement Wolter Kluwer Health’s ProVation Medical software for cardiology procedure documentation and coding.

Covenant Health Systems (MA) adopts MedeAnalytics’ analytics platform to manage population health for its employees.

Athens-Limestone Hospital (AL) selects Besler Consulting to assist in the identification of Medicare Transfer DRG underpayments.

Providence Health & Services and Swedish Health Services (WA) will implement care transition and utilization review solutions from Curaspan Health Group, as well as Xerox’s Midas+ Care Management platform.

People

Axiom EPM hires David Janotha (Loyola University of Chicago Medical Center) as VP of healthcare.

Parallon names Scott Armstrong (OptumInsight) SVP and Wendy Penfield (Intellect Resources) as AVP, both in revenue cycle consulting services.

Surgical supply chain software vendor Solstice Medical hires Todd Melioris as CEO.

Announcements and Implementations

Geisinger Health System (PA) deploys Courion’s identity and access management solutions.

St. Luke’s University Hospital Network (PA) implements Get Real Health’s InstantPHR patient portal, which will be connected to Caradigm’s HIE platform.

HIMSS announces a Latin American version of its annual conference that will be held September 18-19 in Sao Paolo, Brazil.

Government and Politics

The Army and Air Force contract with a division of Goodwill Industries to scan and transmit to the VA the service treatment records of veterans discharged this year.

The DoD and VA collaborate to develop a way for the VA to review the scanned images of the DoD electronic medical records of disability claimants.

Farzad Mostashari tweets out a section of the proposed SGR bill that would roll Meaningful Use and PQRS incentives into a new value-based payment system that would start in 2017. Additional language would require EHRs to be interoperable.

The former CFO of Shelby Regional Medical Center (TX) is indicted for Medicare fraud, charged with falsely attesting that the hospital met Meaningful Use requirements for 2012. The hospital was mostly paper-based, but ordered its software vendor (eCareSoft) and employees to manually enter information into the EHR months after discharge to earn $786,000 in incentive payments. The hospital was part of a now-defunct for-profit chain that collected $18 million in Meaningful Use payments before being dismantled after reports of serious patient care issues.

The governor of Massachusetts apologizes for the state’s dysfunctional insurance exchange website as a non-profit research firm finds the site loaded with “technical infrastructure and data stability problems.” The governor says that contractor CGI, which was also responsible for Healthcare.gov, was not reliable and relieved CGI overseer University of Massachusetts Medical Center of further responsibilities.

Other

New York officials report that the state’s online database for drug prescriptions has reduced doctor shopping by 75 percent since its August 2013 implementation.

The World Health Organization postpones the rollout of ICD-11 until 2017, two years later than planned.

Sponsor Updates

AirWatch opens an Australian headquarters in Melbourne.
Allscripts announces the general availability of Sunrise Version 14.1.
Jed Shay, MD shares how his use of AdvancedMD’s EHR and PM services have contributed to improved cash flow, productivity, and patient tracking.
T-System files a patent application for an ICD-10 feedback feature that helps clinicians document for ICD-10 without an interruption in workflow.
Huron Healthcare will integrate predictive analytic technologies from Connance into its revenue cycle solutions.
Russell Green, VP of research operations and engagement manager for Porter Research, discusses the mixed messaging of HIEs in a blog post.
Kelsey Creveling from Sagacious Consultants clarifies changes in the Safe Harbor regulation in a blog post.
MyCatalyst will use Liaison Healthcare’s Data Management platform for its myCatalyst Provider Portal and Population Health Reportal solutions.

EPtalk by Dr. Jayne

The pre-HIMSS mail bonanza has started. It seems a little earlier than last year. Today’s winner is GCX Mounting Solutions, whose “scratch and win” card fell victim to the Postal Service’s automated mail handling machines. A fair number of mailings arrive mangled every year. I wonder if the marketing and promotional companies ever consider doing a test mailing to make sure their items will arrive as intended?

Several vendors have shared invitations to their client appreciation parties and I’m looking forward to writing them up. I haven’t heard from very many EHR vendors, so either they don’t want sassy women in fabulous shoes to attend or they’re just behind. Inga will be sharing invitations from those vendors willing to open their events to HIStalk readers. I appreciate their willingness to let everyone share in the fun. After slogging through 500,000 square feet of exhibit space and 1,200 exhibitors, the opportunity to unwind and partake of a cocktail is more than welcome.

