Monday Morning Update 2/28/11

From Terry: “Re: Oracle. We talked to an Oracle contact at HIMSS and their HIE vendor partner will be…Orion.” Unverified. 

From BurnedOutFromHIMSS: “Re: Tom Niehaus, president of CTG Healthcare. Just heard he’s joining Encore Health Resources. That’s a big blow to CTG and a great catch by Encore. I think very highly of him and he’ll be a good fit for the culture Ivo and Dana have built.” Verified by Ivo. Tom will be executive VP of business development reporting to Dana Sellers at Encore. Ivo says he’s known him for a couple of decades, thinks he’s one of the most effective executives in the industry, and says he has the integrity and character to fit well into Encore’s culture.

From McLean: “Re: McKesson. Rumors about that they will open source their platform and focus on solutions and services. Given the lack of market expansion they have experienced, this may be a sound decision, making them the Red Hat of IT as a compelling alternative to overpriced offerings from other vendors.” Unverified.

From Marlow Gates: “Re: Certify Data Systems. CEO is Mark Willard, a Brit. Last year he supposedly bagged some huge hospital systems with a system that doesn’t make the usual suspect list of HIE solutions because it doesn’t have a portal. They seem to be flying under the radar for as long as possible. They have some sort of arrangement with Cerner, but are doing direct deals as well. The management team is long on technical skills with not a lot of long time HIS regulars.” Inside Healthcare IT e-mailed to say they’ve written a couple of articles about the company, including one in the current issue that they’ll make available to the reader who asked about the company (assuming it wasn’t a company plant looking for PR).

From All Hat No Cattle: “Re: Cignet HIPAA penalty. Not a rumor, but a shocker.” The Office of Civil Rights fines Cignet Health (MD) $4.3 million for HIPAA violations, the first-ever civil penalty levied against a covered entity. The Cignet idiots not only refused to give 41 patients copies of their medical records over a one-year period, they then ignored OCR’s subpoena while making no effort to resolve the patient complaints. Cignet operates four clinics in southern Maryland and insurance operations in the UK, Nigeria, and Ghana. The Web site is pretty seedy-looking, I’d say, and includes a prominent link to franchising information, bragging that, “With Cignet health plan and Cignet discount card, Centers are sure to have a good percentage of cash paying, insurance claim free patients.” I can see the attraction of cash customers — some online sources say that Cignet was the subject of a Maryland Insurance Commissioner’s cease-and-desist order for selling phony insurance. Owner Dan Austin’s medical license had been revoked in 2000 after conviction of mail and loan fraud — I found the above in Maryland court records. He was running a student loan scam.

From Bob: “Re: HIMSS writeups. I certainly appreciate your writing up what you think are the most important, interesting, and amusing aspects of HIMSS. Indeed, I felt (almost) like I was there and didn’t really miss anything (of importance) … well, except for the Blue Cat babes, perhaps ;-)” It’s funny about the conference … you know going in that you’ll miss 90% of it, so you try to pick and choose wisely. That means you could randomly pick 10 attendees and none of them were probably in the same educational sessions, attending the same parties, or picking up the same valuable nuggets. Maybe that’s my niche for next year – debriefing a bunch of people on what they saw that was important just to get a collective opinion. Every year I feel like an outsider who missed the good stuff and I bet I’m not the only one.

From Kyoto: “Re: Allscripts good and bad news. The integration work is not only on the mark, but far exceeded client expectations during previews. Gomez came up with a new approach that allows seamless integration, going well beyond the usual tired approach. It’s also making its numbers. On the other hand, Enterprise EHR clients continue to complain about product quality and sales leadership is leaving. Lack of SCM sales is causing fear in its ability to expand in the community space, part of its key Connected Community strategy.” Unverified.

From InteropNotSilos: “Re: HHS Secretary Sebelius. After all the hot air at HIMSS, she goes home to see the Lewis and Clark Information Exchange, the only one operational in Missouri or Kansas.”

Listening: Pepper, Hawaii-based reggae/funk, sometimes reminiscent of Red Hot Chili Peppers.

 

These poll results don’t mean much since Allscripts encouraged its employees to vote for Stephanie Reel, but if you throw her out, it’s a pretty close race between John Halamka and Bill Bria. New poll to your right: if you went to the HIMSS conference, how was the quality of the educational sessions?

Jobs on the job board: VP Sales Central Region, Senior Software Engineer, Project Manager – Healthcare Implementation. On Healthcare IT Jobs: Senior Software Engineer, Senior Systems Analyst – Financial Systems, Project Manager.

Welcome to new HIStalk Gold Sponsor TeleTracking of Pittsburgh, PA, celebrating its 20th anniversary this month. The company focuses on patient flow automation, offering a variety of products for bed tracking, transport tracking, patient milestone tracking through procedure areas like OR and cath lab, the NaviCare OR perioperative solution, a work order management system, and the RadarFind RTLS for asset tracking. Conclusion: TeleTracking is all about squeezing out inefficiency, adding as much as 20% more capacity and collecting a wealth of operational data for making decisions. It’s the #1 KLAS-rated patient flow system and is used by 92% of US News and World Report’s Best Hospitals. Thanks to TeleTracking for supporting HIStalk.

Here’s a TeleTracking video I found on YouTube for my fellow visual learners.

Revenue cycle vendor MedAssets turned in Q4 numbers Friday: revenue up 17% to $106.9 million, EPS -$0.87 vs $0.17, wildly missing expectations of $0.22. Its 2011 forecast also missed expectations. Shares were punished, dropping 34% of their value by Friday’s market close.

In thinking about the lack of wellness emphasis at HIMSS, I thought a model I’ve used myself that works: RealAge. I took its test once, got hooked on the idea of getting a “you’re this old based on life expectancy” number, and started following some of its suggestions for changes to diet, exercise, and stress. I get an occasional e-mail recommending some course of action or product. Best of all, there’s a great business model since it sells advertising (it’s owned by Hearst). I know it’s ad-based, but I still find the information useful. Any wellness technology will need to be this user friendly to succeed, and may also need to blend social networking into its capabilities (which RealAge doesn’t really do as far as I know).

UNC Health Care (NC) chooses IBM for its private HIE. It’s funny how the definition of HIE has changed – now it takes one for UNC’s own doctors to share information with each other. Next thing you know it will take an HIE to send physician orders to departments. I guess choosing a single system was out of the question. 

MED3OOO had an iPad drawing Wednesday of HIMSS for HIStalk readers only. Congratulations to the winner, Susan Murray, director of application services for HCA. Nice! I have to say I’m liking mine quite a bit, too, although I’m just getting started with it. I have the iPad for a nice-sized screen and keyboard and then my iPod Touch that allows accessing everything from a tiny footprint, so I almost don’t need a desktop any more.

Inga found this HIMSS presentation disturbing. Wonder what was going through the minds of the Lawson suits when they green-lighted it?

Our shoe judge Lindsay has a day job with RelayHealth when she’s not evaluating footwear, but she obviously keeps her HIStalktapalooza responsibilities on her mind even there, showing the burdens of office inherent in wearing the Official Shoe Diva sash.

Tiny Schoolcraft Memorial Hospital (MI) will lay off 13 FTEs, a sizeable chunk of the 25-bed hospital’s 250-employee workforce. The reason: Medicaid reimbursement isn’t going up and they have to pay for an EMR upgrade. Says the CEO, “With this somewhat gloomy forecast, the hospital must continue to implement, at significant capital cost, an improvement to our Electronic Medical Record system, meeting additional criteria set by federal law … We qualify for EMR funding both for the hospital EMR and our Rural Clinic once we meet all of the (HHS) ‘meaningful use’ standards. We expect to meet the requirements with a 90-day qualifying period in both the hospital and the clinic by the end of the year. We hope to get most of our costs covered by the funding. Unfortunately, you must spend the money and meet the requirements before you get reimbursed. If the standard in not met by 2015, Medicare will reduce your payments.”

System integrators try to appease open source advocates who blame those companies for ignoring the British government’s call for more open source applications. The companies say it’s not their fault that the government signs enterprise software license agreements and lets vendor alliances dictate software stacks that exclude open source components. Examples given all pertain to healthcare: the Department of Health’s enterprise agreement with Microsoft and NPfIT’s Cerner contract that required the Oracle database, IBM hardware, and IBM’s WebSphere application server. One company’s rep threw out the FUD that open source software shouldn’t be used for anything mission critical, but the government said that talk needed to stop considering that the London Stock Exchange runs on open source software.

Thanks to Healthwise, a new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor. The Boise, ID company offers consumer-friendly patient education content for care managers and health coaches; an EMR-integrated patient education solution that helps meet Meaningful Use requirements; and health information content that integrates with personal health records, call center applications, portals, Web sites, and wellness applications. The content library is extensive: a health encyclopedia, decision aids, virtual coaching, medical illustrations, calculators, and slideshows. Mobile access content and tools are coming soon. Founder, chairman, and CEO Don Kemper and SVP Molly Mettler created the concept of “information therapy” in their 2002 book. The company offers a white paper called Getting Patients to Meaningful Use: Using the HL7 Infobutton Standard for Information Prescriptions. I have to say I’m impressed that the 36-year-old company’s mission is simple (empower people to care for themselves, give them a way to ask for help when they need it, and let them decline care they don’t need), that its executives are recognized public health experts, and that it’s a non-profit (!!) I forgot to look them up at HIMSS, so I might have to add Don Kemper to my interview list to learn more. Thanks to Healthwise for supporting HIStalk.

The folks at HealthHarbor e-mailed to say that HIStalk is their favorite industry blog and they recommended that their readers follow our daily HIMSS reports, so here’s a link back to their HIMSS writeup from a price transparency standpoing, just for being nice.

GE Healthcare and Capsule sign a deal to link GEHC’s Carescape patient monitors to Capsule’s Enterprise Device Connectivity Solution and Mobile Vitals plus.

This week’s company-wide e-mail from Kaiser’s George Halvorson focuses on HIMSS, mentioning that 35 of the 55 Stage 7 hospitals are Kaiser’s. He also mentioned a global HIT strategy document the company presented at the Davos World Economic Forum in Switzerland last month. The link provided was invalid, but I Googled and found what I assume is that PDF document here.

Ohio State University Medical Center’s CITIH (Center for IT Innovations in Healthcare) will convene its one-day HIT summit, Bridging Health IT Innovation, on April 18.

GE Healthcare announces iPad/iPhone access for Centricity Advance and Centricity Practice Solution.

A 27-year-old doctor in China using the alias Snooky is fired for comments she made about patients on a microblogging site, including, “The blood pressure of one patient has been dropping, and it seems that I might have to get up at midnight to dispose of the corpse. It’s not easy for me to keep my bed warm in such cold weather, so please don’t die until I get off work.”

Mass General will pay HHS $1 million to settle a HIPAA case in which a billing manager taking paper HIV/AIDS records home accidentally left them on the subway.

KLAS says 35% of ambulatory EMR users are replacing their systems. Most often considered to buy are Allscripts, Epic, and NextGen.

Imprivata announces vmWare View authentication and single sign-on agreements with Teradici and Dell. It also announces OneSign Anywhere for mobile devices as well as integration of its OneSign single sign-on and authentication platform with EpicCare.

Oracle announces Health Sciences Information Manager, an HIE solution that includes record location, information security, auditing, and NHIN Connect integration.

E-mail me.

