From HIMSS 3/7/13 — Inga’s Update

It’s Thursday morning and I am still in New Orleans and excited to see James Carville and Karl Rove. Dr. Mostashari was the keynote this morning and discussed the “why” of Meaningful Use (basically we need to capture the data, share the data, change processes…which in time will result in better outcomes) and strongly emphasized that MU is making impact and there is data to prove it. He knocked the media and “bloggers” a bit, as well as other naysayers who promote the “man bites dog” stories instead of the celebrating the evidence that adoption continues to climb. A couple other notes:

• He expressed shock that so many vendors and providers don’t understand the final 2014 EHR standards
• This year’s interoperability showcase was the “best ever” and involved “real exchange” and not just PowerPoints
• Patients must be more involved in their care and providers must provide patients with their data
• No one should make a profit holding patient data hostage

Mostashari is not only a terrific cheerleader for MU and its success to date, but he also clearly believes in the potential of HIT. I noticed Mr. H tweeted that hearing Farzad brings home the point that like it or not, we’re all in the public health business. He had a great message and it’s unfortunate his keynote was scheduled the day after most people had already left for home.

The crowd for Bill Clinton on Wednesday was insane. I walked in 30 minutes early, just as they were closing the doors and pushing everyone to the overflow section. I was able to stand fairly close to the front, but my body still aches from standing in one spot for two hours. Clinton was as smart and charming as I expected and his overall message was that we’ve got to fix healthcare in order to reign in costs; healthcare needs to be accessible to everyone;  pricing must be transparent; and, everyone needs to become engaged in his own health.

I spent most of the rest of the day Wednesday on the exhibit floor. I probably won’t have time to share all my impressions until tomorrow but I will mention a few things.

I asked someone very familiar with GE why GE was not part of the the CommonWell Alliance. Her impression: GE is traditionally very slow to move on anything, including getting their own products and software to talk.

Several vendors noted the heavy presence of venture capital folks looking at companies.

Loved the green tennis shoes at the Emdeon booth.

Iatric had quite a crowd of people watching their pool shark make a fancy shot while sharing a few details about the company’s data integration products and services. They had a monitor on the opposite side of the booth that was attracting almost as many people as the live view.

I noticed a big crowd of people watching demos of athenacollector.

Practice Fusion’s booth was quite sparse and they had a monitor displaying the number of patients seen using Practice Fusion’s EHR during HIMSS (436,000 and counting) and in 2013 (6.6+ million.)

The woman manning the CHADIS booth stopped me long enough to give me a concise description of their offering: a Web-based screening, diagnostic, and management system for pediatrics that offers online questionnaires for parents. Clinicians use the collected data to manage the care process more efficiently.

Lifepoint Informatics had two engaging guys standing on the edge of the booth (without phones) and greeting people as they walked by. I chatted with them a bit and they handed me two Starbucks cards. Just because. The Lifepoint guys mentioned they had more vendors stopping by and pitching their offerings than prospects asking about the company’s integration services.

I was intrigued by the artist in the Covisint booth and her mural. I wanted to hear what it was all about, but I couldn’t get anyone’s attention.

I took a stroll through the Mobile Health Knowledge Center, which was hopping. There seemed to be a mix of big name vendors as well as some I have never heard of.

There was a long line to tour the Intelligent Hospital, which included an OR, ER, and data center. If you didn’t need to get up close, you could view the set-up through the glass walls.

I chatted with the eClinicalWorks folks for a little bit and asked them why they were not part of the CommonWell announcement. The executive I spoke to didn’t know if they had been asked to participate, but he felt sure they would be willing to look at it if asked, even though they already connect to a variety of other systems. eClinicalWorks always has a modest booth compared to many of their competitors, but they seem to hold their own in terms of traffic.

As Mr. H has noted, way too many exhibitors were busy on their iPhones and iPads. However, I didn’t notice any phone use in a number of booths, including Hospira, Merge, Epic (except for a guy in a Hill-Rom shirt who apparently had walked across the aisle take his call in Epic’s booth rather than Hill-Rom’s), Caradigm, Microsoft, and dbtech.

About the only booth really busy the last couple hours Wednesday was OnBase, which was serving beer. Do these folks look tired or what?

I’ll have one last summary report tomorrow, as well as my impressions on the Carville/Rove session.

E-mail Inga.

From HIMSS 3/6/13

From BD: “Re: finds from the show. Warm and fuzzies all around us.” Funny, I noticed those exact items too. I was picturing a criminal lifer in the back seat of a cab fingering his .45 nervously, but then being scared off upon learning the news that blasting the cab driver might lead to punishment. Apparently New Orleans has a target audience of literate and easily influenced would-be cabbie killers.

From IVANS to Tell You…: “Re: IVANS. ABILITY Network to acquire IVANS. Press release out tomorrow.” Unverified. Both companies are involved with Medicare/Medicaid connectivity.

From Tweeter and the Monkey Man: “Re: Jardogs acquisition by Allscripts. That effectively eliminates Jardogs from 80 percent of all deals as their portal is no longer agnostic. Will a Cerner community buy an Allscripts product? Doubtful. Watch for a rebrand.”  

Wednesday of HIMSS week is always kind of a letdown. Everybody’s tired, sluggish from too much food and drink, and many (or most) of them head out for home later in the day. You could feel the energy sucked out of the exhibit hall, which I left early because my feet were tired (I think I’m coming down with a cold) and I had pretty much seen everything (four trips back and forth the length of the hall today alone.) Above is a typical booth view, with everybody heads-down on their phones.

[ANNOUNCEMENT] We are declaring tomorrow the official bow tie day of #HIMSS13! Let’s give @farzadsbowtie some company!

— HIMSS (@HIMSS) March 7, 2013

I attended an early ONC session that wasn’t interesting enough to hold my admittedly short attention span. At the end, some douchebag PHR vendor CEO charged the microphone in pretending to ask a question by orating endlessly at the ONC panel, then went off in a long, pedantic description of how wonderful his thumb drive PHR product is (including histrionics like waving it around in the air) and claiming it could replace HIEs. If there was one of those bank teller panic buttons, I’m sure one of the ONC people would have pressed it to have him forcibly removed, but without it they could only smile through gritted teeth hoping he would accidentally come up for air so they could interrupt his infomercial. I was afraid I’d get trampled as most of the theater joined me in fleeing for the exits. I wish I had noted the company’s name to award them the appropriate level of public ridicule.

I hate it when people ask their long-winded questions after a presentation. I’d much rather let them use index cards or tweets so I don’t have to listen to their life story instead of the speaker I came to hear. Why are they encouraged to introduce themselves since nobody cares? Why doesn’t someone hold the microphone and yank it away when they refuse to shut up? When I see the self-important folks sprint over top of each other to line up salivating for their turn at the microphone, I make an equally speedy beeline for the door knowing that the interesting part of the session is officially over.

I say it every year, but the best asset of any vendor is the Hyland magician outside their sports bar exhibit. Not only is his magician’s patter amazing (“Wanna see something cool?” which is probably equally good as a pickup line) but he then works the crowd and talks knowledgably about how the OnBase product connects to Epic or Cerner or whatever. There’s no way he could memorize all that, so he must be an employee who just happens to be a magician. Whatever they pay him isn’t enough.

People keep asking me whether Epic should join its competitors in CommonWell. My answer: I wouldn’t, at least not yet. My understanding is that the participants signed a non-binding letter of intent and kicked in up to $2 million each to perform vaguely described interoperability work on an undefined timeline. Set an Outlook reminder for a year from now and let’s see if these large publicly traded companies can actually accomplish anything that benefits patients in ways that existing interoperability and HIEs haven’t. By apparently not inviting Epic initially, at least part of their agenda is pretty clear. The HIMSS timing raises the possibility that it’s more of a marketing program than it seems, to the point that I heard that Allscripts didn’t even sign up until Sunday night (Paul Black wasn’t present at the announcement, maybe for that reason). If they can actually make progress quickly, then Epic can always join at that time since they claim membership will be open to everyone. Being in favor of patient-benefiting interoperability doesn’t necessarily mean signing up for CommonWell, and if the market demands such participation, more companies will get on board.

I heard many people today complaining about having eaten too much very rich food this week. Nobody even wanted the beignets vendors were handing out from their booths today. I was glad that I had a delightful river view tapas dinner with a new friend Tuesday night since I was overloaded with gumbo, etouffee, jambalaya, andouille sausage, fried oysters, and bread pudding. My serum Tabasco levels are off the chart.

A pet peeve: sales guys wearing white lab coats. I don’t think they realize how offensive it is to clinicians (me included) who worked hard to earn the right to wear them in appropriate situations. Maybe next HIMSS I’ll don priest vestments to listen to their pitch.

Bill Clinton drew the largest keynote crowd I’ve seen at a HIMSS conference, totally filling the main hall and darned near overwhelming the huge lobby that served as an overflow area (above). It was like Billstock. I heard that people were so packed inside the hall that they had to clear some of them out because all the blocked aisles were a fire code violation. I guess he was OK in a big picture kind of way, and it’s always fun to get a little bit of inside baseball knowledge from a former president. There were snickers when one of his stories involved “walking down the street with my young intern,” but he clarified that it’s a guy.

Live from the HIStalk Executive Lounge(that’s how Medicomp labeled it) at HIStalkapalooza – attendees issue their predictions for 2013.

Impact Advisors sent over some pictures from their Monday night event at the Grand Isle Restaurant.

Exhibit Hall

Someone from Microsoft apologized here for their employees texting and ignoring booth attendees, so I figured I’d give them another chance. I walked up to the very same station, stood still and made eye contact, and a MSFT guy who was texting walked very slowly away from me, like he wasn’t in a hurry to get anywhere except away from me. I was then intercepted and engaged professionally and cordially by Sarah, but then again she’s the healthcare marketing executive and you would expect her to be excellent (and she was.) Still, it was a much better experience.

I assume the Microsofties and others who have minimal booth personality are technical people and you can forgive them for that. At the opposite end of the spectrum was the utterly delightful young lady at the Tellennium booth. I told her there’s no way she’s a real employee since she was just too upbeat and magnetic and she proudly said that she’s a “brand ambassador.” I liked her instantly.

Here’s a shout out to Chelsey from Radianse, who had the best engagement style I’ve seen so far this week. She wasn’t arrogant, forceful, or overly rehearsed, but she also wasn’t scared to go shoulder to shoulder into the details of their product. Nice job. She pulled me in off the aisle I was walking down and actually taught me a few things that were good to know.

Spectralink had a pretty cool “man down” phone that automatically opens a call to hospital security if the wearer either drops it or starts running. The call is initiated in speakerphone mode, so if there’s something going on or the wearer is unable to reach the phone, the person on the other end will hear it.

Salar’s booth was in a terrible location behind the menacing adjacent booth that loomed up into the rafters, but Greg Wilson did a nice job engaging me, probably just happy to see an actual person in the HIMSS no-man’s land the company assigned the company since it started over on HIMSS points after being acquired a couple of times. Our sign was out there, which is what caught my eye in the first place.

I saw our signs out at the booths of PDR Network, VitalWare, Divurgent, and SuccessEHS. Thanks to those sponsors.

Here’s a rare HIMSS sighting of Cerner’s Neal Patterson, who I noticed as he entered the Motion Computing booth this afternoon right after the Bill Clinton break.

Here’s a video of Dr. Jayne playing Quipstar in Medicomp Stadium.

Some of my favorite people are the ESD crew, who not only sported a fun and beautifully green booth that coordinated with our sign, but who were a blast at HIStalkapalooza this week, sponsored last year’s event in Las Vegas, and might reprise that role in the future. They dutifully posed for a picture. The company really is a great supporter of our work, going way beyond just mailing in a check.

This company always makes interesting shirts.

A reader sent this photo of the cool (but kind of creepy) Greenway smart-alecky avatar. The reader says its name is Christo.

I admire this ingenuity and dedication. Strata Decision Technology is a brand new sponsor and came on board too late for us to make them a booth sign. They e-mailed to say they took a picture of someone else’s, added in their own name, made their own sign, and proudly displayed it in their booth. That is just cool and it honestly moved me, like a lot of things our sponsors do to support our work. I dropped by and chatted anonymously with the folks there, who pleasantly explained what they do when I asked (a single financial platform for capital and operational budgeting, financial decision support, performance reporting, etc.) They didn’t mention it, but I see they announced a new StrataJazz customer today, St. Luke’s University Health Network (PA).

Charlie from Orchestrate Healthcare sent over this picture of our front-and-center sign. Nice.

Announcements

• Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center (NY) chooses Allscripts Financial Manager.
• We already stated that the VA’s big $543 million RTLS project involves CenTrak and Intelligent InSites, but CenTrak makes it official.