Something I’ll be on the lookout for in the exhibit hall: devices that use the new Corning antimicrobial Gorilla Glass. When I think about all the devices I come into contact with each day in the hospital compared to the variable handwashing behavior of some of my colleagues, it seems like a good idea. I see more people wiping down equipment at the gym than I see on the wards and that’s not a good thing. I haven’t seen any evidence-based reports on how well it works, so if you have any inside scoop, let me know.

The World Health Organization is postponing the rollout of ICD-11. Originally slated for 2015, it will be delayed until 2017. Hopefully this will quiet those voices advocating that we skip ICD-9 and go straight to ICD-11. ICD-10 was approved in May 1990 and first came into use in 1994, so based on the historical timeline, the United States should be ready for ICD-11 in 2038. Thank goodness I’ll be retired by then.

Several readers emailed about this week’s Curbside Consult on wearable tech. One mentioned the lack of interest in a mobile healthcare enterprise device. Manufacturers are focused on selling directly to the masses, but it would seem like there is a place for enterprise devices in the Accountable Care or HMO spaces. Another lamented the lack of integration among devices — “I feel like a nurse with 50 devices being a kangaroo.”

When I was in residency, we used to refer to the group of pagers that you had to wear when you were on call as the Batman Utility Belt. There was the on-call pager, the code team pager, and your personal pager. You also had to carry the elevator keys (because who wants to run up 17 floors when a patient needs CPR?) Throw on a bulky cell phone, and if you were extra lucky, the labor and delivery pager, and you were ready to go. I almost forgot – some also had a Palm Pilot, although I was partial to the Pocket PC.

We’ve certainly come a long way. Some of us are down to one device if we work in a BYOD environment. I’m still toting a corporate phone and a personal phone, but it certainly could be worse. Have you been able to shed the utility belt? Email me.

Contacts

Mr. H, Inga, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Gregg, Lt. Dan, Dr. Travis, Lorre

More news: HIStalk Practice, HIStalk Connect.

News 2/5/14

February 4, 2014 News Comments Off

Top News

Castlight Health files plans for an IPO that values the company at $2 billion. The employee health management software company was formed in 2008 with now-US CTO Todd Park as a co-founder.

Reader Comments

From Jack Flash: “Re: Dick Derrick. The HCIT world will miss the smiling face of Dick Derrick of eClinicalWorks, who announced his retirement after 40 years in our business.” Dick was kind enough to share with Mr. H and me that he remains “addicted” to HIStalk and will continue reading in between his travel, volunteering, and family time. He also asked us to send his best to his industry friends.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Supporting HIStalk as a Platinum Sponsor is Aperek (pronounced uh-PARE-ik) which you may remember as Mediclick (with earlier roots in Global Software) since the healthcare-only, all US-based company changed its name along with introducing new products in November 2013. The Raleigh, NC-based company offers highly ranked solutions for supply chain, financials, mobile, technology, spend aggregation / contract management, and implant tracking. CEO Mike Merwarth explained in my interview last week that 80 percent of a hospital’s supply expenses are managed by clinical people rather than materials management professionals (particularly in the OR, where high-dollar implant products are used) and thus aren’t touched by typical ERP packages. A new Aperek solution is Pulse, an iPad app designed for clinicians who record implant item usage in the OR. Hospitals are looking at the supply chain and thus to Aperek to get their costs under control. Thanks to Aperek for supporting HIStalk.

HIMSS Conference Social Events

Send us your event details if it’s a good one (i.e, free food and drinks at minimum) and you promise that all HIStalk readers are welcome to attend, even if they work for your most hated competitor as a given reader might well do. Inga and Dr. Jayne especially like free cocktails and are happy to give your company a shout-out if we have the chance to stop by.

Divurgent will be sponsoring a Havana Nights themed event at the Funky Monkey (International Drive) Sunday night at 8:00 p.m. on Sunday. Click here to register.

Upcoming Webinars

February 5 (Wednesday) 1:00 p.m. ET. Healthcare Transformation: What’s Good About US Healthcare? Sponsored by Health Catalyst. Presenter: John Haughom, MD, senior advisor, Health Catalyst. Dr. Haughom will provide a deeper look at the forces that have defined and shaped the current state of U.S. healthcare. Paradoxically, some of these same forces are also driving the inevitable need for change.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Cerner announces Q4 results: revenue up 12 percent, adjusted EPS $0.39 vs. $0.34, meeting analyst expectations.

ZappRx, developers of a mobile e-prescribing platform, secures $1 million in additional funding.

Imprivata confidentially submits a draft registration statement with the SEC to conduct an IPO.

Streamline Health Solutions completes its acquisition of Unibased Systems Architecture.