2011 HISsies Winners

Smartest vendor strategic move
Allscripts buys Eclipsys

Stupidest vendor strategic move
McKesson’s Horizon Enterprise Revenue Management struggles

Best healthcare IT vendor
Epic

Worst healthcare IT vendor
GE Healthcare

Most fun healthcare IT vendor
athenahealth

Best leader of a vendor or consulting firm
Judy Faulkner, Epic

Best provider user of healthcare IT
Kaiser Permanente

Most promising technology development
Tablet (including iPad)

Most overrated technology
Cloud computing

Biggest HIT-related news story of the year
Meaningful Use

Most overused buzzword
Meaningful Use

”When ____ talks, people listen”
David Blumenthal, ONC

Most effective CIO in a healthcare provider organization
Ed Marx, Texas Health Resources

Most effective medical/clinical informatics professional
Martin Harris, Cleveland Clinic

HIS industry figure with whom you’d most like to have a few beers
Judy Faulkner, Epic

HIS industry figure in whose face you’d most like to throw a pie
Neal Patterson, Cerner

HIStalk Healthcare IT Lifetime Achievement Award
John Glaser, Siemens

HIStalk Healthcare IT Industry Figure of the Year
David Blumenthal, ONC

HIMSS Wrap-Up 2/24/11

From Just Saying: “Re: your Soarian demo. While pithy, this post would have been more honest if it had said, ‘I fell prey to the seductions of the attractive women and bright lights at the Siemens booth and I am so ashamed.’ Wouldn’t it have been just as valid to say ‘good to see Siemens playing offense again…Glaser seems to be making an impact already?’” Actually I wasn’t paying attention to the women or the lights – I was dragging along tired at the end of the day Wednesday and the rep stuck some 3D glasses out and promised the video would last only five minutes, just long enough for me to rest on what looked like comfortable benches (but weren’t). I didn’t find the video effective, but maybe some did. Actually, I already had an improving opinion of Soarian and the video didn’t really change it either way, but I was too tired and fidgety to want to sit through a demo, which was my real intention several times I passed the Siemens booth way down on the end (but somehow I never actually did it). I want Soarian to do well – we could use a respectably performing system that isn’t 30 years old. John Glaser did a little speech at the end of the video. He dropped by HIStalkapalooza, having warned me in advance that he wouldn’t be able to make it in time to accept his Lifetime Achievement Award in person before the band went on.

Just to show there’s no hard feelings, here’s a good consumer-oriented Soarian video from Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital that I found on YouTube. It’s more interesting than the 3D one if you ask me.

From LaVerne: “Re: Siemens. HHS lists Siemens as a certified vendor, but why do they list Enterprise Document Management as required additional software? How does that apply to Meaningful Use? MS4 is certified but does not require any document management product. Perceptive, Hyland, and other vendors don’t even modularly certify their DM products, so that might lead to the conclusion that Siemens has the only certified DM solution. Are they being intentionally mendacious or am I missing something?”

From Dolphins Fan: “Re: vendor attention. Once again, you guys did an awesome job of covering HIMSS — thanks! I can relate to your stories of being ignored by product vendors. I can think of several (Azzly and Phreesia immediately come to mind, but there were several others) where I felt if my nametag didn’t have ‘VC’ on it, I wasn’t worth talking to. As someone who provides significant guidance on many clients’ purchase decisions, it makes me wonder if these firms are actually driven by serving customers or just by scoring funding and being acquired.” I feel guilty going public with stories of unresponsive booth reps, but I’d want to know if I was the vendor. You get the feeling that nobody from management is overseeing, or if so, they aren’t very good managers (and in fact, some of the worst offenders were clearly the suits more interested in holding court with cronies than working prospects). Even Dr. Jayne’s CMIO badge couldn’t stir some of them. Let us read from the Book of Glengarry Glen Ross: “You got leads. Mitch and Murray paid good money. Get their names to sell them. You can’t close the leads you’re given, you can’t close %#*@, you ARE %#*@. Hit the bricks, pal, and beat it, ’cause you are going OUT … A guy don’t walk on the lot lest he wants to buy. They’re sitting out there waiting to give you their money. Are you gonna take it? Are you man enough to take it? What’s the problem, pal? … Always Be Closing.”

From Rodrigo Barnes: “Re: Certify Data Systems. Why don’t we hear more about them?” Never heard of them, sorry. I checked their management team and never heard of any of them, either. That doesn’t mean they aren’t good at whatever connectivity stuff they do, but maybe not so good at getting their story out.

From Northeastern CIO: “Re: HIStalkapalooza. Thanks to you, Inga, Dr. Jayne, and of course, Medicomp, for the wonderful HIStalkapalooza party. I enjoyed it, got to speak with several interesting folks, had fun watching the awards, and appreciated the food. You ordered great weather too, making it all the more difficult to return to the cold. As others continually state, you do great work and I appreciate being part of your expanding circle of colleagues.” Thanks! I bet lots of folks are missing the weather and the non-monochromatic Florida landscape.

From JL, MD: “Re: Microsoft. Go to silverlight.interknowlogy.com to view two videos that are part of the 2011 HIMSS Microsoft HSG presentations from today that demonstrate form-factor convergence for Surface, Windows 7, Windows 7 tablet, Windows Mobile for healthcare information display for patients and providers. A second video demonstrates the ability for a Windows 7 PC enabled with USB KINECT and custom healthcare gestures can display healthcare image data, and do 3D manipulation of coronary image data using gestures via KINECT without XBox 360.” I wish they hadn’t been so Microsofty in posting the videos in the annoying Silverlight format that takes a long time to load and requires a huge plug-in if you don’t already have it (I don’t mind it for apps, but it seems like overkill for a video). Had they done like every other vendor in the world and posted it on YouTube, I could have run it right here. Ever seen a Silverlight video go viral? Uh, no, and that’s why. So anyway, the videos are pretty cool. I saw a Surface at RelayHealth’s booth, but nobody seemed to be doing much with it. I have a feeling the other form factors are getting completely buried by the iPad with little hope of catching up, but I don’t claim to be an expert. Example: I saw dozens or hundreds of vendors raffling off iPads to hundreds of anxiously awaiting HIMSS attendees. I saw one giving away a KINECT and nobody offering the others.

Inga, Dr. Jayne, and I are home now. I won’t speak for the ladies, but I’m pretty beat since last night’s long post took me until midnight to finish and I was back up at 3:30 a.m. to get ready for the trip home. Maybe HIMSS is a fun week for some, but I’ve worked constantly since it started and slept little, including leaving HIStalkapalooza right after the band started so I could write that night’s recap. On the other hand, Mrs. HIStalk was waiting with open arms when I got home today and I’m calling it an early night tonight, so I expect conditions to improve steadily, at least until the pre-dawn commute to the hospital Friday morning. We’ll just clean up some loose ends tonight and I’ll be back in the usual swing Saturday for the Monday Morning Update.

And just to be clear, although nobody has complained: we write up what we think are the important, interesting, and amusing aspects of HIMSS. We don’t do it to make those who couldn’t attend feel left out – we do it so they’ll feel like they were there and didn’t really miss anything. I’m sensitive to reading about someone else’s good time, but it’s not that great a time when you’re taking notes all day and spending hours writing them up at night.

OK, was I the only one to do this (multiple times, in fact?) I was ambling along the exhibit hall aisle and rounded a corner a bit too sharply, stepping my inside foot into inches-deep swanky booth carpet and nearly falling over from the immediate, one-sided deceleration. Or this, a couple of times: I impulsively grabbed a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie from a booth and chomped down, but was horrified to get napalm-hot melted chocolate chips all over my teeth and fingers with no easy way to clean it off.

Since Medicomp was so gracious to sponsor HIStalkapalooza, I’ll give them a little more exposure with this video shot from the show floor as users went through brief Quippe training to earn their iPad (I’m in one snippet, I noticed). I think I recognize a couple of the docs who went on camera.

Here’s Vince Ciotti, debriefing after his industry history presentation Wednesday afternoon. I had joked that he should wear a Mike Brady costume to his presentation and sent him the link — darned if he didn’t do it. If he had some mascara, he’d look like Alice Cooper in his 70s heyday.

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HERtalk by Inga 

From Gossip Girl: “Re: Epic. A CIO to me explained Judy’s strategy. Epic is cutting the price on a lot of deals, especially the more prestigious health systems. If Epic has a couple of years that aren’t profitable, she can afford it and she doesn’t have investors to answer to. She realizes that these health systems make big HIT decisions only once every 10 or 15 years, so Epic needs to get in there now and hope that over time the health systems will keep buying more product. Meanwhile, the second-tier health systems see Epic getting all the wins and decide they need to get Epic, too. And those guys aren’t getting as sweet a deal as the top tier.”

From EMR vendor: “Re: HIStalk luncheon. Thank you for the great lunch today. I met some great people at my table and will have a follow up meeting with one of them.” Mr. H and I were thrilled to hear it provided a good networking opportunity. I mentioned in an earlier post that several competitors happened to sit at the same table and I and wondered how often folks like Girish Navani, Michael Sterns, and Evan Steele have lunched together. A reader suggested I’d be surprised how often it likely happens, since those folks collaborate as members of the EHR Association. For the record, two of these three told me they had never met the others before then.

From Greg Wilson: “Re: thanks. Just a quick note to convey my thanks. We had a lot of fun as a group and I had a lot of fun being a part of it. Very sincerely, thank you for the opportunity to be part of the ceremonies. It means a great deal to us.” Greg (regional sales VP for Salar) was the official HIStalk King and Queen judge and did an excellent job. I am not sure if we have complete video of his presentation, so you will have to trust me that it was wickedly funny. He gets bonus points for wearing his HIStalk Booth Babe sash in their booth for the rest of the show.

From Broke But Connected: “Re: exhibit hall Internet. Yes, it costs $1,500/day. We thought it was outrageous. I guess they figure whatever the traffic will bear! Do you think HIMSS gets a kickback on it???” Someone is clearly making serious money.

From Loyal Fan: “Re: HIStalkapalooza. It was great, but I think the music was a little too loud and it was too dark. The conference provides a great opportunity for people who haven’t seen each other in awhile to connect. They can listen to loud music at home.” That is great input. I’m sure that over the next few weeks Mr. H will continue to reflect on things and start thinking about next year.

Allscripts definitely had one of the most hopping booths. I liked its layout because it had a theater right in front and was quite open throughout. I hear Allscripts had over 1,000 people at their event at the Hard Rock Live (I had an invite, but missed it.) They also made a few product announcements, but they haven’t surfaced in my overflowing inbox yet.

I have concluded that I greatly favor the booths that are wide open with the product demo and people at the edges, as opposed to those that you have to enter in order to check out what they are offering. For example,the configuration of the booths for McKesson and Siemens (and to some extent NextGen) were a little intimidating. I almost felt I needed an invitation before walking in.

I thought Ingenix had a huge booth. Turns out it wasn’t quite as huge as I thought. They were right next to another vendor with the same red color scheme, so it appeared the two were one. Ingenix was featuring its various acquisitions and I just thought the vendor next to them was just another new division. Funny.

Orlando traffic, at least around the convention center, is insane. Fortunately my hotel was relatively close and I walked the 15-20 minutes most of the time. Wednesday I was weary and decided to ride the bus. Long story short, I got on the wrong bus and it took me 40 minutes to get back. After dropping off my things, I decided to take a cab back over to the Peabody. There was a limo in front and the guy said he had to drop a group off at the next hotel over and then would take me. So I shared the limo with artists who were performing for NextGen (they told me they practiced a lot). While it was fun chatting with them, that limo ride ended up taking at least 20 minutes because of the traffic. Sheesh.