Mr. H’s Ten Commandments for Booth People

1. I will either turn my phone off and leave it off or, better still, put it away out of easy reach before commencing booth duty. If I can’t stay focused on doing the job I’m well paid to do for a handful of hours without screwing around with my phone, I should quit and let someone more motivated take my place.
2. I will stand at all times, sitting only if accompanying a booth visitor.
3. I will maintain a distance of at least 10 feet from the nearest fellow booth person to avoid the temptation of making co-worker small talk that will discourage visitors from initiating contact.
4. I will not interrupt my fellow booth person who is speaking to a visitor, even though I might be tempted to help them complete a thought or help out with a demo. Trying to follow two people talking over each other is fatiguing.
5. I will suggest that the most engaging of our people work the perimeter, with the assignment of quickly engaging passersby and then quickly handing them off to less-gregarious experts who can take it from there. Only the most personable people should serve in this prospect picket role.
6. I will start conversations with pleasant chit-chat and not an overly rehearsed set of facts or questions no matter how many times I’ve delivered the spiel. Nobody likes to be bombarded immediately.
7. I will approach every person who pauses, looks at anything in the booth, or appears lost. People of various personality types may signal their potential interest in a variety of ways.
8. I will have a 10-second answer ready for the inevitable “what does your company do” question.
9. I will not discriminate how I engage with visitors on the basis of job title or organization except perhaps in the case of a direct competitor. You never know who will be an influencer, either in their current role or down the road, and my time isn’t so valuable that I shouldn’t speak at least briefly to anyone who is interested.
10. I will remember that visitors have walked miles and are probably carrying several pounds worth of vendor giveaways, so if I convince them to watch a demo, I will personally make sure they have a seat and a place to lay down their bag.

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk Practice, HIStalk Connect.

From HIMSS 3/6/13–Dr. Jayne’s Update

HIMSS Update

Day 3 at HIMSS and this morning’s run revealed the Harrah’s Employee Health Center. I wonder what platform they use? The weather started to warm up today and it was downright muggy by noon. I spent most of the morning catching up with old friends. It still feels a little strange to have friends that you are very close to and talk with daily but only see once a year at HIMSS or some other meeting. I’m grateful for the opportunity for actual face-to-face interaction especially when beignets are involved.

I spent a good chunk of time on the show floor today, looking for the next big thing. I was happy to see several vendors with their HIStalk sponsor signs prominently placed. It’s always fun to see my avatar smiling back at me and I hope everyone appreciates the hand cramps from all the signing. Thanks to Surgical Information Systems, Orchestrate Healthcare, and Billian’s HealthDATA for sponsoring us and for displaying your signs with pride. I saw a lot of ladies in flip flops today and can only assume they were dancing the night away at HIStalkapalooza and are therefore recovering.

I attended a great lunch and learn session dealing with interoperability and data exchange. I was glad to see a speaker who was even more gloom and doom than I sometimes am about interface and exchange projects. His summary: however difficult you think this is going to be, without the right kind of planning it’s going to be way more difficult and complicated. I’ll be sharing his presentation with several of our internal customers as I try to explain why moving patient data isn’t the same as driving a wheelbarrow of mulch from the hospital’s front landscaping to the back entrance.

One of the cooler things I saw today was PatientTouch. Their “Mobile Care Orchestration” solution looks as good as it sounds. Their iPhone-based solution allows real-time access to care plans, patient lists, medication administration, alerts, and a whole host of other data. They’re partnering with some big folks (including my emergency department vendor) and our nurses would love to get their hands on something like that soon.

I also enjoyed visiting with the folks at Apixio, who knew how to handle a prospect and have a slick-looking solution to extract data from clinical narratives. I’m looking forward to getting it in front of my care managers to see what they think.

Not surprisingly, Judy Faulkner responded to yesterday’s CommonWell Health Alliance announcement by stating it’s a thinly-veiled attempt to attack Epic. I didn’t hear much speculation about it today, but then again I was pretty busy trying to visit 8,000 booths in just a few hours.

I was supposed to meet up with a group of brilliant physician informaticists tonight, but was sidetracked by a crisis at the hospital. Instead of exchanging ideas with great minds, I was sitting on a conference call providing leadership support while the team brought a critical system back up. Not that I added much to the team’s efforts, but I wanted to be there for any escalation requests that needed to be carried up the chain. I hope Inga was able to make it to some gatherings without me.

I’m flying home today to make a board meeting early tomorrow morning, so this will be my last post from HIMSS13. It’s been real, it’s been fun, and most of all, it’s been the Big Easy.

From HIMSS 3/6/13–Inga’s Update

I started my Tuesday morning at the keynote session with Eric Topol, who I found to be a great speaker. He discussed the potential of new technologies, many of which are available directly to consumers, and which have the potential to transform healthcare and save money.  I’ve been a little skeptical in the past that consumers will actually embrace technology to monitor their own health, but Topol showed some options that are extremely simple to use and allow patients to track and monitor their health in the comfort of their homes instead of the doctor’s office, the hospital, or a sleep lab.

I think that by the third day of HIMSS, flip flops are totally acceptable.

I hit the exhibit floor next and began looking for caffeine. Thank you Perceptive for the coffee and the beignet.

HIMSS has a number of theaters and kiosks set up in different areas of the exhibit floor. The Meaningful Use Experience section was at the far end of the hall and didn’t seem to be getting too much traffic.

Many, many sponsors, including Access, were displaying their HIStalk signs, which we appreciate.

I noticed that Caradigm, which was displaying a sponsor sign, was strategically located across from GE and next to Microsoft.

GE was attracting a crowd by giving attendees a chance to simulate a flight over New York City. It’s fun to watch.

I know I mentioned this last year but I like the Caretech booth, which uses black and white photos on its outer walls. Definitely stands out amongst the flash and colors of almost every other booth.

I have tried to limit the number of trinkets I’ve picked up this year but I figured I had enough room for this key ring with dangling clogs from Forcare, a Dutch company that offers interoperability solutions.

Kudos to Matt with Yseop, who stepped in the aisle to draw me into his small booth and delivered a nice pitch. Pronounced, “easy-op,” the company has rules engines that take data from a variety of formats and converts it into a narrative. They are just entering healthcare so they couldn’t show me much clinical content, but I liked what I saw.

Thank you to Level 3, who handed me the cookie I am now eating for breakfast and gave me a chance to register for an iPad Mini.

The Meditech booth is somewhat off to the side, but was reasonably busy as I passed by.

One of the ladies from Siemens stopped me long enough to take a swipe of my badge as part of their effort to raise money for Hope for the Warriors. Siemens will be donating up to $10,000 to the charity, whose mission is to enhance the quality of life for post 9/11 service members and their families.

The caramelized pecans from Novell are worth stopping for.

I found the outside wall of the InterSystems booth pretty eye-catching.

I was unable to get a good picture, but Suzanne in the Orion booth was sporting some pretty hot patent leather pumps.

I enjoyed chatting with Ken Harvey of TerraWi, which helps organization secure their mobile devices. Ken is a former professional football player who spent time with the Redskins and Cardinals and delivered a great elevator pitch on the company and its services.

I loved these fun ribbons that Liason Technologies was offering.

I think the ladies at Onyx are vying for the Hottest Booth Babe award.

I checked out PatientSafe Solutions, which has an all-in-one mobile platform that supports communication, med administration, care interventions, alerts and more. It uses either an iPhone 5 or iPod Touch and works with a hospital’s existing EHR.  I thought it was so slick that I made Dr. Jayne check it out as well. She, too, gave it a thumbs up.

This display at the Panasonic booth tells a great story in a simple way.

Both Allscripts and dbMotion were displaying signs saying they were pleased to have joined the Allscripts family.

I may need to make time for the Bantec booth today, which is offering chair massages.

In general there seem to be fewer gimmicks this year to draw in crowds. While there are a few magicians, I haven’t noticed any famous chefs whipping up fabulous appetizers or people dressed in ridiculous costumes. I definitely don’t miss that creepy knight from years past. That being said, there were a few roulette wheels and I won half a pound of chocolate playing Wheel of Fortune at the Pepid booth. Seth at Pepid did a good job asking my friend and me our backgrounds prior to delivering his succinct elevator pitch.

I saw several Regina Holliday jackets, including this one that Amy Gleason was wearing. I love the individualized messages.

I strolled through the very busy Epic booth, primarily to check out the art. It was heavy on animal themes this year.

The crowd at the CommonWell Health Alliance booth was deep with people trying to get a handle on what the new organization is all about.

Philips was hosting a crowd of folks, presumably all from the same country, who required an interpreter during the demonstration. It’s fascinating to walk through the exhibit hall and hear so many different languages.

Today’s agenda includes Bill Clinton (!), more exhibits (I don’t think I got past the 6000’s yesterday), the Interoperability Showcase, and possibly one other session. Off to seize the day!

E-mail Inga.

From HIMSS 3/5/13

From Strange Bedfellows: “Re: Allscripts acquisition of Jardogs. Healthland is now effectively partnered with Allscripts to provide its Stage 2 MU patient portal. Must be the era of friendlier inpatient HIS vendors.”

From GE Going Gone: “Re: GE. I am sure you have your hands full at HIMSS but I didn’t see this news reported in your roundup. GE sold its EMR business (GE Strategic Sourcing) to Gores Group. Gores Group is a private equity firm known for buying assets in need of turnaround at low prices; they specialize in corporate carveouts.” GE has sold its strategic sourcing operation, which sounds from the announcement like outsourced EMR and revenue cycle management services.

Here’s the Medicomp video of HIStalkapalooza. Everybody looks good. Not to be repetitive, but thanks to everyone involved, especially Dave Lareau and Medicomp for making it happen. I met Medicomp founder and MEDCIN engine inventor Peter Goltra the other day and I was like a teenager meeting Justin Bieber.

Thanks to Judy and Carl for dropping by HIStalkaplooza. Judy even graciously posed with her trophy (I’ll list all the awards when I get time). Also among the folks I saw there were Farzad Mostashari, former National Coordinator Rob Kolodner MD, someone I haven’t met but need to Regina Holliday, and many other industry luminaries and really nice people, especially those who either already knew me by sight or who I shyly introduced myself to during the event who made me feel less nervous.

A nice moment captured by @Sphere3CEO.

Our reigning HIStalk Queen Sarah Van Dyke outside her palace.

Here’s a video of the CommonWell announcement. Inga and I spent some time with Jonathan Bush on the show floor Monday afternoon and he said he was surprised that John Hammergren and Neal Patterson were pretty funny on the stage, at least for billionaires.

Congrats to Tim and Inga: Social analytics reveal @histalk as a favorite among hospital CIOs bit.ly/XUyjoO

— Rob Cronin (@robcroninNY) March 5, 2013

Thanks to Rob Cronin at WCG, which performed a study of social media activity. HIStalk was the most popular healthcare IT source among health system CIOs, trailing only The New York Times and NPR. Very cool – thanks for doing this and for letting me know the result.

I was talking to a guy in the hall today who was in a Hampton Inn about 20 minutes out of town because it’s all he could get. He said the cab line was two hours long at 8:30 a.m. He jogged over to the adjoining highway and flagged down a cab, only to be chased by several line-waiters angry that he got a cab before them even though the cab wasn’t going to stop at the hotel anyway. It’s getting real Lord of the Flies out there.

In another example of New Orleans workforce motivation, nobody had bothered to remove the “do not drink” signs from the water fountains in the restroom even though the boil water alert had been lifted 24 hours previously.

No thanks to Allscripts, an HIStalk sponsor who took out two others today with their acquisition of dbMotion and Jardogs. Just kidding – acquisitions are a natural step as companies progress, as I’ve seen first hand by watching the remarkable number of sponsors who have been acquired, very often by other sponsors. We don’t lost many sponsors and acquisitions are by far the #1 reason. We enjoy the result of their accomplishments and like to think we had a tiny, tiny part in them.

Speaking of Allscripts, a Florida judge denies the company’s request to force a class action lawsuit brought against it by unhappy MyWay customers to arbitration, a ruling that allows the lawsuit to continue. The law firm representing the Florida medical practice that claims a forced switch from MyWay to the Allscripts Pro EHR will cost it a lot of money and that the company’s promise of Meaningful Use and ICD-10 capabilities were broken.

Epic says that despite the claims made by the co-opetition members of the CommonWell Health Alliance, nobody asked Epic to join the group that’s made up of the publicly traded companies losing business to the privately held Epic. Epic President Carl Dvorak says the group is attempting to make its members look like leaders instead of the followers they are and for that reason, he doubts Epic will join.