Endo Health Solutions completes the divestiture of HealthTronics to Altaris Capital Partners for total consideration of up to $130 million.

BlueStep Systems, a clinical platform provider for the long-term and post-acute care market, merges with BridgeGate Health, a system integration provider.

Sales

Spectrum Health (MI) selects PerfectServe’s Clinician-to-Clinician and DocLink platforms for direct and secure clinician communication.

The 14-hospital Baptist Memorial Health Care System selects Voalte smartphones for system-wide caregiver communication.

People

HIMSS awards CACI International’s Keith Salzman, MD its 2013 Physician IT Leadership Award.

AT&T appoints Eric Topol, MD ((Scripps Health) chief medical advisor.

CTG Health Solutions hires Linda Lockwood (Encore Health Resources) as its advisory services solutions director.

HIMSS names Pauline M. (Hogan) Byom (Mayo Health System) the recipient of the 2013 SHS/HIMSS Excellence in Healthcare Management Engineering / Process Improvement Award.

Colette Weston (ADP AdvancedMD) joins Aviacode as VP of client services.

Emdeon hires Randy P. Giles (Coventry Health Care) as CFO/ EVP of finance, replacing Bob A. Newport, Jr.

Announcements and Implementations

The University City Science Center in Philadelphia begins accepting applications for its Digital Health Accelerator, which will provide up to $50,000 in funding and other benefits for as many as six companies in the digital health or HIT sector.

Fleming Island Surgery Center (FL) goes live with Anesthesia Touch from Plexus Information Systems.

Bread for the City (DC) and the Family and Medical Counseling Service (DC) implement The Guideline Advantage, a quality improvement program that leverages population health management tools from Forward Health Group.

Government and Politics

CMS authorizes laboratories to provide patients with direct access to their lab reports, rather than requiring patients to obtain results from their physicians.

A veterans advocacy group calls on the VA and DoD to take aggressive steps to reduce the remaining backlog of 400,000 disability claims, deliver on the long-promised joint VA/DoD EMR, to standardize VA claims forms, and to encourage VA raters to process claims correctly the first time.

Innovation and Research

Hospitals rank cost reduction as their top innovation priority, according to a HIMSS/AVIA survey on healthcare provider innovation. The report also reveals that chief innovation officers are not yet mainstream roles within hospital and health systems, though 64 percent of organizations with annual revenues of at least $5 billion have a chief innovation officer. Though dedicated funding for innovation is modest, providers are making progress implementing innovative solutions related to population health management, patient follow-up, predictive analytics, clinical decision support, and care coordination.

Other

HIMSS expects more than 1,200 exhibitors at this year’s conference and will offer longer exhibit hall hours with more overlap between education sessions and no mid-day break.

Weird News Andy titles this story “A Shot for a Shot.” A startup invents a device that it claims can stop bleeding from a gunshot wound in 15 seconds. It injects dozens of tiny sponges into the wound, or as the article breezily written for those skimming rather than actually reading, “like a tampon for bullet wounds.”

Sponsor Updates

PACS blogger Dr. Dalai banters with Brad Levin of Visage Imaging about the latter’s suggestion that a savvy hospital IT department could assemble its own PACS system from off-the-shelf components.
NCQA certifies that Verisk Health’s Quality Intelligence solution contains HEDIS Certified Measures that are ready for 2014 HEDIS reporting.
Oracle Health Sciences will integrate medical speech recognition technology from Nuance Communications with its e-clinical software.
MedHOK achieves NCQA certification for its HEDIS Certified Measures in 360Measures.
TriZetto launches a collaborative care solution powered by Wellcentive to facilitate payer/provider collaboration in accountable care initiatives.
PeriGen introduces Category II Management Algorithm, a free web-based tool to support the management of patients in labor during FHR category II.
Coastal Healthcare Consulting introduces Convergence, an offering that combines NextGate’s Enterprise Master Index with Coastal’s project implementation.
HIMSS selects InterSystems HealthShare as the official health informatics platform for the Intelligent Hospital Pavilion at the HIMSS14 conference.
Gartner positions Informatica as a leader in its January 2014 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Integration Platform-as-a-Service report, based on ability to executive and completeness of vision.
Elsevier introduces MethodsX, a concept methods journal that provides researchers a home for their unpublished works, allowing them to receive public credit and citations.
First Databank commences publishing of an initial draft of New York State Acquisition Cost drug prices.
CareSync is selected as a finalist in the Community category for the 2014 SXSW Interactive Awards for its efforts in building meaningful communities for patients, their families, and care teams.