JB walks the red carpet. Check out the gorgeous dress.

JB announcing the HISsies. Look at the size of the crowd.

I asked quite a few people what the “buzz” was. I think there is generally an agreement that we are past the Meaningful Use frenzy in terms of aligning with vendors. At this point, most people are either committed or at least pretty far down the line in the EHR selection process. Now people are looking a little more into the future and trying to figure out what tools they need for likely Stage 2 and 3 requirements (the HIE booths were busy) and for establishing ACOs. Meanwhile, everyone knows they must cut costs and improve care, and there are literally hundreds of niche vendors offering everything from tracking systems, infrastructure alternatives, and RCM add-on utilities. Obviously Meaningful Use and ICD-10 will remain the priorities for the next few years, but I think health systems are going to become increasingly interested in finding these more peripheral products, if they indeed offer a meaningful ROI or transform care. And likely the McKessons and Ingenixes will look to buy many of these smaller companies so they can sell more into their existing base. I wonder if over the next few years the number of individual HIMSS exhibitors actually declines.

I am now home and thanking my lucky stars that I don’t travel for a living. The Orlando airport was a zoo and it took me almost 30 minutes to go through security. While sitting at my gate, a couple guys (clearly vendors) were remarking that it looks like the economy has finally turned around, based on the heavy interest they saw this week. Maybe, maybe not, but that’s a pleasant thought to end the week.

 E-mail Inga.

Overheard HIStalkapalooza Comments
By Evan Frankel,  MD-IT (roving reporter wearing a memorable jacket)

Jonathan Bush:  “You can only interview me if you buy me a cigar. It is principled.”

DrLyle: “I can’t believe that people aren’t asking more questions. For smart people, they accept way too much.”

Dr. Gregg Alexander: “I have heard about college savings funds for children. I don’t have one.”

Dr. Christ Pavlatos: “The shiny and flashing buttons are lovely. As a trained medical doctor, a seizure episode could result from focusing too much on the flashing lights. I would think that the person that causes the seizure is required to resuscitate them — it’s only fair. The buttons are all conveniently located in the cardiopulmonary level, which is easy to focus too much eye attention on.”

Bill Fera, Ernst & Young: “Are you an HIStalker?”
Evan: “I am here, aren’t I?”
Bill: “Are you Mr H?”
Evan: “Nope, I am just a schmuck in a velvet jacket.”
Bill: “That you are. Baba Booey.”

Louann Whittenburg, Medicomp: “I love your coat. Is that velvet?”
Evan: “It is.”
Louann: “We are going to have fun tonight. I am very excited for people to get inside and start to drink, dance, and have a good time.”
Evan: "Me, too."
Louann: "I think your coat is awesome. It is perfect for this party."

Jonathan Bush: “I gotta be honest, I don’t actually read HIStalk. I have other people read it and I say, ‘What did it say?’ and then I am like, ‘Oh.’”

Jonathan Bush: “I did not know that Mr H takes the quotes verbatim from our conversations, and so I say all kinds of shit and I am expecting a lot of conversation back and forth between our PR guy and Mr H. on what he’ll actually  put up there. I mean, shame on me. It has happened more than once.”

Jonathan Bush: “We can’t predict anything. We don’t even know what Stage 2 Meaningful Use looks like. Do you think the ‘e’ at the end of Crowne makes it fancy?”

DrLyle: “I went to Washington and started asking them the tough questions. They don’t want to hear it. There is no easy answer to hard problems sometimes.”

Jonathan Bush: “I wouldn’t do anything that is resident on one device, iPad or otherwise. Make millions of little apps. The biggest growth prospect in healthcare is the little app. We want to drive business through our ecosystem where you do the R&D. You make hundreds of them and the one people all really like is the one that pays for all of the rest. Even if we grew our R&D department 30% each year we wouldn’t be able build all of the apps you can. Be agile, get them out there, get in front of the doctor. You just got the first interview on the athenahealth ecosystem. You kids take this stuff and go and make apps and make money. I don’t care. I can’t make it all and everyone else sucks. Figure out the APIs and then go build something cool.”

Dr. Amanda Heidemann: “It is great to see all these well-dressed people out for the night. I think it is hysterical how many people follow the blog and wanted to come to this party. Did you stop on the red carpet? I was so nervous. Can you go get me another glass of wine?”

Mrs. John (Denise) Glaser: “I think he (John) takes in all in stride. I mean, he is here. I actually believe John has a lot of respect for Jonathan Bush. It looks like you all are having a lot of fun. I like your jacket a lot.”

Jasmine Gee, athenahealth: “I am having a blast tonight. I think this is the most fun you can have at a conference. Why aren’t you dancing?”

Ash Gupta and Jonathan Baran of Healthfinch: “I am very happy to meet you, this is a real honor.” (they were talking about meeting Jonathan Bush and interrupting my private cigar and beer time with him. I wish they had said that about me.)

From HIMSS 2/23/11

From JJ Canuck: “Re: Oracle. I was visiting the Oracle booth (was trying to figure out their integration engine story … which is ‘coming out.’) The sales guy said they will announce a ‘big deal’ in the next week or so about a partnership with a ‘big vendor’ that will provide badly needed HIE capabilities and some other vague set of features. When I asked if it was Cerner, he just smiled, giving me the indication that I had made a good guess. Sore feet and off to Universal for the last wonkfest. Maybe I’ll throw-up that $9 bean burrito I had at lunch on the roller coaster with Neal Patterson sitting behind me. Daydreamin’.” You remind me that I forgot to complain about predatory convention center food pricing: a soda out of the machine was $3.25, a chicken salad sandwich was $9, and a banana was $3. That last one’s especially maddening since I buy a big bunch of them at Sam’s for half that amount.

From Jay: “Re: best marketing tee shirt ever. From backup vendor Mozy’s booth at HIMSS.” It’s a bit of a stretch, but almost funny. I tried their service a few months back and it was a pig on my PC, so I removed it and went with SugarSync.

From Andrea: “Re: HIStalk. LOVE LOVE HIStalk, you, and Inga. How would a small biz like us (VAR) compete with the big bad vendors unless we had inside dirt on them? Keep up the fantastic work and have fun at HIMSS!” Thanks — we love you right back.

From Fred: “Re: Meditech. Announced on Saturday that they would be getting modular or near modular certification for their HIS software. They reported that it just required some paperwork and would be completed soon.” I’ll mark this as Unverified since I was given related information off the record a couple of weeks ago.

From Leotards: “Re: Noteworthy. That’s a snarky comment made by an underperforming mid-level manager or sales rep no longer with CompuGroup Medical, I presume. Rick Mullins is gone; there’s been quite the shakeup of the existing C-suite amongst all the companies CompuGroup Medical US is merging into a single entity. Supernumerary chiefs of all stripes are being relieved of their individual fiefdoms as NoteWorthy,Healthport, Visionary HealthWare and Antek HealthWare are all subsumed by CompuGroup. Sweeping positive changes have been instituted, our flagship products are being strengthened and developed, and all this accomplished without sending out huge swaths of pink slips as sometimes happens with these acquisitions. I’m just a field rep in the trenches, but I’m quite pleased to now be part of CompuGroup Medical.” Unverified.

From J.B.: “Re: Meditech. The Meditech/LSS deal is finalized. They still haven’t straightened out any arrangements of staff, but LSS is still going to be called LSS.  It is now a ‘wholly owned subsidiary’ of Meditech.” Verified – Meditech has posted the news on their site.

From Dichotomy: “Re: HIStalkapalooza and sponsor lunch. You have to repeat these in Las Vegas! It was really great meeting together.” We’ll see how it goes, but I would definitely like to do both again. It was really nice (but nerve-wracking, especially for Inga) to briefly say hello to our sponsors and for me to be flanked by those lovely and whip-smart (but suddenly mute) ladies. Since I almost never see actual HIStalk readers in person, I asked for a show of hands of how many people felt they knew Inga, Dr. Jayne, and me personally even though we haven’t met. A surprising number of hands (a majority, I’d say, maybe more than that) went up. That was gratifying since we definitely feel connected to our readers and sponsors whether we’ve met them or not. I’m glad that comes across.

From Tech Doc: “Re: innovation. Saw Napochi at HIT X.0 Geeks Got Talent on Monday. Showed a 3D body module of their EMR used to map IVs and such which integrates with their flowsheet and physician note. Didn’t find a booth, but their website has a video of them demoing a touchscreen whiteboard replacement. Pretty neat stuff.”

From Kate the Sponsor: “Re: HIStalk. I just wanted to say thank you for the wonderful events at HIMSS! I really appreciate what you both do. HIStalkapalooza was a blast, loved the venue. I got there a little late, however, and missed the awards – are you going to post the full awards section on the site? I did see the highlights in the video Inga posted which were great. I’m sorry I missed the hilarious red carpet commentators — I felt like I was watching E! I also really enjoyed the sponsor lunch yesterday. It was great to break bread with fellow HIStalk fans and sponsors, but really the true highlight was having the three of you make an appearance. And, Inga, the handwritten thank you notes were so sweet. That must have really tired your hand out to write all those yourself, but the personal touch was really special. Thanks again for all you do for the industry, looking forward to next year!” Thanks for those nice words. I’ll get the HISsies list up when I get back to the comfort of a full-sized keyboard and dual monitors since there’s a lot of typing involved. I hope the lunch attendees whose notes were written by me (Inga and I split them) could read them since my handwriting is pretty bad. I said there that we are proud to be amateurish and my handwriting is a testimonial to sincerity backed by a total lack of polish.

From Suzanne: “Re: HIStalk. No doubt you are inundated with work, e-mails and miles and miles of walking this week, but I just wanted to send you a quick note to thank you for a great lunch today (and great party last night). We are thrilled to be new HIStalk sponsors – and not just because of free food and drinks! As a small, newcomer vendor in a tiny 10×10 booth at the far end of the hall and among the ocean of booths at HIMSS, it has quite literally been amazing how many people have come up to us, saying they have specifically sought us out.  When we ask how they have heard about us, many have said through HIStalk. I was a little skeptical of advertising on HIStalk at first, thinking that the majority of readers may be vendor types, but that is clearly not the case.” Thanks – you are too sweet. We won’t recommend a product we haven’t used ourselves, but we will get readers the information they need to allow them to qualify their own interest. I’m happy we can do that since it benefits both vendor and prospect. According to the survey I just finished, 83.4% of HIStalk readers say they have a higher level of interest in companies we’ve written about. That’s flat out amazing and we don’t take that responsibility lightly.

For me and many/most attendees, the HIMSS conference is over. Maybe you’ll see Michael J. Fox flying into MCO as you are flying out since he gets to speak to the few folks sticking around for Thursday sessions.

Tomorrow is traveling home day, and while I’ve really enjoyed being here, I’ll be even happier to get back to my familiar routine, PC, and wife. A ton of people were sitting in the grassy area outside the Lobby C area of the convention center this afternoon. It looked like a capitalist Woodstock as attendees in suits sprawled awkwardly in the grass (I saw one guy fully face down on the lawn, suit and all, reading a book). I bet most of the impromptu sunbathers were heading back to snow and gloom and figured they’d better get sun now or else wait a couple of months for it to find its way back to them. 