Exhibit Hall

I’ll make a small confession: when we cruise the exhibit hall finding interesting things to write about, we like to check in with our sponsors, especially those who displaying the autographed HIStalk sign that we offer them for free (we really, truly appreciate that level of support – thank you). Sunquest is among those who put theirs front and center in Booth #911 (congratulations to whoever wisely snagged that easily remembered number). They’ve had some fine speakers in their booth, and if you’re interested in Meaningful Use for the lab, they’ll be presenting in Booth 149, Meaningful Use Kiosk 85, at 9:45 a.m. Wednesday.

I’m like those Notre Dame football players that have to touch the overhead wall as they head out the tunnel onto the field – I can’t leave a HIMSS conference without caressing the cool carts from Enovate. This one sports a peds theme, but it still has the smooth, supple curves that I can’t keep my hands off of.

QlikView has a cool booth with a giant eye floating above it. Thanks for putting out the HIStalk sign. I’ve received a few raves from users of that product. They’re a new sponsor that I’ll talk more about later.

Good looking booth, Infor, and thanks for putting out your HIStalk sign.

I got only an over-the-shoulder look at GetWellNetwork’s platform, but I liked what I saw.

Partners Consulting, a Caradigm partner, gave me a good demo of a product they’ve built on top of what’s now called Caradigm Intelligence Platform (formerly Amalga).

Our own CIO Unplugged Ed Marx played Medicomp’s Quipstar on the show floor to benefit his charity of choice. I wasn’t able to stay to see if he won, but he was looking good up there. I met Ed in person for the first time last night at HIStalkapalooza and he’s the real deal.

Thanks, HealthMEDX, for putting our sign front and center. We appreciate it.

Do you suppose it was coincidence that this vendor person just happened to stroll down the main aisle wearing next to nothing? Do you care?

One of my favorite people to visit during the HIMSS conference is Mark Johnston of forms management software vendor Access. Once we’re finished talking healthcare IT, we move to a more serious topic: barbeque. Mark’s a on a prize-winning barbeque team, and every year we try to devise ways to work around policies prohibiting him from cranking out brisket and ribs from the smoker at or near the convention center. We branched out in a different direction today, discussing the variants of jambalaya, which his team also makes on the circuit. Green is my favorite color and his team’s shirts are a nice shade of it.

My third-favorite product of the day was the MioCARE Android-powered, semi-ruggedized tablet with a built-in 2D barcode reader. Not only was it very cool (bright green, highly ergonomic) it can run a wide range of apps using SAP’s EMR Unwired middleware (which I admit I know nothing about). They told me it costs $879, but given that you can wipe it down and drop it, it’s probably worth the difference for patient care use.

My second-favorite product of the day was ReadyDock’s tablet sterilizing system (it also charges and syncs). You’ll notice a hand on the device because everybody within arm’s reach was caressing it like an adorable child, including at one point when I was trying to slyly take a photo, THREE sets of hands, one of them belonging to a prospect and the other two attached to the loving company people. This bad boy will disinfect an iPad in 60 seconds. ReadyDock just released the CleanMe app (right) that reminds users to clean their iPad, includes a training video on cleaning, and keeps stats on the process.  I think this is brilliant.

My favorite product of the day, although I admit I saw only a 15-minute overview and demo, was BluePrint HealthCare IT’s Microsoft CRM-based Care Navigator tool that provides full visibility by both caregivers and family. It keeps all caregivers up to date with alerts, like “just registered in ED.” Users can do a lot of the patient management right from Outlook. I’ll take a second opinion if someone with more expertise than me wants to evaluate it.

Winner of the Most Fun Booth People is SynaptiCore, which does EHR implementation and support work. I heard their people hooting an hollering down the aisle and they are a ton of fun. They have a slot machine, beads, and a great sense of humor.

• Microsoft people are usually jerks in the exhibit hall and today was no exception. I strode up in front of a couple of Windows 8 devices and patiently waited while one employee directly in front of me was texting madly. His adjacent co-worker looked up long enough to glare, then walked a few feet away and started texting himself. Vendors, I’m telling you to confiscate mobile devices because I swear at least 20 percent of reps in the hall were totally absorbed in their smartphones and ignoring passers-by. If your people are under 50, they can’t go more than 30 seconds without doing something pointless on your dime.
• Hitach had a coffee bar and charging station.
• One vendor gave me very cool booth swag, an Apple TV, but made me promise not to tell where I got it since it was supposed to be for elite customers. Very cool.
• Philips Enterprise Imaging had a big crowd.
• Streamline Health had our sign out – thanks.
• I stopped by one booth that had five employees on duty, one of them an SVP. I stood looking at monitors for three minutes hinting that I was interested and none of them came up for air from their intra-company conversation to pay me the slightest attention. A sign said “Ask for a demo,” so I guess they took that as literal. HIMSS has the most expensive employee lounges anywhere out there on the show floor.
• An imaging vendor had six employees in the booth and zero customers. Two were screwing around with their phones and the other four had set up shop at a table and were in deep conversation, oblivious to anyone who might intrude, like a prospect.
• 3M’s booth has the deepest carpet I’ve ever seen. It was like walking on a very soft beach.
• ICA – had our sign out. Thanks. I recommended them as being worth checking out to someone asking for potential HIE vendors, along with some other HIE sponsors.
• Liberty Solutions is giving away USB-powered bladeless fans. Cool (no pun intended).
• I asked someone at patient content vendor Healthwise to explain what they do, which he did quite nicely. They’re one of few non-profits on the floor and that’s reason enough to drop by and say hello (and an HIStalk sponsor at that).
• CareCloud looked good on the monitor, but nobody took the cue that I’d like a look so I moved on.
• Greenway had a big crowd looking at PrimeSUITE. They had a live avatar working the crowd that was kind of cool.
• I saw Bob Lorsch from MMRGlobal in RelayHealth’s booth talking to one of their employees. Not sure what that was about.
• Hannah from Halfpenny drew me in and gave a perfect answer to the “what do you do” question. They had our sign out, too.
• Healthspot had an interesting looking consumer virtual visit portal, but I couldn’t get their attention.
• Joshua from Ping Identity gave a nice overview of cloud-based security when I asked.
• Infor had an interesting coffee machine and popcorn.
• Meditech’s booth was well off the beaten track and nothing much was going on there.
• Siemens had a blinding white booth and a big coffee bar.
• Innovative Healthcare Solutions had our sign out and I chatted with Pat Stewart a bit.
• API Healthcare gave an overview of Healthcare Workforce Information Exchange, which allows facilities to collect information about each employee on a single screen. It looked cool and customers are apparently saving money with it.
• VersaSuite had our sign out and gave a good elevator pitch on their full, Microsoft-based hospital information system for smaller facilities. The guy said they’re doing well and picking up business from hospitals that regret their first EMR decision.
• Virtelligence had a long list of available Epic expertise they offer.
• Liaison Healthcare Informatics gave me an overview of their cloud-based data transformation and exchange tools.
• Versus did a demo of their RFID-powered handwashing station that monitors compliance and allows following up with low-performing units or individuals.
• Epic’s sign on the opposite side of the booth I saw yesterday says they have 80 million patients “covered on the Care Everywhere network” and that a third of the 3.4 million monthly exchange transactions it manages are with non-Epic systems. (in other words, they are already exchanging data outside Epic even though competitors claim otherwise).
• Imprivata’s HIPAA compliant messaging tool  Cortext looked cool, but I couldn’t get anyone’s attention to show it to me.
• Lifepoint Informatics had our sign out, gave a great elevator pitch, and handed me a $5 Starbucks gift card, which I may confer on someone else since I don’t drink coffee.
• CHADIS, a questionnaire app that I’m too tired to look up at the moment but its something to do with special needs peds, was well presented by its MD founder in the booth.
• MModal’s booth was super busy. They had our sign out.
• SIS had our sign out as well, although I couldn’t steer the rep into showing me anything. He seemed puzzled why a non-surgery hospital employee should care, a point that is valid but that also kept them from letting me tell you about their product.
• Vocera had a lot of people visiting.
• I get the Aprima red vests now – there’s a poker table on the side of the booth I didn’t see.
• e-MDs had our sign out – thanks.

Announcements

• Iowa Health System chooses Security Audit Manager from Iatric Systems.
• Epic and other EHR vendors will use Nuance’s Clinical Language Understanding.
• TeraRecon is demoing its iNtuition enterprise image management solution to support enterprise-wide vendor-neutral viewing of medical images at HIMSS this week. The company also announced that it will provide its expertise to Fujifilm.
• Adventist Health will turn over its revenue management services to Cerner.
• PatientPoint and Miami Children’s Hospital are named winners of the Microsoft Health Users Group 2013 Innovation Awards.
• Orion Health announces Version 2.0 of its Direct Messaging product suite, also announcing mobile apps for remotely managing its Rhapsody integration engine.
• DrFirst announces that e-prescribing of controlled substances rose over 400 percent in 2012.

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk Practice, HIStalk Connect.

Allscripts Acquires dbMotion, Jardogs

Allscripts announced this morning that it has acquired HIE technology vendor dbMotion and patient engagement solutions vendor Jardogs to extend its reach across the healthcare continuum. Details were not announced, although a financial publication from dbMotion’s home base of Israel placed that transaction’s value at $235 million.

We ran a reader’s rumor report of the Jardogs transaction on HIStalk last week.

From HIMSS 3/4/13–Dr. Jayne’s Update

HIMSS Update

Day 2 at HIMSS and there has been a lot going on. I was able to enjoy the still-sleeping city on my early morning jog although there were still some folks out from the night before, which is a little sad. There’s something about New Orleans that creates an “IT Staffers Gone Wild” atmosphere even above and beyond that created by Las Vegas. Maybe it’s the free-flowing liquor or maybe it’s the Bourbon Street establishments offering a variety of services that you probably can’t buy in other cities. I did find a potential breakfast venue for Inga, however.

While Mr. H and Inga covered the ONC Town Hall, I decided to brave the exhibit hall when it opened. I was able to enjoy this jazz combo while I waited, although they took a break right when I decided to take a photo. Note that the trumpet player is using the bottom of a plunger as a mute. The security team was quite vigilant about making sure no one other than exhibitors was admitted until right at 1 p.m. As I watched the last-minute race of vendors trying to make it to their booths on time, I was glad they at least had to weave through the throngs of attendees as punishment. Punctuality is apparently dead as there were scores of reps coming in at the last minute.

Logistics are still an issue. I was surprised by the full trash cans even with the hall just opening. Some areas had stacks of packing boxes out in the main aisle. The water was still suspect this morning, but I had grabbed some extra bottles from my hotel rather than wait in long lines for expensive water at the convention center. I’m always sensitive to the amount of trash that a meeting like this produces and am disappointed that there are no recycling bins in the exhibit hall, at least not that I could find. I did see clearly marked bins upstairs, however.

The hall was packed and I spent a couple of hours getting the lay of the land and plotting my strategy for the rest of the week. I liked the pediatric-designed computer carts at Enovate and the booth staff was not only engaging but well informed. There were big crowds at the Cerner booth and also at Healthagen (although I learned that most of the people at the latter were employees who were joking about having to do introductions to each other to fill their time). There were a couple of magicians, but no contortionists or splash painters like we’ve seen in the past. The overall tone is pretty calm and I only saw a handful of booths handing out Mardi Gras beads, which I would have thought would be everywhere given the venue.

I was excited by what Tellenium has to offer (management of telecom services for large organizations) but disappointed that they launched right into their pitch without finding out who I was or why I was stopping by. They did have a claw grabber machine where you could try to win prizes, but I was unable to score the pink t-shirt that called to me.

One highlight of the afternoon was competing in Medicomp’s Quipstar game show, although I finished last due to a tricky “double or nothing” question where I buzzed in too early. As a result, I now have the ICD-10 code for trauma sustained while parachuting burned into my brain. Too bad I don’t see much of that in the emergency department.

The other significant highlight of the afternoon was a lovely gift from sponsor PatientPay. They’re clearly reading (and not just skimming) because they delivered the beautiful chocolate shoe I was wishing for on Valentine’s Day. The picture does not do it justice and I’m pretty sure I clapped my hands with glee and squealed like a little girl when I opened it. It is magnificent and I do really appreciate the gift. Thank you!

Monday night of course was HIStalkapalooza, and thanks again to Medicomp for sponsoring. I was pleased with the number of attendees who jumped on the bowling shirt bandwagon. Full credit goes to the team from ESD who not only had matching Converse All Star shoes and bowling shirts but also the shoes had the ESD logo created in crystals on the toes. I didn’t get a pic but I think Inga did so, hopefully she’ll post. My favorite attendee outfit was the pink poodle skirt with saddle shoes. I especially enjoyed the details, including the poodle on your sock.

My heart went pitter patter when my bowtie-wearing crush appeared in person to collect his HISsies award. He’s sporting the “Blue Button: Sequester Edition” lapel pin.