The weather was good today — it’s a perfect and breezy 78 as I write this close to sundown and kids are having a ball in the pool right outside my window. Walking back to my hotel, I could smell wood smoke from a steakhouse, blooming flowers, and a little tang of ocean salt in the air. For most folks going home, they’re going to be smelling smoke from the fireplace, flower-scented air fresheners in closed and airless rooms, and salt from the treated roadways. No wonder people like to vacation here, even though Orlando is culturally bankrupt, jammed with traffic, and filled with people who’ve lived her for decades and yet won’t quit calling New York and Ohio “home.” Those are issues that only the locals care about.

I’m behind on e-mails from the traveling, the conference, and our events, so bear with me as I try to catch up this weekend. I think people sometimes forget that it’s just me on the other end and I’m working a lot of hours.

Here’s the bad news for all you folks (including me) who are proudly taking new iPads home won as prizes this week: the iPad 2 comes out next week, so that new one you bagged this week is already obsolete even before you even get to strut it in front of your admiring families. Doh!

I got some e-mails from execs of some of the vendors I mentioned yesterday as ignoring my “I’d like a demo” booth body language to give them a second chance. I did so today, with mostly the same results. I should mention, however, that my title and hospital name on my badge wouldn’t necessarily make me a likely candidate, although the small font size makes it unlikely that they ignored me for that reason. Today was the last exhibit day and nobody was paying much attention to those of us still roaming the exhibits late into the afternoon. Mostly I saw reps talking on the phone or sitting together in their couch / table areas making dinner plans or cursing as they spoke animatedly among themselves (I’ve noted that young, male sales reps seem to curse a lot in each other’s company – it’s like using profane emoticons).

And speaking of that, I also do not identify myself to vendors, even those I exchange e-mails with or those who tell me to ask for the CEO or other executive personally. I’m a mystery shopper – I want to be treated exactly the same as anybody else (or as me in my day job role).

Our King and Queen judge Greg Wilson from Salar got this picture today with John Templin and his long string of badge ribbons. I’m not sure Greg knows the history – John does this every year, usually as he’s trying to raise money for the HIMSS Foundation. You saw him on stage this morning as the keynote started.

A CapSite survey finds that 23% of hospitals plan to use consulting help to get their clinical systems up and running.

Franciscan Alliance will roll out Epic at its 13 hospitals and 165 practices. The cost: more than $100 million over the next two years.

UK Healthcare will implement Allscripts EHR/PM and integrate it with a new version of its Sunrise inpatient EHR.

Jordan Hospital (MA) lays off four managers (IT, quality, pharmacy, and diagnostic services) and VP/CIO Dennis Fonseca.

New PatientKeeper CPOE customer: Madison Memorial Hospital (ID). Going live on the same product: Ashe Memorial Hospital (NC).

CollaborativeCARE Conference signs a deal to bring in HIMSS to run a one-day education program during its first conference this coming November.

 

Wednesday Keynotes – Kathleen Sebelius (HHS secretary) and David Blumenthal (national coordinator)

• I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to Steve Lieber’s spiked-up hair, which I noted as he read a suck-up HIMSS proclamation honoring Kathleen Sebelius for taking money away from taxpayers and giving it to much richer vendors and doctors.
• It’s a given: everyone in politics and government will always publicly praise their wise, hard-working, and selfless bosses (Sebelius-Obama, Blumenthal-Sebelius).
• Sebelius said that of 231 vendors of certified products, 2/3 of them have fewer than 50 employees, and “any one of them could be the next Google or Microsoft.” Really? With 230 competitors and few takers for most of them until the Cash for Clunkers EMR program came along? Maybe she meant the next Google Health or Microsoft HealthVault.
• She talked about the country’s health. I’d still argue that EMRs just make the treatment episodes arguably more efficient. It’s what people do when they’re not sitting in front of a provider that’s expensive. Someone should create a business model for wellness and population health. She didn’t mention any of those things.
• She said you can’t just advocate the technology – you must advocate an improved healthcare system.
• She lauded Blumenthal’s “doctor perspective” (he supposedly still sees the occasional patient, although he’s had muckety-muck Harvard jobs for so long it would be interesting to see how many and how well).
• Blumenthal was a pretty good speaker, just a bit quiet and monotonic and very careful with his words (I actually liked his style). He said he was naïve about what could be accomplished at last year’s HIMSS conference.
• He said 21,300 providers have signed up as Meaningful Users and $20 million has been paid out under Medicaid. The Medicare payments will start in May.
• He said the timetable for Stage 2 will be challenging, but reasonable and achievable.
• He cited 62 Regional Extension Centers enrolling 6,000 providers each week.
• He said that colleges have trained 3,400 people in HIT and the goal is 10,000 per year.
• “HIE is a team sport that requires local coaches.”
• He said the system was deficient in quality measures, population health, clinical decision support, and interoperability.

Exhibit Hall and Session Notes

• A reader asked me to check out Lawson. They were pitching ACO support, Cloverleaf, scheduling, HR management, and ERP. Their booth was pretty dead, but it was a bit early. They had coffee and popcorn. The booth looked nice (curvy yellow sofas and quiet demo areas) and the wall posters made it clear they have a lot of products. I can’t say I had a reaction either way.
• Another reader asked me to stop by Candelis Astra, which offers some kind of workflow cloud solution stuff for radiology and images. That’s all I know because of the five reps in the booth, two were on their phones and the other three were sitting around a table deep in their own conversation. One did pop around the corner and ask if I wanted a demo, but I was committed to walking away at that point. Still, they did ask, so I give them credit for that – I was just being stubborn.
• I dropped by Clairvia and still didn’t get much attention, but the over-the-shoulder demo I watched looked really strong and a big competitor admitted that when it comes to clinical scheduling and acuity, Clairvia is better. It’s a slick-looking product.
• I talked to one vendor’s rent-a-booth-babe. She says she likes HIMSS because it’s conservative. I asked what that meant and her answer was basically that this week’s vendor-employer didn’t make her come in nearly naked. Apparently vendors often do.
• The OnBase magic guy is the best ever. Not only is he funny and really good at riffing (“Step closer, the trolley is coming … I just saved  your life, dude”), he even knew a lot of product stuff, like when someone from HP was there and he knew details of OnBase’s partnership with them. I keep thinking maybe he’s an employee who just happens to know magic, but if so, he’s darned good.
• NCR had their HIStalk sign out. I played with their wayfinding kiosk and it was cool. The rep played me perfectly, letting me poke around while offering just enough conversation to make me feel engaged
• A reader asked me to find out what Epic’s Canto runs on. It’s iPad-only, the rep told me. I have to say those Epic kids are really pleasant and helpful.
• I like the big sign on Healthland’s booth: “We’re not for everyone – bringing a certified EHR to rural hospitals.” Bravo – how many companies would just leave it wide open in the hopes that Cleveland Clinic or someone like them might get fooled into buying it? I admire helping prospects qualify themselves. Well done.
• Orchestrate had their HIStalk sign out – thanks! I saw President Charlie Cook there.
• I looked over someone’s shoulder at Shareable Ink and it seemed pretty cool, but I didn’t really get to see any of the form-filling part, just the end result.
• A reader (or maybe it was the vendor – I forget) asked me to drop by Proxense, which does proximity-based security, I think. I’m guessing because the rep said hello and nothing else, so I did the same. I checked out their Web site and it’s not very well designed (note the hover text  over the Sales menu item that says “some sort of tagline about sales.”) and makes it hard to figure out what they do. They’re probably engineers from the looks of things.
• I stopped by HT Systems/PatientSecure several times and was anxious to see their palm biometrics in action, but that didn’t happen. There was some other company’s business development guy hogging their time (talking rather than listening). I think I would have saved that conversation for non-exhibit hours if I were him and if I were the company, I’d have some video or something since it’s a highly visual product and a conversation-starter (or so I assume, not having seen it). I’m pretty sure it’s cool.
• I watched a theatre presentation of Nuance’s new Healthcare Development Platform. It sounded interesting: products connect via HTTPS to Nuance to run speech recognition (support provided for iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch OS, Windows Mobile, and any browser). Five lines of code turns a text box into a speech recognition field that then runs its Clinical Language Understanding to extract structured data and map it. They’re offering a free 90-day developer’s license when it goes out of beta in March or April.
• The only good educational session I attended during the entire conference was today, a really good one on medication barcoding. It’s what you always hope for but rarely get at HIMSS – one guy describing in super-concentrated form all the problems his hospital solved when rolling out medication barcoding. I’ve never seen a session that was so meaty, full of real-life pearls, and pleasant to watch. The pocket guide says only Session 165, Still. Whoever Still is, kudos. No self-indulgent posturing, no fluff, no teasing in the hopes you’ll hire him or his company to finish the story – just really good experience shared. People actually clapped and meant it and the audience questions, instead of the usual droning pontificating, were insightful and on point. My faith in humanity was restored.
• A reader asked me to check out Success EHS, a Birmingham-based PM/EMR vendor. Like almost all Southern vendors, they were very nice and friendly. The product didn’t look all that much different than other EMRs, but it does run the MEDCIN engine and it had a cool Meaningful Use dashboard that shows real-time stats on how individual docs or groups are doing in hitting their numbers. Most impressive is that they charged nothing for that module or any of their Meaningful Use upgrades. I mentioned that I’d won an iPad and the young lady rushed off to give me a super-nice case for it, saying, “I bet you didn’t win one of these.”
• I dropped by former sponsor Apelon thinking I could find a few nuggets to mention just to be nice, but they didn’t have much to say.
• A pretty cool guy from Software AG skillfully pulled me from flowing exhibit traffic to chat. They’re the company giving away the electric guitar that Inga was bragging on playing. They have a rules-based SOA integration platform that can monitor streams of data and do trending and alerting. It’s a platform aimed at vendors and technically astute hospitals and I didn’t understand all of it, but they gave me a couple of cool books that I’m going to read: Process Intelligence for Dummies and SOA Adoption for Dummies.
• Siemens roped me into a five-minute 3D demo of Soarian that was a complete waste of time (and maybe not even a demo since I don’t recall seeing actual screens). The glasses were kind of cool, but the only 3D effects were some lists and video clips that looked like they were floating and the guy narrating live was a bit too over the top for me. It also seemed to be of the “we suck less than before” variety, proudly listing #2 in one category, “improving” in another, etc. I would have worked harder on the message and less on the medium.
• The best thing I saw all conference was Medicomp’s Quippe (pronounced “quip”, by the way), which I checked out only because Inga, Dr. Gregg, and Dr. Jayne were all raving about it and I figured I was the guy to neutralize the Kool-Aid (or IngaTinis) they’d obviously been given. Didn’t happen: it was way cooler than they said. It’s really iPad optimized, allowing dragging templates over to the work space, supporting insertion of pictures with a variety of annotation tools, and some proprietary gestures that are really cool. For example: drag on a vital signs table, write 101.5 with your fingertip on any blank part of the screen, draw a little L over the temperature field, and your 101.5 is instantly converted to text and dropped into the box (or you can use the on-screen keyboard if you’d rather). I don’t know much about ambulatory systems, but what impressed me most is that when you choose a given symptom, tabs open up unobtrusively that show previous encounters for that patient in which those same symptoms were reported. It’s just a very dynamic, fluid app that really wouldn’t work as well on a non-tablet platform. I’ll not call it a “game changer” since my cohorts have overused that phrase when referring to it, but I’ll call it as ingenious and as physician-friendly as anything I’ve ever seen. I saw another vendor’s implementation of the current MEDCIN engine and it was nice, but not in the same league (that vendor confided that they can’t wait to get their hands on Quippe to add it to their product).