Speaking of HISsies, Jonathan Bush did his usual hilarious job of presenting the awards and stripped off his athenahealth bowling shirt to reveal something truly psychedelic. I felt sorry for the youngsters who stood right in front of our anonymous selves during the shoe contest and announced that they were leaving to attend the Impact Advisors party. They missed the whole thing. They also missed the appearance of Judy Faulkner and Carl Dvorak – Judy looked amazing and was very gracious to an admirer trying to take her picture.

After the awards, the bowling tournament switched into high gear as did the Zydeco band. I knew, however, when the hula hoops appeared on the dance floor that it was time for me to go so I could rest up for the long day tomorrow. A note at the hotel revealed the boil order is no more, for which I’m grateful.

From HIMSS 3/5/13 –Inga’s Update

Tuesday morning came particularly early today after a long night of HIStalkapalooza fun. The Medicomp crew did an outstanding job, as did our emcees Lindsay Miller from RelayHealth, James Aita and Dave Lareau from Medicomp, and Jennifer Lyle from Software Testing Solutions. Thanks also to our shoe and fashion judges Timur Tugberk (DrFirst), Matt Holt (Health 2.0), and Jennifer Dennard (Billians). The attire was a fun mix of bowling chic, serious chic, and a few vendor-logoed t-shirts. And plenty of fun shoes!

I tried the Typhoon Jayne and Hurricane Inga, but quickly decided both would be a bad choice for a long evening. The food was yummy, especially the jambalaya. I haven’t heard who won the bowling tournament but everyone seemed to having fun. The Medicomp team will need to advise us on the final number of attendees but I am sure it was north of 700. And, the music was definitely hopping. I didn’t take too many pictures but I have seen a few on Twitter (#histalkaplooza if you want to check them out). I will find a few good ones to share.

Jonathan Bush and Farzard Mostashari had what appeared to be a serious discussion.

I have noticed several Regina Holliday jackets, both at HIStalkapalooza and at the convention center. She was in attendance and had many admirers saying hello.

The ESD folks collectively won best bowling shoes, which included a sparkly version of their logo on the toes.

More than a few fabulous shoes were removed from tired feet late into the evening.

I went to the ONC Town Hall Monday afternoon, which was just OK. I was hoping for breaking news, but it was more of an introduction to some of the ONC leadership team. I spent the afternoon walking the exhibit hall before watching my BFF do a fabulous job playing Quipstar at the Medicomp booth.

Thanks QlikView for having your HIStalk sign out. Many other sponsors found a spot for a sign as well, which we appreciate. Be sure to tell these folks thanks for supporting HIStalk.

I noticed several overflowing trashcans, leading me to believe the convention center may have a shortage of workers.

Hot shoes outside the athenahealth booth.

Another hot look, though I can’t imagine how her whole body felt by the end of the day.

Really? Hmm.

I did more cruising than I actually taking time for demos, though I did see a quick run-through of CareCloud’s newest EHR version.

I got a pedometer from the Optum booth. I only had about 2,500 steps by the time I left the exhibit floor, but I only wore it a couple of hours. Optum is donating money to charity for every step logged.

Generally most booths seemed quite busy throughout the afternoon. I didn’t pick up too much swag, but the OnBase chocolate was super yummy. HealthPort was giving out beignets but told me they could not give me one since I am not a provider. Did I mention it was a beignet and not an iPad???

Attendees had multiple transportation options after a long day.

I’m out the door to hit the opening session, then will spend some time digger deeper at the exhibit hall. Dr. Jayne has us all lined up for parties tonight, but I may need extra caffeine to survive.

E-mail Inga.

From HIMSS 3/4/13

There’s no way I can catch up on the whole day since I’m starting at nearly 11 p.m. post-HIStalkapalooza time and the hotel Internet isn’t exactly screaming, so I will follow up later. Thanks to Medicomp Systems and their crew for putting together a great event; to our hosts, judges, contestants, and other participants; to Ross and Kym Martin for a great musical opening; for Jonathan Bush for another memorable HISsies presentation; and to everyone who came out to Rock ‘n’ Bowl. Lots of people were involved in arranging transportation, running the registration and coat check areas, setting up for the band, and working together to make sure everyone had the best time possible. We had some interesting attire, amazing shoes, and some truly lovely ladies and gentlemen both on the stage and off.

Welcome to new HIStalk Gold sponsor Strata Decision Technology. The company offers cloud-based financial analytics, business intelligence, and decision support, having integrated with EHRs (Cerner, Epic) and ERP (Lawson) systems. They do the integration and hosting, meaning the only IT time required is a couple of hours to coordinate. Customers get a single database and an integrated platform for operational budgeting, capital planning, financial forecasting, strategic planning, service line planning, cost accounting, contract analytics, and performance management. Provider organizations need to understand and manage true cost of care and margins that span episodes of care, service likes, and patient populations and Strata’s tools provide that capability. They’re not a recent addition to the analytics/BI landscape – they’ve been around 15 years. Customers include Cleveland Clinic, Hopkins, Yale, Allina, Duke, Legacy, Spectrum, and Intermountain. and they announced Mission Health (NC) as a new customer today from HIMSS. Thanks to Strata Decision Technology for supporting HIStalk.

I didn’t turn up any Strata videos on YouTube, but here’s one of CEO Dan Michelson (formerly of Allscripts) talking about a non-profit he started that hosts an annual benefit concert to send children who have been abused and neglected to overnight camp. The organization just received the “Innovation in Philanthropy Award” from the Make it Better Foundation.

Opening Session

There didn’t seem to be as much of the self-congratulatory HIMSS hoopla this time and I kind of missed that, to be honest. No looping slides listing committee members, fellows, etc. The brought in a high school marching band that seemed pretty good, but the airplane hangar acoustics make it hard to say for sure since all I heard were drums.

In an ironic moment, the teleprompter died while Willa Fields was speaking, forcing her to go back to paper.

The mayor gave a good speech. I don’t know what he’s like as mayor and he didn’t mention the fact that we were still under a boil water advisory (lifted soon after), but he was an engaging speaker and city cheerleader. He represented well. He mentioned that the city is investing $3 billion in a health complex for the VA, university hospitals, and some other players that I didn’t write down. It seemed confusing to be talking about spending all that money in the attempt to create healthcare jobs, but at the same time to be urging that we bend the cost curve (unless he meant up instead of down). Healthcare may create jobs, but it’s a drain on the economy, not a sustainable economic engine, and I found his message confusing. Healthcare can be maddening in that way as an odd mix of community pride, employment, comfort, and yet a crippling cost that someone has to pay.

The CEO of Ochsner was up next. He was pretty good, saying that only insurance companies have all the patient data from all locations, meaning we don’t really know our patients as well as they do. He pitched the idea that vendors need to not only cut their costs, but be on the hook to get paid only when their systems improve productivity. I think I would have put Bill Clinton in the opening keynote slot, but there’s a big HIMSS announcement coming Tuesday about their partnership with his foundation so they have him on Wednesday’s agenda.

Educational Sessions

Maybe it’s just me, but the educational component of the conference seems to be getting less and less interesting. I automatically don’t go to sessions that involve a vendor presenter, only because that always seems too much like a living white paper. Some sessions didn’t appeal to me, and one I attended didn’t appear to have any rigor at all behind it.  I’ve served on the Annual Conference Education Committee in years past and I have to assume that they just don’t get that many submissions, leaving them no choice but to accept some iffy ones. It doesn’t help that they’ll be soliciting presentations in just a few days for next year’s conference, with the ridiculous year-long lead time. No wonder there’s nothing innovative being discussed – everything is at least a year old by definition.

I went to a VA-DoD session on iEHR, but it was more of an overview than anything newsworthy. Theresa Cullen, MD, MS of the VA was an engaging and personable speaker and I found her really likeable. She talked about the VA’s informatics programs, their role as the government’s living lab, and mentioned some of their research work, including in human factors. She described the Janus legacy viewer that will straddle the VA and DoD systems, which sounds almost like an HIE. They are still working through identity management problems.

The ONC Town Hall was fun because the ONC folks introduced themselves and their backgrounds and showed a more human side than you might typically picture.

There were a lot of bow ties being worked everywhere. It’s Farzad’s brand and it’s catching on.

Exhibits

Liaison Technologies was distributing fun add-on badge ribbons, as demonstrated by a reader’s photo.

An de-identified Dr. Jayne playing Quipstar in the Medicomp booth with her security detail. She didn’t win, but she was sassy and fun and she answered some tough questions. Everybody loves Dr. Jayne. Medicomp donated money to the charities designated by the players.

Here’s the Kaiser Permanente press release announcing the HISsies win of George Halvorson for the HIStalk Healthcare IT Lifetime Achievement award and Kaiser’s repeat win as best provider user. George’s son Seth and daughter-in-law accepted the award at HIStalkapalooza on his behalf. It’s nice recognition of both George and KP.

The big news of the day and maybe the whole conference was the formation of the Commonwell Health Alliance trade association by EHR rivals Allscripts, athenahealth, Cerner, Greenway, and McKesson (and its RelayHealth unit). They say they’ll promote data exchange among their systems and invite other vendors to join them. Notably missing from the list is Epic, whose commercial success surely had a role in bringing together its competitors.

Valence Health had a cool exhibit featuring a full-size school bus along with miniatures to give away. They had our booth sign out – thanks!

A very cool stuffed dragon giveaway by Workbeast. I got one, although I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to do with it.

The Aprima folks were sporting red vests. That’s our booth sign on the tabletop in green, signed by Inga, Dr. Jayne, and me.

Ladies from HITEKS giving out Mardi Gras beads. They were nice to pose for a picture.

Plantronics was giving out (and wearing) fun hats.

Booth observations:

• Teletracking had our HIStalk sign out and gave me a bendy stress reliever thing.
• Awarepoint was giving out cool water bottles. They had our sign out too, along with a decent crowd.
• Ascendian was mixing real margaritas (or so they said, anyway) but you had to get a coupon from a rep.
• iMDsoft had cookies and coffee. They gave me a demo of their anesthesia management system on an iPad and it was impressive. Best demo I’ve seen so far this week.
• Health Catalyst had a brilliant idea in giving reps iPad Minis preloaded with slides explaining the company. That allowed them to do a personal overview from anywhere one on one. That was quite effective.
• HyTrust had cookies.
• CPSI’s magician was wickedly funny, giving some competition to his always excellent Hyland OnBase counterpart outside their sports bar exhibit.
• Merge Healthcare had fresh fruit out, so I had an apple. That was a nice touch.
• Vitera had our sign out – thanks. Friendly folks there.
• MediQuant also had a good magician.
• Ingenious Med gave me a good, quick overview of their charge capture system.
• Greythorn had our sign out.
• Cerner had a big crowd.
• Beacon Partners had our sign out and the folks were deep in discussions with several groups.
• McKesson employees had their “Commonwell – we’re in” right after the announcement.
• First Databank had fancy coffee with flavorings. I don’t drink coffee, but it looked good.
• QuadraMed’s booth was set up nicely, with a living room setup on one side.
• A sign on Epic’s booth indicated that 66 percent of Stage 7 hospitals are on Epic, along with 100 percent of Stage 6 clinics. Judy was working the booth as usual.
• Passport Health did a nice job engaging me as I passed by and I noticed they had our sign out.
• The Allscripts boot was large and right across from Epic’s. Nice job. I like the green.
• MMRGlobal had a reasonable sized booth in a good location. I saw Bob Lorsch there.
• Healthagen had a two-story booth, one of not too many of those.
• Novell had someone making a variety of those hot cinnamon nuts you see at ball games. If your booth is near theirs, you no doubt got tired of the smell.
• SSI Group had their ladies dressed “Simply Irresistible” style, with pulled-back hair and bright red lipstick.
• Sandlot Solutions had our sign out and was using a projector to shine images on a large piece of clear glass. It’s hard to explain, but it was interesting.
• Rich Garcia from NextGate gave me a nice pitch when I feigned ignorance of their EMPI product. He played it perfectly based on my expressed interest.
• Alert and their folks in red striped white pants were there again, which always surprises me since I assume their EHR isn’t doing much here despite its European presence.
• Certify Data Systems had our sign out and was offering to donate $10 to the YMCA of New Orleans to each person who signed  runner’s bib.
• Orchestrate Healthcare had our sign out. Lots of people were meeting in their booth.
• Quest/Care360 was offering pretzels with cheese sauce. They had our sign out.
• Wellsoft had our sign out – thanks.

Announcements

• API Healthcare announces The Healthcare Workforce Information Exchange, which allows health systems with multiple venues to share employee information across facilities.
• Texas Children’s Hospital announces a 15 percent reduction in unnecessary x-rays for pediatric asthma patients following implementation of Health Catalyst.
• Dell, Red Hat, Intel, and VMware announce the opening of the Wisconsin-based testing center for hospitals running Epic on Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Epic and McKesson settle their patent litigation over MyChart, with McKesson granting Epic a license for its technology.
• Allscripts announces the winners of its Open App Challenge.

Dr. Gregg’s bowling shirt.

Farzad accepting his “When ___ Talks, People Listen” HISsies award.

Medicomp CEO Dave Lareau and Software Testing Solutions CEO Jennifer Lyle interview Bonny Roberts of Aventura on the red carpet.

Bonny with her “Mr. H’s Secret Crush” sash.

James Harris sent this pic of the Orion bowling team: David Leach, Tanya Niemeyer, and Paul deBazio.

A James Harris shot of Tom Visotsky, winner of Inga’s Secret Crush.

Food. I liked the jambalaya and etoufee.

That’s it for now since I’m tired and it’s late.

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk Practice, HIStalk Connect.

From HIMSS 3/4/13 — Inga’s Update (and Dr. Jayne’s)

It was a rough start this Monday morning after a busy night of HIMSS social events with my BFF Dr. Jayne. Because of the water issue, the hotel had to brew coffee the old fashion way, which was not nearly fast enough for the caffeine-dependent masses. As I waited 15 minutes for the staff to bring more coffee, I watched person after person attempt to get a drop of caffeine out of the empty urns.

Dr. Jayne and I started our Sunday evening at the opening reception. The band was fun and the guitar player earned bonus points for his red shoes.

His nametag said “Old Buffalo,” hence the horns. I couldn’t hear the full explanation for his nickname, but I am sure he is fun to party with. Old Buffalo works for McKesson.

Mr. H liked the under-couch lighting and glowing side tables.  Who knew he was such a party guy?

Of course I was on the look out for hot shoes, including these sporty loafers.

Dr. Jayne and I moved from the reception to athenahealth’s soiree and spent a few moments chatting with the dapper Jonathan Bush.

Not surprisingly, Jonathan got happier as the night progressed.

Definitely one of my favorite looks for the evening.

Our next stop was the CommVault party, where Dr. Jayne and I hung out on the balcony. Our biggest disappointment was the lack of beads to throw to the folks on Bourbon Street.

On the way to the Divurgent event Dr. Jayne and I did a little window shopping. These were a few of tamer PG-13 items.

I am out the door early for a big day at the convention center and a bigger night at HIStalkapalooza. Can’t wait.

HIMSS Update from Dr. Jayne

I’m not as fast as Mr. H and Inga in getting my HIMSS write ups done, so this is my catch-up from Sunday’s events. It’s Day Two of the water supply problem and subsequent boil order and one of my staff back home decided to send me an article about how bathing is not recommended in New Orleans. Having just been out for a run, this was not welcome news, but some quick Googling revealed that it’s not recommended for infants to bathe in water that hasn’t been sterilized first.

My trip in was uneventful except for the plane being at least two-thirds full with HIMSS attendees. Those of us in the coveted exit row seats decided we should just exchange cards and hear the various pitches on the plane and make our work more efficient – kind of like speed dating for vendors. Alas it was not to be, but I did make a new friend who hopefully can help me with some analytics initiatives.

Last night’s opening reception was nicely done, with minimal lines at the bars and reasonably good food. My only complaint was the dimness of the room, which although great for cozying up to your colleagues, it made it hard to read name tags. At least that’s the excuse I’m using for randomly accosting a poor unsuspecting physician who I thought was a friend of mine. After he recovered from the unexpected hug and I figured out he was not the CMIO I was looking for, we had a nice chat and exchanged cards. I appreciated his good humor about the whole thing.

Our next social event was an athenahealth reception at the House of Blues, where we were treated to a jazz funeral procession (complete with mourners and a mock coffin) and bid farewell to Software. The food was good, although I was a little puzzled by the sliders that had pickles and cucumbers rather than pickles and catsup. Fried okra balls were definitely the highlight.

After that we joined our friends from CommVault at Bourbon Vieux and enjoyed the balcony over Bourbon Street. It was still early in the evening so the debauchery wasn’t quite to the level I’ve seen it on previous trips. The party was low key and the band was good, with their breaks allowing a bit of quiet to talk to other attendees. I added a couple of stops to my “must see” booth list based on the networking, so hopefully I can knock out some equipment purchase decisions tomorrow.

Our last stop was the SummHIT mingle sponsored by DIVURGENT, which was held at The Swamp, which happened to be directly across the street from Bourbon Vieux. The lower level of The Swamp has a mechanical bull-type “Thing” that could be ridden although I didn’t see any takers. Inga and I did get some beads, however, and didn’t even have to work for them. Although we were feeling the Mardi Gras vibe by this point, we knew we needed to get our beauty rest for the long day ahead so headed back to our hotels.

I’m off to the exhibit hall (and to compete in Quipstar at the Medicomp Systems booth) then of course to HIStalkapalooza. See you there!

From HIMSS 3/3/13

The day started out very cold and windy, but it turned reasonably nice Sunday afternoon and will be much warmer on Monday. Thank goodness – many attendees (me being one) didn’t bring the heavy coats that were needed, both outside and in the exhibit hall today (I slipped by a security guard to roam around).

I’m beginning to be annoyed by the hotel that HIMSS foisted on me after they cancelled my reservation for the hotel I actually wanted. I nearly froze last night, and today I made sure the thermostat was set to heat and 70 degrees when I left for the convention center. Right now, it’s 56 degrees in the room and the air that’s blowing is cold. The hotel has no restaurant and needs maintenance – I’ve never until now seen a toilet whose bowl is actually peeling apart below the water line, and there’s rust on almost everything in the bathroom. For about the same money, I could have had a very nice hotel within a couple of blocks of the convention center with an actual restaurant, bar, and lobby.  I didn’t even get the swag bag that Inga mentioned in her post. I feel like a stepchild.

We’re on a boil water advisory in New Orleans supposedly until at least Monday morning, so the nice hotels dropped off bottles of water in each room, while mine left a note on the bed to traipse down to the front desk if I needed bottled water. Given that the note says you’re not supposed to even brush your teeth with water from the tap, exactly who isn’t going to need a bottle? Since that’s the case, why make every guest visit the front desk?

 
The water problem forced Starbucks to stop selling coffee early Sunday morning. It’s going to be an ugly scene if they don’t figure out a caffeine junkie workaround for Monday morning.

I guess you can’t blame HIMSS for the boil water advisory, but the same problem occurred here a few months ago due to the city’s crumbling infrastructure, which includes 100-year-old water processing plants and old pipes. As much as I like the restaurants and the local character, there’s no doubt in my mind that New Orleans is not capable of handling a major convention in a professional manner. The airport is small and outdated, there aren’t enough cabs to get people the long way to downtown, and I’m hearing that hotels are oversold and people are being assigned rooms out in the sticks. It feels like a backward country where nobody really cares about the small details. The only positive I can muster is that the convention center is OK and the restaurants are good.

I’ll assume this was the work of a prankster and not an inattentive convention center worker. Maybe the one sitting behind me near the food court, who was reminding everyone within earshot about the awful conditions and deaths that occurred inside the very same convention center during Katrina.

The HIMSS printed materials seem less well organized this year. I’ve overheard people who, like me, can’t find sessions they know are taking place. There is no mobile app – it’s all printed.

I haven’t heard much in the way of news and rumors so far. Most of what I’ve seen posted elsewhere appeared here last week. Monday should be the big day of announcements, including the much-awaited Cerner-McKesson interoperability one at 11 a.m. Central time. I’m not including the webcast link or physical location since the invitation was only for the press.

Inga, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Gregg, and I had what Inga called our HIStalk board meeting this afternoon (meaning we had a drink at a bar). We headed over to the opening reception, which was OK as opening receptions go (a huge bare room, decent food, and some local options like Abita amber beer and jambalaya). The band was OK. We saw some folks we know either individually or collectively before I headed off to dinner with a friend at Red Fish Grill, which was as good as when I ate there at the previous New Orleans conference.

I feel like Jim Cantore on the Weather Channel, describing how conditions are changing as a storm moves close, the storm in this case being the rumored 35,000 people who are attending the conference. Monday morning will be the usual madhouse, with the added complication of being unable to use tap water. We’ll have more detailed reports and a quick HIStalkapalooza recap if I have the energy to stay up late to write it. We can’t see or know it all, so your contributions are welcome.

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk Practice, HIStalk Connect.

From HIMSS 3/3/13 – Inga’s Update

Greetings from chilly New Orleans! Okay, “chilly” is relative, but I was expecting a little bit warmer weather, as were many others who shelled out $30 or more for a Bourbon Street-logoed sweatshirt. Fortunately there is lots of sunshine, so walking outside during the day was not too bad.

I arrived Saturday afternoon and spent 30 minutes waiting for a cab. The line moved rather fast, but it was still quite a wait. After quickly settling in at my hotel (which is fine) I headed to Bourbon Street for a yummy dinner with friends. I wisely opted to be in bed by 10:30 rather than hit all the fun bars.

Sunday was mostly pre-sessions that cost additional fees, but I was able to poke my head into a couple. Nothing too exciting to report and I learned more talking to other attendees. A number of people mentioned they were looking at tools for mobile devices (such as how to keep them secure and applications that can improve communication.) Others mentioned the need for storage and for analytics tools now that they have more data than ever before.

I also went into the exhibit hall, which was chaos. Amazing to think of the transformation that will happen in just 24 hours. The loading dock doors were all open, making the hall breezy and quite chilly, so I was feeling sorry for the under-dressed vendors.

When I returned to my hotel room, I found a swag bag of goodies. I already ate all the gummy bears from Covisint and played a few notes on the harmonica from MediQuant. The bag mostly contained information on various vendors and giveaways, including:

• Certify (booth 717) is donating $10 to the Greater New Orleans YMCA for every “number bib” attendees bring to their booth.
• Iatric’s slap band will get you discounts at a number of New Orleans restaurants, bars, and clothing stores. If you wear the band to their booth (6613) you can enter a drawing for a Bose Headset.
• You can register to win a iPod Nano a the MediQuant booth (5649)
• Covisint (7628) is giving away a 3D TV.
• Nuance (4025)offers a “special gift” if you sit in on a demo.
• HealthPort (6841) is offering beignets and coffee Monday from 1:00-4:00, Tuesday 3:00-6:00, and Wednesday 10:00-1:00.
• Fulcrum Methods (477) is offering an iPad mini or a wireless Logitech keyboard and mouse if you have a winning code from the marketing card in swag bag (providers only)
• Alego Health (141) is giving away an iPad Mini.
• Carestream (2727) is offering fresh-baked cookies.
• Versus (3463) is  having a reception Monday and Tuesday from 4:00-5:00.
• InterSystems (2817) included a 4GB USB key (thanks!) and is giving away a book by Eric J. Topol, MD.
• Health Catalyst (7721) is giving away one iPad a day.
• If you take the Mardi Gras coin from InteliChart to their booth (4159) you can be entered to participate in their giveaways which include a Visa card and an iPad a day.

Off to meet Mr. H, Dr. Jayne, and Dr. Gregg for our annual HIStalk board meeting. Have fun everyone!

E-mail Inga.

From HIMSS 3/2/13

From AlohaSally: “Re: acquisition. Word on the Street is that Epic consulting company [company name omitted] just sold for $40M. Not shocking as I’ve heard stories owners were focused on building to cash in. Will they maintain culture under new identity?” We asked the company, which said they would provide a response but haven’t so far. The wording of their reply and the timing of the rumor give me the feeling that something is indeed afoot. A transaction in that price range would probably warrant a Monday morning announcement, especially assuming that companies with $40 million to spend know how to publicize themselves. As to your question, I don’t know if I’ve seen an example yet where an acquired company’s culture isn’t replaced almost immediately with that of the acquirer, sending some of the consultants and sometimes the clients themselves fleeing depending on the degree of change. It’s like a software vendor forcing clients to migrate from a retired product to another company offering – it may be perfectly fine, but it’s not what you signed up for.

Perhaps I should title this “From New Orleans” since the conference hasn’t started yet as I write this Saturday. In any case, I arrived with no problems. The airports were teeming with spring breakers headed to Mexico and other warm climes. The New Orleans airport, which seemed to me to be small and old, was already overwhelmed even though most of the ingress will be Sunday. Taxi lines were running 30-45 minutes, so who knows how bad it will get Sunday since the number of cabs is finite. 

The cab fare to downtown is a fixed $33 for 1-2 passengers, and don’t even be tempted to save a few dollars by taking the shared shuttle, which earns nearly universally negative reviews. Single travelers, which I would guess make up the majority, would be better off to self-organize the line into groups of two or three folks going to the same or close-by hotels, thus not only saving time and money, but freeing up a cab for someone else. Thank goodness a new law (which the taxi companies threatened to strike over) requires cabs to accept credit cards, which any city hoping to lure visitors should do.  