E-mail me.

HERtalk by Inga

From The HIStalk Queen: “Re: HIStalk queen contest. My name is Janet Skinner from Skinner and Associates Executive Search and thank you! I won the HIStalk Queen contest and I wanted to thank you very much for the nice IPod Touch prize! Wanted to thank Dave Lareau and Medicomp for a fantastic party! Fun idea to include the shoe contest (what woman doesn’t love shoes?!) and the IngaTinis were fantastic, as you warned they would be. I must have had more than one if I pulled off winning the queen contest, but I think the group I was sitting with had a few too many IngaTinis of their own and their loud cheering tipped the scales in my favor. Would love to see the Histalkapolooza an annual event, great fun… and again, thanks so much for inviting us!” Hard to believe this was our fourth HIStalk party (though the first HIStalkapalooza).

Bill Fera, MD, of E and Y was our HIStalk King.

From Your Fan: “Re: Red Carpet Gals. The red carpet greeters are my CEO Jennifer Lyle and account manager Kara Heward of Software Testing Solutions. As a matter of fact, Jennifer won the Inga Loves My Shoes sash last year and still proudly displays it in her office. They had a fantastic time with the HIStalk readers who were great sports and the Medicomp men in the tuxes would have made Stacy & Clinton proud! We’re glad you had a great time and can’t wait to join you next year.”

The only way our shoe judge Lindsey of RelayHealth could have been more cute here was if she’d had more sleep Monday night and if you could have seen her gorgeous shoes.

Kronos: seriously, at least 100 people were in line trying to win one of the five iPads. I feel badly that I won one seeing how many people would have liked to win.

I shared a cab with the NextGen artist guys!

Assessments for the day:

• BlueCat: girls in cat woman suits. Really? I suppose they really looked fabulous and I am only jealous that I can’t pull it off like they could.
• David Blumenthal: watching paint dry probably could have been more exciting than listening to him as a keynote speaker.
• Meanwhile, Katherine Sebelius (who I swear was wearing the same suit as she does in all her head shots) was explaining to HIT professionals what healthcare reform and ARRA meant. Really? The place was packed and some folks had to watch on closed-circuit TV from the hallway.
• Thank you MEDecision for the Starbucks coffee. It was worth the 20-minute wait in line just to overhear Practice Fusion CMIO Robert brag that the company now has 70,000 users.
• The OnBase heckler was pretty good. He called out the “lady in pink” to come over and hear his deal. Very fun.
• IDS: good job and giving me the one-minute pitch you do.
• Pulse guy (who just started shaving last week): ask who your audience is before you start explaining why buying an EMR today is important. Most of us already are pretty familiar with Meaningful Use.
• From one very smart CEO: I figured out how much it cost us per hour to have people here and it is about $7,000. They better be standing on the corner of the booths trying to sell and not checking messages on their smart phones. Good advice that a lot of vendors should have heeded, including some that I kind of wanted to check out. Like CattailsMD, Azzly (the second time I came around), Wavelink, and a dozens of others.
• Thank you, Sage guy, for showing Health Unity. Yes, I noticed you looking at my shoes because you suspected I might be Inga. Integration is not all there yet (those blue screen errors are a dead giveaway) but the embedded integration will be cool.
• George at Sophos: I couldn’t pronounce your sexy Greek last name, but you were adorable.
• I loved the fondue at EDS. Wish more exhibitors (like Meaningful Use Monitor) had bottled water.
• Ingenious Medical: nothing like having a cute girl wearing high heeled blacked boots to bring in the crowd. Definitely not practical for a three-day show, but who the heck cares?

So much more to say, but Mr. H is ready to post. I will do my best to read my cryptic notes and share more tomorrow.

E-mail Inga.

EPtalk by Dr. Jayne

And now the end of HIMSS11 is upon us. I was surprised to see the exhibit hall as full as it was today. Usually by this point, folks are losing stamina, but at least around the noon hour there was still a veritable sea of navy blazers. I did see several ladies sporting running shoes with their suits, and although I stuck it out in the comfy yet stylish heels, I was a bit jealous.

I also saw quite a few people sporting the bright yellow clog slippers given out by ChipSoft. I stopped by to try to get a pair to mail to Inga as a gag gift, but was turned away empty-handed by the less-than-pleasant rep.

Several of you e-mailed over the past couple of days with thoughts on booths I should visit. I’m sorry I couldn’t get to them all. I gave preference to those that had a hook for why physicians would benefit from their products vs. those that just said, “Hey Jayne will you make an appointment with us?” It’s hard to make appointments when one is anonymous.

I ran into an old friend of mine, Vendor Boy, and asked him, as a veteran, what was the best thing he saw at the show. First place: the Epic booth. Second place: the kilt girls.

I agree with what Mr. H said yesterday. Many of the reps seemed tired and/or bored and some didn’t seem to care whether I was interested in talking about their products or not. I would have thought that with the badge scanners and RFID tracking there should have been some kind of “CMIO with purchasing and decision-making authority” alert like a Bat-Signal in the sky that could have shocked them back into action, but alas, several flat-lined. However, there were notable exceptions:

• OnBase, which does document management. With their sports bar theme, they were happy to tell me about their solutions. Our friendly bartender/rep was happy to show an iPad app that I didn’t see yesterday, which allowed quick on-screen approval of documents including annotation.
• Sage, which had a better showing today than when I tried to visit on Monday to see their new HIE solution.
• NCR, which was giving away autographed copies of the Newt Gingrich book Paper Kills 2.0 as a special HIStalk reader perk.
• Up to Date, which tried valiantly to entertain me while I waited to talk to a specific rep who I heard had a great story to tell, although I got pulled away and never did get to meet him.

I visited the 3M booth several times to try to find out about the new mobile app they told Mr. H they were launching. The people I talked to didn’t seem to know what I was talking about, but they did tell me about their coding support product that uses natural language processing to trigger patient care alerts from dictated text in EHR. Since I’ve seen a lot of care coordinators being let go recently (which seems short-sighted with Accountable Care breathing down our necks) that might be handy, but if that was supposed to be the mobile app, I’m not sure how mobile it was.

Personally I haven’t had good luck with the voice recognition software for mobile devices and most of our hospitals still use traditional dictation systems, so it’s not like the doctors are dictating daily notes directly into the system as they round.

TeraMedica had the guys in the colonial outfits with the tri-corner hats again today. Not sure how that plays with data migration, but they looked like they were having a better time than the ones who were in the booth on Monday.

I gave them a couple of days to spiff up, but Alcatel-Lucent still hadn’t ironed the white coats of the faux clinicians gracing their booth.

Emdeon awarded the iPad from their HIStalk reader-only drawing. The winner was very excited and even sent me a photo of the cute gift bag they packed it in. I’m always happy when someone goes beyond the expected, and delivering to the winner in style is much appreciated.

Props to the Hilton who accommodated my late check-out request and even smiled while doing it, allowing me to spend precious minutes poolside before I head back to the sleet and freezing rain that is surely covering my car. Maybe they could drive me home in this.

That’s a wrap for HIMSS11. See you next year in Vegas, baby!

E-mail Dr. Jayne.

Dr. Gregg Goes to HIMSS
By Gregg Alexander

“It’s late and I have a huge headache (no, I don’t drink, so it’s not a HIStalkapalooza leftover,) so I hope my observations come through better than they feel through the throbbing behind my eyeballs.”

OK, that’s how my post for Monday night would have started if I had not somehow hit “Minimize” instead of “Send.” I awoke Tuesday morning wondering why my post was absent and found that the headache cloud had somehow short-circuited me more than I knew.

So now it’s about 1:00 AM on Wednesday morning and I have just gotten back to snow-covered Ohio (I have a practice to run) and out of my HIMSS suit. I see Mr. H, Inga, and Doc Jayne have already posted for the night while I was traveling, so I’ve again missed out. (Sigh.)

So, this’ll be a mishmash of Monday/Tuesday and since I’m not, as I’ve said, a real reporter, I hope you’ll forgive my mark-missing tardiness.

MONDAY

HIStalkapalooza was a ball! Mr. H and Medicomp built upon the great groundwork laid last year by Ivo Nelson and Encore with the friendly venue, excellent food, free drinks, and a rockin’ venue. The red carpet entry, the HIStalk limo rolling up and down, and the Batman-sign-esque HIStalk light on the wall across from BB King’s set a superb tone for J. Bush, Dave Lareau, John Glaser, and the Insomniacs to rock the house all the way out. (Seriously, the red carpet entry and the gorgeous and funny red carpet interviewer ladies would have made even Billy Bush proud.)

The HIMSS opening session left me sort of … well, I actually left it, so I suppose that tells you how much I felt I was gaining. The typical HIMSS HIT rock show multimedia wasn’t enough to make the retread of “look how much we’re doing for the world of healthcare” seem worth enduring … again.

The 1,000-plus exhibitors made it appear that the economic downturn is over, at least in the HIMSS-associated halls. Exhibits stretched for what seems like a mile and from floor to ceiling. In fact, with so many vendors flying banners, signs, and rotating “come-see-mes” from the exhibit hall rafters, they all sort of drown each other out and it makes it seem like less of a good idea. I mean, if it doesn’t help people see where you are from across the vast exhibit hall stretches, is it still a helpful way finder device?

I got to enjoy many great conversations with tons of vendors and noticed one really impressive thing throughout: not once, not one single time did any one of them mention Meaningful Use during any of the conversations. It is possible my ears have started to become numb to it, but I’m pretty sure none brought it up. Not exactly sure what that implies, but I did enjoy the respite.

Loved the MED3000 demo of their incorporation of Medicomp’s Quippe tool. Providers – if you haven’t seen it, you should absolutely make the effort to check it out at either MED3000, Pulse, or especially the Medicomp booth where you might actually have a chance to walk away with a free version of it on a free iPad. I think it is perhaps the first, honest-to-goodness game changer (I see where Inga used this same term in her Tuesday night post) in the world of HIT to come down the pike since Larry Weed. Indeed, Dr. Jay Andres at MED3000 told me every single provider he’d shown it to had all made the exact same queries after seeing it: 1) How soon can I get it? and 2) Is it really as easy as it looks here?

RemitDATA has become a big HIMSS sponsor and has a pretty cool offering (at a GREAT price point) to help docs evaluate the financial side of their practices. Sort of athenaCollector-ish, but from multiple data capture sources.

Thomson Reuters is working on some great stuff for health education (and more) and also has some of the nicest people!

Soapware’s Randall Oates has a great new approach to the medical scribe concept: the Medical Coordinator. The MC sits in another room and listens in to a patient-provider visit, capturing the data and coordinating associated care management issues. No in-the-room intrusion and the provider can focus 100% of the patient. Now, that’s attractive … I am going to look deeper into this one.

athenahealth always has such a fun crew at their booth. Jonathan Bush was holding court (I got an short audience) in the central couch pit. It was just too much fun watching the procession of folks flowing in and out and the antics of the inimitable JB.

I’ve more, but my head has gone from throb to cannon fire…more HIMSS views tomorrow.