My impressions of the ride from the airport to my hotel, courtesy of the billboards lining the rather unattractive route: people come to New Orleans to eat, buy hot sauce, and visit strip clubs.

I mentioned that HIMSS dumped me off to a hotel I didn’t reserve when mine became oversold even though I made my reservation in September (how did that happen?) Note the fine craftsmanship on the bathroom door that $200 a night gets you (yes, that’s a half-inch of nothingness between the knob and the closest available wood). The “we care about the environment, so don’t make us wash your towels” sign is adjacent to a faucet that leaks in a constant stream and the full-length mirror threatens to fall off the door since two of its six holders have broken off. At least the Internet speed is good (until everybody else checks in Sunday), the bed and TV are huge, and the location is excellent.

Weather wise, it’s around 50 and mostly cloudy (downright gloomy at the moment) with a freeze warning in effect for tonight, with similar weather predicted for Sunday before a big warm-up Monday. It’s slightly springy with green grass and early leaves.

I’m patting myself on the back for my wise decision after suffering through too many HIMSS conferences trying to write voluminous HIStalk posts using the Chiclet-style keyboard of my intentionally small laptop. This time I prepared by buying a USB-powered trackball and full-size keyboard, having realized that the screen size isn’t the main challenge, it’s the input devices, and they take up almost no luggage room. 

Sunday is open for me since I didn’t sign up for any of the paid workshops, so I’ll just stroll around a bit, drop by the convention center to pick up by badge, and stop by the opening reception. It’s not only cheaper to fly in on Saturday, it makes Sunday a relaxing day.

I see on Twitter that bunches of HIMSS attendees are limbering up their fingers preparing to unleash a non-stop barrage of tweets about everything they see and hear all week. The online noise will be deafening, so I would guess that nobody’s going to read most of what’s being indiscriminately spewed.

Inga, Dr. Jayne, and I will be posting all week. Send us anything we should include – photos, rumors heard, and insightful observations. We never seem to get enough HIStalkapalooza pictures to satisfy everyone, so snap some shots there Monday evening. Help us figure out the prevalent themes of the conference since attendees often miss the forest for the trees (and the social distractions.) News and rumors will abound and we like hearing reader reactions.

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk Practice, HIStalk Connect.

Monday Morning Update 3/4/13

From HyWay: “Re: Costco. They sent an e-mail to customers who purchased Allscripts MyWay through Costco’s program saying they are working with Allscripts to ‘offer solutions for members who do not feel the move to Pro is right for them.’ In the mean time, Costco has initiated arbitration proceedings against Allscripts to make sure its users get the service they expected when they bought MyWay.” Unverified, but the forwarded e-mail appears to be authentic. Its tone was amicable.

From The PACS Designer: “re: iWatch. While we wait for the anticipated Apple iTV later this year, there’s something else to look forward to and that’s an Apple iWatch. TPD posted about the Pebble watch, and speculation is that the so called iWatch will be much more innovative and unique in its style and features. Apple has a patent requesting pending on a Amoled flexible wristband device to consider as the possible final product launch, or it could still be a traditional watch similar to the Pebble.”

I’m actually writing this Friday night since I’ll be traveling to New Orleans on Saturday, so don’t be confused when I also post on Saturday and/or Sunday and the days look goofy. Inga, Dr. Jayne, and I will be writing profusely from the HIMSS conference, and to avoid giving you inbox fatigue, I’ll collect the individual links into a single e-mail blast each day.

People of Groupon, after four and a half intense and wonderful years as CEO of Groupon, I’ve decided that I’d like to spend more time with my family. Just kidding – I was fired today. If you’re wondering why… you haven’t been paying attention … As CEO, I am accountable. You are doing amazing things at Groupon, and you deserve the outside world to give you a second chance. I’m getting in the way of that. A fresh CEO earns you that chance … For those who are concerned about me, please don’t be – I love Groupon, and I’m terribly proud of what we’ve created. I’m OK with having failed at this part of the journey … If there’s one piece of wisdom that this simple pilgrim would like to impart upon you: have the courage to start with the customer. My biggest regrets are the moments that I let a lack of data override my intuition on what’s best for our customers. This leadership change gives you some breathing room to break bad habits and deliver sustainable customer happiness – don’t waste the opportunity! I will miss you terribly. Love, Andrew.

Secure Threads introduces bring-your-own hospital gowns intended to prevent medical errors by having the patient’s name, blood type, allergies, age, medical conditions, and emergency contacts embroidered into the fabric.

Safe travels and an enjoyable and productive week for all those traveling to New Orleans. For those who aren’t attending, feel free to goof off all week while your boss is away.

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk Practice, HIStalk Connect.

Making The Transition: What the iEHR Failure Means for Veterans

This article was written by Lt. Dan,who writes for HIStalk Connect and provides daily headlines on HIStalk.

After eight years of service — during which I traversed seven countries across three continents, lived in three states, and had the privilege of working alongside the very best, brightest, most dedicated, honest, and sincere men and women I have ever known — the time finally came in November 2009 for me to walk away. I signed my discharge papers on November 11 (Veterans Day), got in my car, and drove off base for the last time. I was sad, scared, and very excited.

Fast forward three months. I am sitting in a doctor’s office, about to have a physical from my new PCP. The office was clean; the staff was polite. This was nothing like sick call, where all ailments were treated universally with a prescription for Motrin 800 and a return-to-work slip. During the appointment. my doctor told me to send him my medical records from the Army.

I tracked down the clinic on the base I’d been assigned to and asked for my medical record. They told me it had been forwarded to the US Army Human Resources Command. I called them. They said that they didn’t have my records, didn’t know where my records were, were not responsible for processing requests to access said records, and suggested that I call the VA.

Undaunted, I did call the VA. They told me that US Army HRC was probably misinformed because they should have my records, but to be certain, I would need to fill out some forms, mail them in, and wait for an estimated 90+ days.

At this point, it was beginning to sound like my medical records were having a far worse go of it in civilian life than I was. I told them never mind, the whole thing seemed pointless since I knew everything that was in them and could just tell my PCP the history myself the next time I saw him.

When I went for my first civilian dental exam and was asked if I had a dental record, I was smart enough to just say no. To date, I still don’t have my military medical records and probably never will.

Transitioning out of the military is not easy. It’s moving long distance back to your home town and finding a new job. It’s changing the way you talk so you don’t accidently swear in a business meeting, or call a 22-year-old co-worker “ma’am.” It’s learning to make friends with people you don’t have something intimately in common with. It’s a good bit of doubting yourself and whether you are going to be good at this very different new life.

This stress is exacerbated by an estimated 35 percent prevalence of PTSD in returning veterans, and an estimated 20 percent prevalence of traumatic brain injury, which along with more traditional disabilities, has resulted in nearly 50 percent of departing veterans requiring disability services from the VA.

When that 50 percent of discharged veterans leave the military, their healthcare is transitioned from DoD facilities to VA facilities. The hope is that this will one day be seamless. For now, before the VA will provide services, soldiers submit a disability claim to receive approval to start receiving benefits.

Herein lies the problem. It takes an average of 277 days from the time a claim is submitted until the time a decision is made, much higher than the VA’s stated goal of 125 days. During this waiting period, veterans are left in limbo without access to services or entitlements. There is new policy in place that will allow a departing soldier to submit a disability claim with the VA prior to exiting the military, but currently they can only submit 180 days prior to their discharge date. Helpful, but another example of the needs of the veterans getting lost in translation with the policy makers.

The enormous disability claims backlog has made national news for more than a year now because it is larger than it has ever been in our nation’s history, approaching 1 million claims. Veterans who are leaving the service are usually dealing with a new job, a long distance move, and basic emotional transitions and simply do not have the energy to tackle another exhausting problem in their lives. But the VA’s disability claims process has become exactly that, an exhausting problem in the life of veterans who need services.

Over the last several years, the VA has put in place a plan to correct the disability claims backlog. It was a two-tiered technology implementation plan that involved developing iEHR, which would reduce the time it takes for veterans’ medical records to make their way to disability claims processors. A new disability claims automation system was expected to reduce the time and resources required to process a claim. These two projects were expected to solve the backlog, and so they were heavily funded and highly prioritized.

The disability claims system, called the Veterans Benefits Management System or VBMS, was a $500 million system that began its implementation this past summer. It hit the ground with a loud thud despite the fact that a significant portion of its allocated funding was spent.  The implementation has been mired in delays and functional issues that have repeatedly sent engineers back to the drawing board.

In June 2012, VA CIO Roger Baker acknowledged the issues in an interview, saying, “In mid-December, the volume of VBMS usage grew rapidly as users from the 18 [regional offices] were added. VBMS began to experience dramatic slowdowns in response time for some users, especially during peak usage hours. A root cause analysis determined that the issues were due to the way data is being read from disk storage. Since the impact was considerably more read/write work for each transaction, it had a greater impact as more users attempted to perform work on VBMS.” The initial recommendation was to halt any non-critical tasks, but the permanent fix will require a significant redesign.

VBMS was initially scheduled to complete its implementation across all VA processing centers by the end of 2012. At the close of 2012, just 5 percent of claims processors were using the new system. The implementation timeline has now been pushed out until the end of 2013.

iEHR was also conceived as a way of tackling the benefits backlog. The overriding goal of iEHR was to bring all stakeholders in the transition of veterans’ healthcare under one system to allow for a fundamentally more streamlined process for both soldiers and benefits processing for the VA. Summarized best by California House Representative Jeff Dunham during a recent hearing, “Those who have volunteered at a time of war … if they come home tomorrow, they ought to be in the (electronic-record) system tomorrow, knowing what benefits they will receive … and that it doesn’t take a 5-day or a 50-day system.”

iEHR was halted on February 5 after officials within DoD and the VA realized that the total cost to develop the system had grown to more than $12 billion, more than double the original $4-$6 billion estimate CIO Baker quoted at the onset of the program. Following the announcement, the VA and DoD went back and forth over whether it would be feasible for DoD to implement the VA’s VistA EHR as a Plan B that would allow both organizations to operate within one EHR and maintain the overall goal of a unified system that could streamline the transition process for veterans.

In response to this idea, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs said “The current VistA system is a generation 1-plus-2, in terms of how we look at electronic health records. Industry is already at a generation 3 and moving to a generation 4. We would need to assess what’s required for us to bring VistA over, modernize it, and (calculate) what the total cost of ownership would be over time." On February 8, DoD announced that it was launching a vendor search, ending any hope that iEHR would be revived.

Within the past 30 days, CIO Baker along with VA CTO Peter Levin have been called before the Veterans House Services Committee multiple times to answer to outraged representatives over delays, cost overages, and systematic failures within both programs. For four years, the disability claims backlog grew with no improvement in the pace at which the VA processed new claims. Baker and Levin were the project owners for the two projects that were targeted to address the disability backlog issue. They drafted their plans, spent the money, the projects failed, and all that was left for them to do was resign, which is ultimately what they both did.

Now we have a growing disability claims backlog weighing down the VA. The proposed solutions have failed and the money is spent. Further complicating matters, the government is staring down the barrel of a federal budget sequester that is going to further limit the VA’s options to fix the disability claims backlog.

Meanwhile, a veteran population dealing with almost 10 percent unemployment and an unprecedented 22 suicides a day is going without disability benefits because the system that was designed to support them is fundamentally broken and programs intended to fix these problems are back to square one.

News 3/1/13

Top News

A House panel, obviously fed up by the DoD’s cavalier attitude toward the VA’s VistA system compared to its own AHLTA EHR, demands to know why DoD won’t adopt the highly successful VistA. DoD says it’s looking at VistA yet again, but says it will evaluate it against commercial systems in attempting to “skate where the puck will be” and is concerned about multiple VistA versions and lack of conversion documentation. Congressman Jeff Miller (R-FL), as puzzled as the rest of us about whether VA-DoD will adopt a single EHR or try to cobble their respective systems to merely look like one, summarized as, “It sounds to me like we’re doing a U-turn and going back to the exact same thing again.” Outgoing VA CIO Roger Baker says estimates to develop the integrated system had doubled to $12 billion. One might assume that given Epic’s previous rumored involvement, its Coast Guard EHR experience, and its track record in large and diverse organizations, it might enter the picture in some fashion as the words “commercial systems” are uttered in polite company.

Reader Comments

From Jardone: “Re: Jardogs. A sale to Allscripts is imminent. Layoffs began yesterday, which appear to be across the board. Since Jardogs is owned by Springfield Clinic, no severance will be paid. Today is the last day for many, including myself.” Unverified. I e-mailed our contact at Jardogs inviting a response, but haven’t heard back. Jardogs, which offers patient engagement and health management solutions, is an Allscripts partner.

From Looking Deeper: “Re: MU Stage 2 requirements. Do your readers have tips for getting clarification for questions that aren’t resolved in the documentation? We would like to contact CMS. It’s a shame they don’t have an e-mail address or form.” A reader reports having successfully used this form, selecting “EHR Incentive Program” as the topic. She got a response in three weeks.

From Festus: “Re: coding issues. Jail time?” A 63-year-old cardiothoracic and vascular surgeon is serving a 10-month sentence for Medicare fraud, convicted for upcoding his cases. The US Attorney says his case sends a message to doctors, while professional organizations say that message is that doctors shouldn’t accept Medicare payment because nobody can comply with its complex requirements and now they could be imprisoned for making mistakes. According to the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, “This precedent criminalizes false statements in a private setting without any proof of billing fraud and a greater interference with the day to day practice of medicine is difficult to imagine.” The doctor’s dictated reports from 10 years ago were found to have specified the wrong kind of graft in two of 2,400 operative reports. He says he was too busy to keep up with the reports and had been told to use a code that was similar if he couldn’t find the right one. AAPS says the irony is that he could have justifiably billed a lot more than he actually did even with the mistake. The charges say the surgeon did more than just choose the wrong CPT code – they say he also falsified his progress notes. It would be interesting to see if those were generated with computer assistance since that’s the only reasonable excuse.

From CEO: “Re: HIStalk. I start every day by catching up and reading HIStalk. It really is a wonderful source of content that helps me keep a good pulse on the industry. Thank you for serving so many of us!!!” Inga was happy to read this CEO’s e-mail in response to receiving his HIStalkapalooza invitation as one of few positive comments we’ve received lately, as most of our recent e-mails are from people complaining about not being invited to HIStalkapalooza because they didn’t register. I suppose I should be flattered that people care that much about attending.

From CatsEyes: “Re: three tidbits. Did you mention that Dr. Tonya Hongsermeier (above) left Partners CIRD to become CMIO of Lahey? Lovely and very smart person. And with Partners, Boston Medical Center, Lahey, and Lifespan all going to Epic. From New Haven to Mid coast Maine – Epic rules.” I left out Tidbit #1 since it involved a sales VP whose new job I couldn’t immediately confirm. I’m dating myself by admitting that when I hear Tonya’s name I still think of her being at Cerner, which she hasn’t been forever.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

I took an unplanned three-hour field trip to the ER on Wednesday. Of course I asked the staff all sorts of questions about what technology they had in place (and why they were using so much paper.) Turns out I am just fine and my stress over selecting the perfect pair of shoes for HIStalkapalooza does not seem to be a contributing factor. Mr. H, however, thinks all the e-mails begging for last-minute HIStalkapalooza invites may have put me over the edge.

Have you stayed current with HIStalk Practice? If not, some of this week’s highlights include: only 60 percent of physicians are interested in participating in ACOs. ISALUS Healthcare introduces a new version of its OfficeEMR. Memphis Obstetrics & Gynecology Association goes live on MED3OOO’s InteGreat EHR. Practices have an increased need for population patient health tools. I love new e-mail subscribers, so take a moment to register for updates when checking out these stories. Thanks for reading.

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Forward Health Group, located on Capitol Square in Madison, WI. The orange above looks juicy and that’s no coincidence – the company’s PopulationManager tool serves up QI and outcomes data to health systems that’s fresh, never frozen, squeezing it from your current systems, claims data, or administrative data. It’s accurate, actionable, complete, and timely, not to mention physician accepted at the individual patient level. The founders started out working in public health reporting back in 2004, meaning they had to figure out early on how to extract and aggregate data from a veritable science fair of disparate IT systems to create apple-to-apples measurements (that’s my second fruit analogy if you’re scoring at home.) It’s a fruit punch (fruit reference #3) of advanced informatics, population health best practices, and elegant visual explanations. They’ll set up a meeting or come to you at HIMSS or at HIStalkapalooza to tell you more – just e-mail them. Thanks to Forward Health Group for their berry (#4) much appreciated support of HIStalk. I have a feeling they’re a lot of fun, so you might be on the lookout for CEO Michael Barbouche or docs John Studebaker, MD and Sean Thomas, MD Monday night at Rock ‘n’ Bowl.

I found this Forward Health Group video that talks more about Fresh Data.

Thanks to Levi, Ray & Shoup, which not only issued a press release calling out my recent interview with SVP John Howerter, but used most of it to say nice things about HIStalk. I enjoyed talking with John because I consider myself something of an expert on print spooling-related problems in hospitals (having gotten myself hopelessly stuck in the middle of those problems many times over the years, unfortunately) so I was asking questions from my own experience.

Verisk Health is supporting HIStalk as a Platinum Sponsor. The company builds solutions for every payer type, including medical cost management, government reporting, payment accuracy, and revenue compliance. They can help identify risk, save money, and improve care. Providers interested in accountable care programs need tools for cost control, quality improvement, and population health management, and that also means you would probably benefit from getting a free copy of Verisk’s provider toolkit. Edward Hospital (IL), for example, is using PopulationAdvisor (through Premier) to monitor its clinical and financial performance, combining Premier’s comparative provider database with Verisk Health’s risk-based payer analytics to gain a better understanding of outcomes and cost of care provided both inside and outside the hospital. Verisk Health President Joel Portice has been around the industry for a long time, holding executive roles with Intelimedix, HCI, Enclarity, and Fair Isaac (not to mention that he’s also a novelist). Thanks to Verisk Health for its support of HIStalk.

HIMSS Conference and Social Events

Wen Dombrowski, MD, who tweets under @healthcareWenF, forwarded me this list she compiled of socials, Tweetups, and physician exec events. She is doing a Segway tour Saturday afternoon that sounds particularly fun.

I’m posting this shoe porn for Inga and Dr. Jayne, sent in by the (male) president of a new sponsor who clearly understands their fixation. Very hot.

The weather forecast for New Orleans looks pretty darned good. The mild temperatures suggest open-toed shoes as a viable option. Heavy coats can remain at home, or at least in the hotel room.

HIStalk’s Guide to HIMSS13
HIStalk’s Guide to HIMSS13 Meet-Ups
HIStalk’s Guide to HIMSS13 Exhibitor Giveaways

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Practice Fusion buys 100Plus, a startup co-founded by Practice Fusion CEO Ryan Howard that provides analytics-drive personalized health predictions.

Health Catalyst increases its Series B round by $8 million with participation from Kaiser Permanente Ventures and CHV Capital.

Revenue cycle solutions vendor Cymetrix Corp. acquires analytics vendor CareClarity.

Sales

Resolute Health (TX) selects Allscripts Sunrise Clinical Manager EHR and Allscripts Community Record for HIE and analytics.

Physician-hospital organization St. Vincent’s Health Partners (CT) chooses McKesson Population Manager and McKesson Risk Manager to manage the health of high-risk populations.

PeaceHealth will integrate Streamline Health’s AccessAnyWare enterprise content management solution with Epic ambulatory.

Evolution Health will deploy Greenway Medical’s PrimeSUITE across its national network of house call providers.

Northeast Georgia Health System (GA) will implement McKesson Paragon.

Daughters of Charity Health System will implement CliniComp’s Essentris Fetal mobile EMR in all of its hospitals.

People

API Healthcare names Daryl Joslin (Defran Systems) chief marketing officer.

WorldOne, the parent company of Sermo, names Kerry Hicks (HealthGrades) chairman.

Press Ganey Associates adds Ralph Snyderman, MD (Duke University Health) to its board.

Beverly Bell (CSC) joins Health Care DataWorks as chief nursing officer and VP of implementation services and business performance management.

Announcements and Implementations

City of Hope (CA) implements Harris Corporation’s BI Practice Variation dashboards to identify opportunities for improving clinical outcomes, safety, and documentation.

Other

Athenahealth will invest up to $10 million and lease up to 60,000 square feet of office space in Midtown Atlanta for more than 700 employees.

A CHIME survey finds that the average base salary for healthcare CIOs in 2012 was $208,417, with respondents holding the EVP/CIO title averaging 50 percent more. More than half held a master’s degree, earning 10 percent more than those with a bachelor’s degree. Three-quarters of the CIOs reported receiving a raise of less than five percent in 2012.

The Nashville business paper profiles Shareable Ink President and CEO Stephen Hau. The 50-employee, 82-hospital software company relocated there from Boston in 2010.

Security researchers using CyberCity, a military-developed model city used to study cyberattacks, find that the city’s electronic medical records system is full of security holes. “OpenEMR from a security perspective is a disaster,” overlooking the fact that few if any US hospitals use that particular open source system.

I’ve gotten wind of an upcoming announcement from Michelle Obama’s Partnership for a Healthier America in which several EHR vendors that I won’t name (mostly the usual suspects, with some surprises) will pledge to add five anti-obesity features to their products at the March 6-8 PHA summit in Washington, DC. The features are BMI and weight classification percentiles, activity and dietary assessments, weight goal monitoring, referral to providers and community resources, and the ability to create a Healthy Weight Plan.

In Australia, Canberra Hospital will upgrade its ED system security after several employees were found to be altering patient data to make wait time statistics look more favorable. Most of the employees could not be identified because the EDIS was set up with generic user IDs like “nurse” and “doctor,” with managers claiming that the department could not function if users had to sign on and off individually. The upgrade will include quick logon/logoff. A server crash of the same EDIS caused the hospital to go on diversion Wednesday as the ED went back to paper.

In Canada, doctors in Nova Scotia complain of system crashes and response time problems with their $4 million Nightingale Informatix EMR, for which they were paid $10,000 each in government incentives to use. The company acknowledges software problems.

Cerner is among four dozen medical device and supply vendors that will pass along the new PPACA-mandated 2.3 percent medical device excise tax directly to their hospital customers.

Weird News Andy wonders if Meaningful Use statistics could be similarly fudged. The acting CEO of an English hospital resigns after an investigation finds that Royal Bolton Hospital coded its patient deaths due to septicemia at quadruple the expected rate, with interim findings indicating “cause for concern.” Hospitals get paid more for treating septicemia.

Researchers find that drinking red wine may protect against noise-induced hearing loss. When not drinking Hurricane Ingas, I will make a point of sticking to red wine when club hopping in the Big Easy.

Sponsor Updates

• PatientKeeper will feature a number of hospital executives in Booth #2210 at HIMSS.
• Wellcentive will join the Accountable Care Community of Practice.
• Santa Rosa Consulting will feature The Honorable Tommy Thompson and Fred L. Brown at its customer and industry appreciation event at HIMSS next Tuesday.
• Gates Hospitalists (MO) secures Medicare reimbursement using Ingenious Med’s PQRS Registry.
• Nuance leases an additional 28,000 square fee of office space in Cambridge, MA to accommodate about 175 employees.
• A local paper profiles Lyster Army Health Clinic (AL) and its use of RelayHealth’s secure messaging solution.
• Iatric Systems adds CynergisTek as a reseller of its Security Audit Manager and Medical Records Release Manager solutions.
• Lifepoint Informatics will sponsor the G2 Pathology Institute Conference February 28 – March 1 in Fort Lauderdale, FL.
• CSI Healthcare IT spotlights Evan Ritter, its top sales performer of 2012.
• University Health System (TX) reports a cost savings of over $13 million within a year of contracting with MedAssets for consulting, analytics, and process improvement services.
• Covisint will integrate Milliman’s opportunity-based population analytics capabilities into its healthcare platform.
• AT&T lists six questions to ask healthcare cloud vendors to ensure data security.
• eClinicalWorks  shares details of how Coastal Medical (RI) achieved a 200 percent return on its original investment and improved care coordination utilizing the company’s EHR.
• A Nuance Communications’ survey finds that 80 percent of US doctors believe virtual assistants will change how they interact and use EHRs and will benefit patients by making them more engaged in their own healthcare.
• McKesson names the Bread of Healing Clinic (WI) the company’s first recipient of its Practice Choice EHR software as part of the McKesson Give Back initiative.
• Impact Advisors Principal Rob Faix is featured in a podcast discussing PHI data breaches.
• St. Luke’s Cornwall Medical Group (NY) shares how it increased cash collections by 17 percent utilizing Greenway’s PrimeRCM.
• Mitochon Systems will integrate drug safety information from PDR Network into its Electronic Medical Office platform.
• Merge Healthcare will bundle MModal Fluency for Imaging and MModal Catalyst for Radiology with its Merge PACS portfolio.
• Signature Sleep Services, dba Sleep360, will market and integrate ZirMed’s RCM solutions with its platform of sleep medicine tools.
• Georgia-Pacific Professional introduces the SafeHaven monitoring system, which combines Versus RTLS technology with Georgia-Pacific’s dispensers and skin care products.

EPtalk  by Dr. Jayne

Several readers have asked Inga and me for HIStalkapalooza fashion advice. DO wear sassy bowling shoes or a cool retro bowling shirt. DON’T wear anything from MSN’s list of ugliest shoes of all time.