TUESDAY

Despite his humble protestations, Mr. H did a FANTASTIC job with the oratory when he, Inga, and Dr. Jayne made their first ever live-and-in-person show at the HIStalk sponsors’ lunch Tuesday and Maggiano’s. Inga’s boots were incredible and you could even see her just beaming, even through the surgical mask. They say they were Nervous Nellies, but they must cover well because it didn’t show. There was an absolutely incredible turnout with an amazing assortment of vendor bigwigs from all about the HIT world. A few glitches with food service aside, I think they did a knockout job. Mr. H and Inga even hand-wrote personal messages on thank you cards to each of the attendees and I overheard many comments on how nice or how funny the remarks were. All I can say is if you were invited and didn’t make it by, you missed out.

I had a sit-down with Dana Sellers of Encore. She is just as delightful to talk with as Ivo. I love their corporate philosophy and, especially, their slogan of “100% Referenceability.” Make your clients happy – all of them, all of the time. High standards, but their growth and abilities to attract and keep quality IT folks in the current market when those peeps are getting hard to find seems to add validity to their approach.

GE Centricity Advance is now shooting for docs in my neck of the woods (small practices). They seem to have learned some good stuff since I last looked at Centricity and their Mobile version, which is coming in Q2, appears to build even further upon those lessons. (Honestly, I never liked the look of Centricity, but the new Advance and Mobile stuff … much better.)

The trick shots on the pool table at the Iatric booth were very cool.

Ingenix says they’re now looking to thicken the relationships that have spread out so much in their recent buying frenzy. The buying may continue (as it will across the whole HIT market, eh?) but they want those thin ties to strengthen as they work to establish more “integrationability” (my word) across their many arms. Expect some rebranding soon. I like their stated open-to-sharing mindset.

Thomson Reuters has some really cool clinical decision support tools out or coming for physicians, pharmacies, infection control, pediatrics, and more which all benefit from the “same source of truth.” (I like that line.)

MEDHOST touchscreen tools and floor plans for EDs are not in my every day realm, but I really liked how they look and feel.

The Man & Machine waterproof keyboards and mice demo with waterfalls running over these tools was simple, slick, and effective. Contagion control is as, if not more, vital than data capture, I would wager to say.

Onyx and Stinger Medical had some really cool-looking carts and display tools for hospitals that just looked smart.

I felt like Maxwell Smart in the Unity Medical “cone of silence.” I want one.

Lastly, I noted how irritated I kept feeling as I tried to take in as much as I could in my limited window of time at HIMSS. Then, a quick calculation helped me realize it was a “setup for failure” kind of event. With somewhere around 1,000 vendors, if you only spent one minute with each, it’d still take over 16.6 hours to see all there was to see. And, that doesn’t even include the Interoperability Showcase, the education sessions, assorted keynotes, or bathroom breaks.

What a show.

E-mail Gregg.

From HIMSS 2/22/11

From Another CIO: “Re: VIP lines. My title is CIO, but it isn’t worth the ink to print it if all of our staff aren’t working together to accomplish everything that needs to get done.  To this end, I am literally embarrassed to hear about a ‘VIP Line’ at the HIMSS conference and wouldn’t be caught dead in one.” I’m sure HIMSS rationalizes its VIP treatment of CIOs by citing the vendor bucks chipped in to provide them with closed-session speakers, food, break rooms, and other perks. It also used to bug me that there was always an area where vendors could book time with HIMSS-pimped CIOs if they were willing to pay the CIOs cash for a ‘briefing’ (i.e., I’ll pay you to listen to my sales pitch). I suppose their other excuse is that it’s even worse than that at CHIME but  nobody’s complaining because non-CIOs aren’t invited there. Some hospitals have strict policies against executives accepting vendor gifts (“touch that vendor demo bagel and you’re fired”) but the rules doesn’t seem to extend off campus.

From All Hat No Cattle: “Re: Marc Overhage of Regenstrief. Resigning and going to Siemens. We received the announcement earlier this week and had an emergency medical informatics faculty meeting yesterday. Bill Tierney is taking much more of a leadership position initially and the search committee for the next leader of Regenstrief Medical Informatics has been formed.  He is fast tracking this search and we still hope that the next Chair of my department will also be a high level medical informatician.” Apparently verified, at least according to people who said they saw Marc wearing a Siemens badge at HIMSS.

From Florida Flash: “Re: Noteworthy Medical Systems. Continues cratering. Rick Mullins is now the former president and CEO. I guess the bright idea of getting rid of all the sales force, using a lead gen company, and then hiring salespeople back to work the leads didn’t work too well.” Unverified. Rick Mullins is still listed on the executive roster. I should have asked the folks in the CompuGROUP booth today when I was checking them out since they own the company.

From Digger: “Re: ONC. It was asked in the physician symposium what would happen if docs just sit on the EMR sideline until penalties kick in, and then either retire or stop seeing Medicare patients. ONC gave a politician’s non-answer.” It’s a fair question – there is a built-in assumption that doctors will voluntarily give up money rather than opting out of Medicare or hanging up their stethoscope. I overheard someone’s recommendation about shifting value of EMRs back toward the provider and away from the insurance companies: charge patients a $5 per visit surcharge and build a marketing plan around explaining to patients why that’s a good value. I also had another reaction: if doctors had any kind of pricing power, maybe the EMR burden would be lessened since they could charge more to cover their lost productivity. I still like the model of paying them to contribute their data for others to use, which would provide incentive for them to choose whatever product best meets their needs and implement it in a way that optimizes those contributions of patient information. If you were paid X dollars for a contributed H&P or other data set, Uncle wouldn’t need to be in the EMR bribes business.

From Zensocrates: “Re: Allscripts. Encouraging votes for Stephanie Reel is funny given JHM is negotiating with Epic to replace SunriseXA.” Unverified, but commonly known, I think.

From InfoNurse: “Re: HIMSS. Is that Elvis! No, that’s Neal Patterson! By golly, he’s coming to HIMSS11 on Wednesday. Just a walk-through after the lovers’ quarrel and breakup with HIMSS in San Diego. Must be coming to get the pie.” Cerner was a little shifty in mentioning a HIMSS booth number, but it was actually in the IHE section and not a real Cerner booth on the regular exhibit floor. Someone told me Cerner has a room in the convention center, though. I think I knew that vendors can book rooms out of the public eye to entertain right in the convention center. Speaking of The Pie, Neal did win again and I need to post the other HISsie winners, but I may do that when I get back home where I’ve got a more comfortable keyboard.

From Jay: “Re: AHDI/CDIA. CEO Peter Preziosi resigns.” They say they’ll miss him “sorely” and the announcement is gushy in general, so it sounds like it was his choice. The former Medical Transcription Industry Association just rechristened itself as the Clinical Documentation Industry Association.

From Mobile CMIO: “Re: Epic Canto. I have a working sample of the iPad app. Even though it is version 1.0, it is fast, great interface, and embedded dictation tool. I expect this to be quickly and enthusiastically adopted by our medical staff when we go live.” I mentioned Canto yesterday when I saw a poster for it on the outside wall of Epic’s booth.

The big acquisition announcement of the conference so far: Harris Corporation will buy identity management and integration vendor Carefx for $155 million. Obviously Harris wants more of the healthcare IT market than just its government and military business. The deal must have been struck awhile back since the Carefx booth had printed Harris information today that wasn’t an obvious last-minute add on.

Our other rumor was correct: TriZetto will acquire revenue cycle management vendor Gateway EDI.

One more acquisition: Scottish charge master vendor Craneware buys ClaimTrust for $20 million. The Tennessee company offers revenue cycle and auditing solutions, allowing Craneware to inflate its tagline to “automated revenue integrity solutions.” According to the ClaimTrust site, hospital revenue cycle consultant Joe Ferro and his programmer wife started the company in 1998. A nice exit for them.

HIMSS released its online survey results today. The Meaningful Use chase continues to draw a disproportionate share of hospital attention despite possibly more financially critical projects such as ICD-10 and preparing for healthcare reform.

We had a little lunch today for our sponsors, with Inga, Dr. Jayne, and me appearing in disguise for anonymity purposes (lab coats, surgical caps and masks, and reflector thingies). Thanks to Dr. Gregg for coordinating and Ed Marx for delivering a speech before we slipped in, did our thing, and headed out (I don’t know what he talked about, but I’m confident it was excellent). I can’t say we deliver an inspiring or polished performance for several reasons: (a) we have never appeared as ourselves in person and we were quite nervous about that, especially Inga, who Dr. Jayne and I thought sure was going to throw up on the sidewalk on the way in; (b) I had just met Dr. Jayne for the first time in the car (I like her – a little bit sassy and brash in a doctorly way); (c) we weren’t really sure what we should talk about; and (d) we’re writers, not talkers, so our oratorical skills are modest at best and Inga and Jayne declined to say anything at all once we got in the room (thanks a lot, gals). It was great to see everybody, though, and we really appreciate the support and the chance to say so in person. It would have been really cool to hang out for awhile, but we’re paranoid about anonymity since we’d rather not become unexpectedly unemployed. Inga wore the fab boots that I got her for Christmas and pics of those are going viral, she says. On the way in, some guy did a double take while checking our getup and asked if there was anything he should know. I told him we had the outbreak nearly under control.

Thanks to Dr. Gregg for choosing BB King’s for HIStalkapalooza way back in the fall and working up the menus and details. I liked the scale of the venue and the acoustics were good. Above is a red carpet picture from reader Rick. Below are some reader pictures – thanks for those.

If you’re at HIMSS, here’s my recommendation of a cheap, fun local place to eat that’s an easy walk up the street just past Pointe Orlando (one of my pals urged me to share it with you after I took him there even though he was paying and trying to steer me to high-end places). I’ve eaten at Miller’s Ale House probably 40 times over the years and it’s always good. The beer selection and prices are amazing, the waitresses are cute and fun, and you’d be hard pressed to find a better entrée than the $12.50 Bahamian dolphin baked in a foil pouch with garlic, wine, Tabasco, and vegetables. The blackened grouper sandwich is good, too. Start off with the excellent conch chowder and you’ll feel like a Florida native. I’d invite you to eat with me there except my doctor disguise wasn’t all that comfortable.

AT&T’s ForHealth division announces new products and pilots: a smart phone interface for its Healthcare Community Online portal, telepresence, and mHealth Manager.

Passport Health Communications announces a partnership with Bayfront Medical Center (FL) to beta test its precertification / prior authorization product, OrderRite.

I forgot to mention this the other day with all the HIMSS crush: athenahealth names former AMICAS CEO Stephen Kahane, MD, MS as president of the company’s Enterprise Services Group.

Merge Healthcare CEO Jeff Surges brings over some of his former Allscripts colleagues: Steve Brewer as EVP of solutions and Steve Martin as SVP of sales (please hold the arrow-through-the-head jokes since I’m sure he’s heard them many times).

McKesson announces its $1.5 million funding for six mobile health projects related to diabetes. The next grant cycle starts in April.

The folks behind the Extormity EHR and SEEDIE certification parodies come out of the closet: it’s NoMoreClipboard.com.

Allscripts announces its version of the Apps Store and demonstrates “native” integration between Sunrise and its Enterprise and Professional EHRs. I don’t know what “native” means when you have products developed by different companies whose only commonality is current ownership, but I’ll assume it just means you don’t need an integration engine or middleware. I heard a couple of times today that they’re doing a really good job, although whether it will be enough to fight the Epic juggernaut is anybody’s guess (actually, I’ll guess no since it’s late in the game, but kudos for going after them).