With HIMSS starting in a few days, my inbox is really filling up. If you’re exhibiting, that means you are a technology company of some kind or at least peripherally in the technology sphere. Up your game (and the chances that your message will actually be read) by proofreading your content and removing tags like that in the e-mail above prior to sending.

Even with a relatively full inbox, it’s a slow news week as everyone saves up their big news to announce at the show. You don’t have to make a big splash at HIMSS to be a success. Vendors are quietly certifying their products for Meaningful Use 2014 and I salute them.

I’ve had a lot of questions about what I’ll be looking at during the show. Rest assured I’m making my list and checking it twice. I plan to spend plenty of time in the far reaches of the exhibit hall looking for the next big thing, so stay sharp because you never know when we might come by your booth.

I’m off to the Crescent City tomorrow and will bring you the news and happenings of HIMSS. For those of you unable to attend, thank you for keeping the availability high, the loads balanced, and the issue resolution times low. We’ll raise a glass in your honor at HIStalkapalooza. Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk Practice, HIStalk Connect.

News 2/27/13

Top News

Telus Health will acquire MD Practice Software, which will make Telus the largest EMR vendor in Canada. The deal is scheduled to close Monday.

Reader Comments

From Spell Checkeroff: “Re: HIPAA. The Miami Herald did something you don’t see often – spelled out the law’s name correctly, then derived an incorrect acronym!” I’ve noticed that as newspapers continue their slow swirl down the toilet, they keep losing their better people who might be able to actually investigate a story, proof read, or write editorials that express original thoughts. About all they’re good for now is sports scores, Hollywood gossip, and funny stories with zero news value. On the other hand, that’s about all their declining audience wants to read anyway.

From NoPhone: “Re: Booth etiquette. Last year you ran an article about HIMSS booth etiquette and we would love to share it with our sales team.” The Readers Write by Rosemarie Nelson offers tips for vendors on the trade show floor.

From Moe Money: “Re: PQRS submissions. See forwarded e-mail.” Above.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Ping Identity, also known as “The Identity Security Company.” Its identity and access management platform provides one-click access to any application from any device, with over 900 enterprise customers including 45 of the Fortune 100. The company’s health solutions make it easier to run cloud-based applications and to meet compliance requirements, offering single sign-on to improve user satisfaction. They also provide a seamless, secure platform for internal and external collaboration and customer engagement. Ping Identity’s solutions help protect PHI and allow users of federated applications to be quickly disabled in the event of a breach. A free trial of PingFederate is available for download. Pay them a visit at HIMSS Booth #2470 and tell them you read about them on HIStalk. Thanks to Ping Identity for supporting my work.

My YouTube hunt was successful, turning up this educational Ping Identity video on Identity Management 101. It’s a really good and easily understood overview.

HIMSS Conference and Social Events

I have been hunting for a HIMSS mobile app that includes the schedule and meeting rooms. Has anyone seen one?

If you signed up to attend HIStalkapalooza before registration closed on Monday, February 11 and did not receive an invitation by e-mail, drop me a note by Thursday and I’ll check your status. Otherwise, we are totally full even though Medicomp doubled capacity to 1,000 this year, which means we unfortunately can’t invite you even if you’re one of the folks who are pleading that your HIMSS experience might be a bust if you are unable to participate in the “Inga Loves My Shoes” contest, drink Hurricane IngaTinis and Typhoon Janes, and hobnob with the coolest folks in HIT.

For those who received HIStalkapalooza invitations, here is transportation information:

• The good folks at Medicomp have put together a pocket-sized card with transportation details. You can pick it up from their Booth #3068 on Monday or get one from one of the human directionals that will be in the main hallway of the convention center starting at 5:30 PM on Monday. Look for the HIStalk/MEDCIN Engine tee shirts and signs.
• Buses will leave convention center for HIStalkapalooza from 6:15 p.m. through 7:00 p.m.
• If you are driving, Rock ‘n’ Bowl is located at 3000 S. Carrollton Avenue and has plenty of free surface parking.
• Return bus service to specific downtown hotels starts at 9:00 p.m.
• Bus service is complimentary, as is coat and bag check at the venue.
• A Transportation Concierge will be located at the front of Rock ‘n’ Bowl to answer any questions. They can help you get a taxi if you’re in a hurry to leave and don’t mind paying.

Inga, Dr. Jayne, and I (Mr. H) will be covering HIMSS in great detail starting this weekend. Let us know if there’s anything you would like is to report on beyond the obvious (booth snark, making fun of people who deserve it, spilling the dirt we overhear in coffee lines and restrooms, and our jaded assessment of what’s important and what clearly isn’t). We intentionally avoid one-on-one appointments and demos since those are usually a waste of time, preferring to do our reporting from the ground as regular, anonymous attendees. Contact us from there if you run across anything interesting.

HIStalk’s Guide to HIMSS13
HIStalk’s Guide to HIMSS13 Meet-Ups
HIStalk’s Guide to HIMSS13 Exhibitor Giveaways

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Shares in Accretive Health drop 20 percent in after-hours trading Tuesday after the company announces that it will delay reporting Q4 and FY2012 results while it evaluates its revenue recognition policies for its revenue cycle management agreements. Any change might require restating prior-period financial statements, management added.

Cerner announces that it will acquire PureWellness, which offers a health and wellness platform for corporate wellness programs and insurers, strengthening its position in the population management market.

Craneware reports half-year profit of $0.12/share compared to $0.10/share a year ago. Revenues were up seven percent.

OCHIN, which operates Oregon’s REC, acquires the Oregon Health Network, a non-profit focused on improving quality and access of healthcare through HIT and other initiatives.

Informatica acquires process automation company Active Endpoints.

Sales

Graham Hospital (IL) selects Merge Healthcare’s iConnect Enterprise Clinical Platform and Honeycomb Archive solution.

Summit Healthcare Regional Medical Center (AZ) chooses Ingenious Med’s impower charge capture solution to improve documentation and communication.

People

Vocera Communications appoints Sandra Miley (Juniper Networks) VP of corporate marketing.

Elsevier names Jim Nolin, MD (Ascension Health) editor-in-chief of InOrder,  an Elsevier order set solution that’s scheduled to launch in March.

Beacon Partners promotes Kevin McKittrick (above) and Scott Freeman to principal.

Cornerstone Advisors Group names Kristi Lane (Stage 7 Consulting) VP of talent management.

Charles C. Corogenes (Toshiba) joins ChartWise Medical Systems as VP of sales and marketing.

Announcements and Implementations

Kansas HIN transmits immunization data from the Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas to the Kansas Immunization Registry through the ICA CareAlign HIE platform.

Rockcastle Regional Hospital (KY) goes live as the first user of Patient Logic’s physician documentation system.

You might think managed services vendor ClientFit would spell the name of its new partner athenahealth correctly in its press release announcing that relationship. You would be wrong, although I might be inclined to side with them because their version is at least properly broken out into separate words and capitalized correctly. I grit my teeth and follow The Associated Press Stylebook, which says to use the company’s made-up lower case version except when athenahealth begins a sentence, in which case capitalize it even if they wish you wouldn’t.

Albany Medical Center will become the first healthcare provider in New York to utilize Direct Messaging through the Healthcare Xchange of NY.

QuadraMed announces that Avita Health System (OH) attested for Stage 1 Meaningful Use through its use of the company’s QCPR EHR that the health system implemented last year.

Winona Health (MN) says its implementation of Cerner’s revenue cycle solutions for acute and ambulatory services fueled a 25 percent decrease in clinic coding turnaround time and consolidation of hospital and clinic billing.

Legacy Data Access introduces LegacyCompleteClinicalView and LegacyRemitBank to enhance clinical and revenue cycle functionality for retired healthcare applications.

Jardogs releases version 1.5 of its FollowMyHealth universal health record.

CommVault launches Simpana 10, which offers an open, scalable platform and advances in data and information management.

LDM Group’s ConnectSys 3.0 achieves 2014 Edition Ambulatory and Inpatient EHR Module Certifications by ICSA Labs.

McKesson announces that more than 90 percent of physician users of its iKnowMed oncology EHR have successfully attested for Meaningful Use.

McKesson and Cerner will announce their unspecified collaboration (presumably related to cooperative interoperability in trying to derail the Epic juggernaut) from HIMSS on Monday, March 4 at 11 a.m. Central.

Microsoft-GE joint venture Caradigm will announce next week its selection by Continuum Health Partners (NY) to provide tools that will support the health system’s care coordination and population health strategy. Caradigm’s products include the Caradigm Intelligence Platform (the new version of Amalga), applications from both Caradigm and third parties for population health management, Caradigm Health Information Exchange, and identity and access management solutions.

MMRGlobal, featured in my interview with CEO Bob Lorsch, will launch a health and wellness app at the HIMSS conference that will work with its MyMedicalRecords PHR. The company also says it has started notifying mobile healthcare app vendors that their products appear to infringe on its patents.

MModal and 3M Health Information Systems collaborate to link MModal’s voice-enabled clinical documentation platform with the 3M 360 Encompass computer-assisted coding system.

VitalWare files a provisional patent for Sherpa, a physician documentation ontology engine that automatically presents physicians with clinical concepts and their related categories at the point of care.

Technology

An India-based startup announces Uchek, a urinalysis app for smartphones. You pee in a cup, not on the phone, and then take photos of dipped chemical strips to monitor diabetes, UTIs, and kidney and bladder problems. I might be concerned that its display shows “keytone” since I get nervous when medical software contains misspellings.

I mentioned the Android-only Swiftkey on-screen keyboard and medical dictionary ($3.99) that gets rave reviews for clinical documentation. The company announced Tuesday that it will launch a healthcare-focused typing app for the iPad. Apparently the new BlackBerry 10’s all-touch keyboard runs Swiftkey, although neither company will confirm.

Other

Massachusetts General Hospitals offers its 22,000 employees a $250 bonus for watching an 11-minute video on customer service. About 98 percent of the employees thought it was worth $22 per minute to score some cash, meaning the hospital shelled out more than $5 million to teach them how to be nice. 

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation awards PatientsLikeMe a $1.9 million grant to create the first open-participation research platform for the development of patient-centered health outcome measures.

I mentioned in introducing new sponsor MediQuant in the Monday Morning Update that I was enjoying the Legacy System Blues song on its site. Apparently I caught it early — a new press release just announced it, also mentioning that the band is led by MediQuant Founder and President Tony Paparella, who has had the track pressed on vinyl 45 RPM records.

Security volunteers who find an unnamed hospital’s data exposed on the Web are perplexed when their phone calls, service desk ticket, and e-mail to the hospital’s CEO are all ignored and nobody has taken the data down. A technician at the hospital’s outsourced help desk told them he doesn’t have an e-mail address. The group suggests that hospitals include a dedicated, monitored e-mail address and telephone number on their home page so they can be notified quickly of security problems.

Weird News Andy says he bet the surgeon was heard to say, “Awww, nuts” in this story of a patient suing a British hospital after surgeons removed the wrong testicle. Surgeons performing the cancer surgery realized their mistake 40 minutes in and “tried to correct the mistake in an emergency procedure,” but it was too late.

Strange: police in India arrest the son of a hospital CEO after he threatens to post to the Internet a homemade sex video featuring himself and his wife unless she agrees to pay for the hospital’s new trauma center. Also in India, 35 specialty physicians protest their hospital salaries by threatening to kill themselves.

Sponsor Updates

• The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Levi, Ray & Shoup discuss the simplification of document management processing in Webinars March 12 and 14.
• Hyland Software validates integration between its OnBase enterprise content management and Nuance Communications’ eCopy ShareScan scanning and workflow solutions.
• The AMA and McKesson agree to a licensing arrangement that allows for the mapping of molecular diagnostic testing codes in McKesson’s Diagnostic Exchange software to the AMA’s CPT code set.
• Greenway Medical Technologies achieves PCMH 2011 Prevalidation status from NCQA for its PrimeSUITE EHR platform.
• Wolters Kluwer Health adds a Patient Safety Programs File to its Medi-Span solution.
• MedAssets CEO and President John Bardis will ring the NASDAQ closing bell February 27.
• Bottomline Technologies announces the GA of Logical Ink 4.6 and MedEx 4.0.
• Marion McCall of Surgical Information Systems reviews considerations when selecting perioperative analytics solutions.
• Santa Rosa Consulting adds Clearwater Compliance’s HIPAA-HITECH compliance tools to its portfolio of services.
• Truven Health Analytics releases its annual list of 100 Top Hospitals based overall organizational performance.
• CTG Health Solutions announces that it increased revenues 18 percent from 2011 to 2012 and expanded its IT consulting team.
• Direct Recruiters, Inc. offers an interview called “Hiring Game Changers.”

Contacts

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

More news: HIStalk Practice, HIStalk Connect.