Cedars-Sinai picks Encore Health Resources to help with the next stages of  its EHR implementation.

Keane Healthcare Solutions Division announces a mobile client for its Optimum system.

Ross Martin provides this picture of the next challenge for IBM’s Watson, accompanying his funny writeup. “They also believe there is a place for synthetic vocals in pop music today. Andy Aaron, who lead’s Watson’s speech team, says, ‘We’ve hired will.i.am as a consultant to figure out how he makes his voice do that cool, computery voice thing and mimic that.’ Apparently, IBMers have not discovered Anteres Auto-Tune.”

GetWellNetwork announces GA of GetWell@Home, which allows discharged patients to use care plans, teaching tools, and personal health information created for them in the hospital.

From an athenahealth-Sermo survey of physicians about EMRs: three-fourths say they’re good for patient care and two-thirds say they’re worth the money, but 60% say EMRs slow them down. Still, 95% of those docs surveyed will seek Meaningful Use money. Other concerns involve the future of small practices, the impact on patient care of the Affordable Care Act, and the quality of medicine in general down the road.

Drummond Group announces its certification program for hospital EHRs that cover multiple or self-developed applications. The whole “complete EHR” Meaningful Use issue came up in the X.0 session I attended today, where vendors either don’t seek modular certification or decline to sell their offerings piecemeal, making it unclear whether a provider using or owning only specific modules can still claim to be using a certified EHR. ONC really needs to clarify this since it’s a mess and integrated systems vendors have little incentive to clean it up.

Palomar Pomerado Health announces Medical Information Anytime Anywhere (I’ll give them one-time dispensation for making Anytime one word when it should be two). Vendors already offer their own iPhone and iPad apps, but the hospital’s product works can assemble a single view of information from multiple systems (vendors don’t offer that, of course). Cisco covered half of the $250K cost of developing the prototype, but it will take lots more cash to turn it into a stable, off-the-shelf product (which is the hurdle that 95% of hospital-developed apps can’t clear).

Voalté hires former Ritz Carlton quality director Gigi Gray as user experience manager.

Exhibit Hall and Session Notes

• CCT, which offers training contracting services with emphasis on clinical systems, is holding mock training classes on the hour in booth # 5769.
• NCR announces new versions of its portal and kiosk products.
• The X.0 people seemed crestfallen that their beloved Twitter feed was down, forcing people to actually ask their questions instead of Tweeting them.
• Someone’s session talked about cost savings from IT, leading me to ask myself this: cost savings to whom? If you cut costs, you’ll just increase insurance company profits in most cases. They don’t often reduce rates even when their costs goes down. And second, hospitals are so inefficient that they never reduce rates when their costs go down, either. Even if technology allows cost savings, who gets the money?
• In a session on mHealth, one thing was clear: much of the variation in cost and outcomes is because patients are non-compliant. I was thinking that perhaps that’s why our outcomes and costs are so bad compared to those of other countries – our people are fatter, less motivated, more likely to be stressed in their quest for consumer bliss, and often unwilling to make even modest effort to improve their own health. That’s not something that providers can influence very much.
• I checked out a couple of products in the New/Emerging Technology part of the exhibit hall. Oddly enough, people from these startups seemed mostly uninterested in connecting with people looking at their offerings and neither of them offered me a demo despite not having much else to demand their attention. Expert-24 had Virtual Expert, a decision tree generator that looked a good deal like Visio and can supposedly be used by non-programmers to build simple applications that collect information or step through decision support steps. Canadian vendor MedConnex had a simple EMR. I would have had more to share if they had shown more interest.
• I said yesterday that ESD was the most creative vendor given their tiny space, and that’s not even counting the ultra-cool sign I saw in their booth today that I missed then. It said, “Big brother is not watching you,” explaining that you could visit them without being tracked because they opted out of the idiotic HIMSS vendor technology to track attendees with RFID like stray cattle in the exhibit hall. Kudos to them.
• Clairvia didn’t offer a demo of their scheduling and acuity apps despite broad hints from me that I was interested and a conversation of several minutes in which I asked about it, but I can say it looked very cool on the screen I saw.
• I will say that in general, booth people seemed out of energy today. Many of them were fiddling with their phones, talking to each other instead of paying attention to passers-by, or just sitting and staring at the floor. Maybe vendors should send in a fresh team on Tuesdays since many of them were letting prospects walk away without getting any recognition. I keep thinking about the cost of buying a booth just to give reps a place to sit, chat with each other, or talk on the telephone.
• I got a nice pitch from Healthcare Innovative Solutions, which provides consulting services specific to CPOE and EHR. They have a a good story.
• A company called ESET was giving out personal one-year licenses for the company’s antivirus product. I’ve never heard of them, but they say they’re replacing McAfee and the big boys pretty often because their product is more lightweight and doesn’t download huge updates, with their average update being only 18K in size. I’m going to install the license they gave me on my PC at home. I wish I could replace the one at work since when it cranks up once a day, it sucks the life out of my laptop for a couple of hours, not good news when there’s a technical or clinical emergency to deal with.
• Blue Cat Networks had a couple of girls in sequiny, skin-tight costumes that could have passed for spray paint. Just saying. Like many of the pretty females working booths, they were a bit cold, which I guess is the result of being leered at all day.
• Prognosis also didn’t offer a demo or pay much attention despite my broad hints of interest, but the product looked good on the screen shots.
• The folks at C3 Partners explained their Meaningful Use Monitor, a tracking tool to document MU status, ready to submit (after Stage 1, which does not require anything more than attestation, apparently).
• Google had a crappy little booth with – no lie – black and white photocopied sheets about Google Health that had been cut in half. They had a total of four PCs for demoing, which was three more than they needed at that point in time.
• Stoltenberg Consulting was offering free chair massages, which I could definitely have used if they had picked up on my obvious interest (clearly I get miffed when I’m ignored, but at least unlike the average attendee, I can call them out publicly on behalf of all of us).
• MediQuant had an excellent magician with some fun product pitch mixed into his patter. Definitely worth checking out. The guy will read your nametag clear across the aisle and call you by name to get you drawn into his tricks. You won’t mind.
• SSI was the company from Inga’s picture that had females wearing evening gowns.
• Someone asked me what I thought the big theme is this year. I don’t think there is one. iPads are cool, but not all that different, ICD-10 and tools to migrate to it are obviously on everybody’s radar. Other than that, nothing would distinguish this year’s conference from the last two or three. Everybody’s talking innovation, but I don’t see much if it out on the show floor. You tell me – what’s the coolest thing you’ve seen?

I have no further HIStalk responsibilities and I’m not leaving until Thursday morning, so let me know if you’ve seen something I should check out.

E-mail me.

HERtalk by Inga

Yes folks, that is my brand new iPad. I was one of Medicomp’s lucky winners. And yes, Medicomp was our amazing HIStalkapalooza sponsor and they also made me the proud owner of a cool toy. Regardless, their new Quippe is a serious game changer. I looked at the technology that is embedded into MED3OOO’s Integreat product and was amazed. Today I saw Medicomp demonstrate it further and I am convinced that every EMR vendor needs to check out this technology. I haven’t seen any product with anything similar and I am convinced that it’s the way of the future. I realize that I am such raving without giving details, but I will have to go back to that another time.

So this is going to be a totally rambling post, so hold on for the ride.

HIStalkapalooza: OMG I had an amazingly fun time. I must ask Mr. H who the red carpet gals were, but they were gorgeous and hysterically funny. Check out the YouTube video and see for yourself. Many folks came dressed to the nines, including our Inga Loves My Shoes winners and all the finalists for HIStalk King and Queen. If you were a winner, send me a note so I can mention your name. Our judges Lindsey and Greg were the most adorable and funny things. If Lindsey hadn’t been a judge, her pink stilettos would have surely won.

Ingatinis: I had one in the SIS booth yesterday as well as one at BB King’s. The original won over the newbie, though that didn’t stop me from drinking them at BB King’s.

Mr. H, Dr. Jayne, and I treated our sponsors to lunch today. We made a brief appearance and Mr. H said a few words. I rarely get anxious or nervous, but I was a wreck this morning. Thanks to the 100 or so that showed up and showed us the love. One of the sponsors told me that his table included someone from eClinicalWorks, Allscripts, Greenway, and e-MDs, and the NextGen guy came over to say howdy. How often do guys like that break bread together? I wish I could have heard what was being said.

HIMSS isn’t over yet, but already the conference has hit a record number. 30,947 so far, compared to an estimated 27,800 last year in Atlanta.

There are over 1,000 exhibitors, which means it is virtually impossible to check them all out. However, I asked my new BFF Dr. Jayne to join me for a peek at a few EMRs. For whatever reason, we had difficulty getting anyone to show us stuff, usually because people were too busy. We tried to look at Azzly, which I had seen in MGMA in October. It’s brand new and is having its first practice go-live in a couple months. It is cloud-based, so our demo was over the Internet. Apparently the Internet connection was horrible and thus it was impossible to get a feel for the product. Azzly does not offer a local version as a compliment to its hosted version. It’s a little scary to think of all the potential problems of having an Internet-based only product, though everyone is going that direction.

Another vendor said he had to pay $1,500 a day for high-speed Internet access in the booth. I think I heard him right. Could that number be correct?

Dr. Jayne and I also tried to check out Practice Fusion. Apparently they had similar Internet issues and were only providing demos on one small screen. The cute young guy working the booth told me that only about four of their clients go for the ad-free version of their product. When I interviewed Practice Fusion CEO Ryan Howard a couple of months ago, he wouldn’t share that number, by the way.

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Software AG is raffling a hot-looking Fender electric guitar. I gave it a test drive and totally impressed the booth staff.

I did a quick walk through the Interoperability section. There was apparently a speaker at the little theater in there and the crowd was  20 people deep. If you look really hard, you can see a speck that looks like David Blumenthal.

Speaking of Blumenthal, am I the only person who has noticed that SRSsoft’s Evan Steele could be Blumenthal’s better-looking brother?

Second best “trinket” after the iPad: a stainless steel coffee traveler cup from MedAssurant.

Cute fedora hats at FormFast, I think. They are apparently giving them away. I am not sure what it all means, but they also have a pseudo-juggle thing going on in their booth with lots of foliage adornment.

So much more to say, but I scored an invite to one of the big parties, and well, what’s a girl to do?

E-mail Inga.

EPtalk by Dr. Jayne

The highlight of today was stopping by the HIStalk sponsor lunch with Mr. H and Inga.  I felt like a rock star arriving in the HIStalk limo, but the looks on the faces of other patrons at Pointe Orlando at seeing the three of us in our white coats and surgical caps was priceless. We appreciate your sponsorship and thanks to all of you for welcoming me as the newest member of the HIStalk family.

The best thing I saw in the exhibit hall today was Medicomp’s Quippe offering, which they were demoing on the iPad.  Using the MEDCIN Engine as its backbone, it allows for creation of dynamic templates for documenting patient care, allowing physicians to customize while still mapping to recognized findings behind the scenes so that it all works for coding, compliance, and interoperability. You can see it at work also at the MED3000 booth as they have integrated it into their product.  As many vendors move to map to SNOMED and other standards, this approach is one that should be given serious thought.

And as more and more physicians express a desire to have templates that build the note on the screen, this type of functionality should be easier and easier to integrate into existing products.  Of course, some docs still aren’t going to like it, and there will be the ever-present debate over whether findings should be documented in clinical terms vs. patient terms.

I’d be interested to see what physician readers think about this idea – knowing that patients are going to have more and more direct access to their charts, are you changing the way you document? This is a fundamental issue that all of us are grappling with. How are you handling it?  Since Medicomp also gave iPads loaded with Quippe to the physicians attending HIStalkapalooza, let us know how you like it after you have a chance to try it. Drop me a note and I’ll write it up.

Thumbs down to the food court today, when the machines ran out of Diet Pepsi.  Sounds like quite a few of us are trying to avoid the extra sugar that comes with the caffeine that keeps us going.  Even for those who choose the full-sugar versions, at least we’re burning some calories with the trek through the convention center.

I’m still tuckered out from HIStalkapalooza. It was nice to see so many “real” physicians in attendance and I enjoyed talking with some of you. I also enjoyed talking with those of you who are suits – it was nice to share war stories and make some new connections. 

The awards ceremony was priceless and this being my first HIStalk party, I’m glad my expectations were exceeded. Looking forward to many more to come!

Tonight I swung by the Compuware bash at Cuba Libre with my wingman. Great atmosphere (a little heavy on the cigars, though) and reasonably good Mojitos. Enjoyed the heavy dance beat and the excellent people-watching as the night wore on.

Tomorrow’s my last day at HIMSS11, so if there’s something you think should be on my "must see" list, e-mail me.

E-mail Dr. Jayne.

From HIMSS 2/21/11

From KR: “Re: HIStalkapalooza. Let me be the first – this event has to be the highlight of the week! The awards, by Bush, were absolutely fantastic. Could not have hard a better MC. Thanks so much for a great event!” You knew it was going to be good if you watched JB waiting to go on – he was like a horse that couldn’t wait to run a race (if horses drank beer beforehand, that is). He was amazing, although he may cringe when he sees his words played back from the multi-camera video recording that was being made.

From Bobby Orr: “Re: HIStalkapalooza. Great time, big fan a good blues band, thank you. Largest  HIMSS ever over 30K attendees, but only about 9k providers is what I understood but I’ll leave that to the HIStalk  team to confirm the numbers.” They said 31K in the opening session, but I bet most weren’t providers. We’ll try to get specifics.

From West Coast Viewer: “Re: CHW. Ben Williams, CIO at CHW, has resigned, effective 4/15/2011.” Unverified.

From Rodgrigo Barnes: “Re: Pennsylvania Health Information Exchange. Medicity contract cancelled.” Unverified. I need to get clarification from Medicity, but the purported e-mail suggests that the state didn’t like PHIX’s strategic plan or its selection of Medicity, which the e-mail said AT&T protested. Also claimed is that the contract value was about was $31.7 million, only $17.1 million of which would be be covered by federal taxpayer dollars. I’ll get more information. It sounded like budget was the big problem.

From VIP CIO: “Re: VIPs. I had the same reaction as you to the article about ‘VIP Treatment.’ The first rule of being an executive is to appear to be getting less special treatment than you are actually getting. I am e-mailing you from the VIP lounge at HIMSS. It is pretty simple, but in the mad house that is HIMSS, it is a great perk. While the lines at the coffee vendor stands are 40 people long, I was able to come in and get a free cup of hot coffee in a china mug. There is soda on ice and water, too. There are nine tables and four workstations with Internet-connected computers and printers. It is kind of quiet, people are avoiding eye contact. One more thing — ribbons are for people that lack self-esteem. I agree CMIOs are major players, but they don’t need a ribbon to prove it. If they want recognition they can carry their medical degree. Nobody in the lounge is wearing a ribbon. Again, we know that it is not good to call attention to our special treatment. Gotta go, the massage therapist is here (just kidding).” I’m a little bit miffed – I pay the same dues and conference registration fees as CIOs, so why am I an inferior HIMSS member who doesn’t get the same perks?  

Thanks to everybody who came to HIStalkapalooza. Thanks, too, to Dave Lareau and Medicomp, their events and video people, BB King’s, the Insomniacs, our red carpet greeters, our shoe and King/Queen contestants, and Jonathan Bush.  I left early and will be up late, as usual, but everybody seemed to be having fun. Personally, I found JB’s beer-fueled riffs to be the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time – better than MS3TK. Since I’m writing this after several beers, please forgive any slip-ups. I bet nobody else left the event to work several more hours — that’s my excuse.

The limo will run 9 a.m until noon or so Tuesday, cruising around I-Drive. Flag it down and get a luxury ride to the convention center. I’ve ridden in it a couple of times now and it was pretty cool. That’s the very sweet Jan above who was driving today, although I’m not sure we’ll have her again tomorrow.

Medicomp gave away iPads with its new Quippe product to physicians attending HIStalkapalooza. Drop by their booth Tuesday and take a 20-minute training session and you’re in drawing for several more (both physicians and non-physicians will be chosen). I didn’t explain it well, but just stop by and they’ll fill you in.

I’m going to save all the news and other items since it’s getting really late. Here are some random observations from the day, most of them about booths.

• I got nothing from the opening session. I didn’t thing the videos and a capella guys were all that interesting. Robert Reich was too basic and to general to hold my attention. I’m sure he’s really smart, but his talk seemed dumbed down for people who pay zero attention to economics and politics. Not much healthcare in it, either, although obviously Medicare expenses can’t keep rising and he said so.
• Actually, I did get one thing from the opening session: frostbite. My teeth were chattering afterward and every room I was in was just as cold. Floridians crank that AC down for sure.
• I went to two other sessions. Both were terrible. I didn’t learn anything after sitting in sessions all morning.
• The Onyx people had a pretty cool booth, with the ladies wearing red dresses and one wearing a Cinderella-looking outfit. I don’t get it, but it was cute.
• Ingenix had a huge booth with the logos of their acquisitions on the sign – Picis, Axolotl, Lynx Medical, A-Life Medical, HER, and Ingenix Consulting.
• MEDSEEK had a nice two-story model with a guy from The Apprentice doing something or other.
• iMDsoft had sleek version with lots of coffee urns.
• A couple of the Salar guys gave me a booth pitch not knowing who I was. They did a great job, which smaller companies often don’t – they had their story down pat, talked benefits instead of features, and referenced client sites.
• OnBase had its usual sports bar and that smarmy but funny card trick guy, neither changed in the last decade, it seems, but still cool.
• Walden University had a Kinect soccer game where you could try to kick goals over animated opponents.
• Nuvon had oranges as giveaways and a couple of other vendors had apples. Good idea for a health-oriented conference.
• Unity Medical had cool “cones of silence” that looked like old-fashioned hair dryers, which allowed people standing under them to hear the audio from their videos even with exhibit hall noise. They provide instructional and motivational health videos that seemed pretty cool.
• Sage used a red color as a theme quite effectively.
• Awarepoint did a good pitch when I dropped by anonymously. The guy qualified my interest and need very quickly, then gave some good examples of similar deployments. Nicely done for just a casual chat that I didn’t even ask for.
• EDIMS – had a nice setup and a big presence for a mid-sized booth.
• Allscripts had a massive spread using their new green color. Looked good.
• Emdeon had pretty cool orange shirts and a café table setup. They were talking health information exchange.
• Medicomp had their HIStalk sign front and center. They also had a two-sided theater, one playing a recorded demo and the other live.
• Elsevier had a water cooler, something simple that you don’t often see.
• InSite One had an incrementing counter of studies and images done.
• MEDecision had some cool light-up panels and a real Starbucks setup.
• ESD had the most unusual items – flip flops, fondue, and wheatgrass. Nice people, too. I think they may have been the most creative with the space they had.
• Epic put out signs covering their KLAS scores. The lovely Maggie noticed me checking them out, told me that was her job to publicize their scores, and ran back to get me a handout of every sign on their booth walls. Obviously their KLAS scores are shockingly good, lots of green in a sea of competitor yellow and red, but the fact she was so attentive and tasked with managing their score displays impressed me. They still had the fireplace, the wacky art, and Judy hanging out. They also had a sign for Canto, an iPad-based physician dashboard with dictation and messaging (new, I think).
• Nuance had a theater presentation about the new CAPD product built with 3M.
• Enovate had its usual carts, wall mounts, and articulated arms. Very sexy and smooth. Nice people, too.
• Somebody had mini Moon Pies, but my writing is too sloppy to decipher who (looks like Med Worth, but it could be anything).
• Rubbermaid had a cool water cascade right in the middle of their booth.
• Merge had a bunch of cool stuff – kiosks, the Tesla car that you could get your picture taken in, a wall of candy, and video games.
• Clairvia had coffee, a nice demo area, and their HIStalk sign on the table.
• Airwatch had cool management tools for mobile devices like IT shops use for PCs, allowing iPads, iPhones, and any devices to be secured, updated, and managed. They’re new to healthcare, but other clients include Walmart and Coke. This was one of the more interesting things I saw. I talked to the co-founder and he definitely had his pitch down pat.
• GetWellNetwork had their peds application running – very colorful and fun for education and applications.
• IBM had a ton of people visiting their booth. They were pushing the Watson connection.
• Microsoft also had a lot of people, demoing Vergence, HealthVault, and some other stuff. Their signs spelled HIMSS  as HIMMS, though.
• Vocera had our sign out. They also did a nice demo for me on the fly, under their own version of the cone of silence to allow you to hear the device talking.
• CattailsMD was giving away some kind of Buzz Lightyear action figure.
• AT&T had loads of people. I looked at Connect, a learning portal that also streams video. The coolest part is that the tool auto-indexes the audio track of a video, allowing it to be searched by any word without a transcription or manual keyword step. I didn’t know technology like that existed. You’d think YouTube would have it given that it’s owned by Google
• Perceptive had our sign out and was demoing their imaging application.
• Advisory Board had a big booth, ironically just two booths down from that of HIMSS Analytics where Dave Garets left to go there.
• PatientKeeper had a big rack of mobile devices and an effective slogan, “Reinventing CPOE.” Lots of people were checking it out.
• e-MDs had our sign out – thanks!
• Vitalz had a race car simulator.
• SIS used color extremely well, dressing their female booth people in light blue sweaters and the guys in blue Oxford shirts, both making the red and white SIS logo really stand out. They also had very cool theater chairs in the same red. Best use of color for sure.
• Wolters Kluwer had a golf simulator.
• Sunquest had a large booth with that green color that I really like. Thanks for the Chapstick – I needed some.
• McKesson’s spread was huge. It also had a giant electric billboard. There was nothing muted about the color or the design.
• Siemens had a booth that needed its own ZIP code. The wall of lights must have been 20 feet tall.
• Medicity had a nice crowd and an HIStalk sign right on their main podium.
• RelWare had the Back to the Future DeLorean, accepting donations for Team Fox.
• Cumberland Consulting Group had our sign out. They were way down on the end in the 6900 row.
• SourceCorp was giving away small wooden baseball bats.
• MobileMD had a foot massage machine. They also talked about their 100% “would recommend” HIE solution.
• Orchestrate Healthcare had some cool yellow colors, including fresh flowers and bags. They also had our sign front and center.
• Lockheed Martin had a huge liquid nitrogen tank that was pretty scary to behold. I think (and hope) they were doing something with ice cream.
• Billian’s had our sign out and was giving out flash drives, the only ones I saw.
• RelayHealth’s booth was lit up in pink and each demo station was surrounded by shimmering curtains. I might give them the Best Design award. They had a lot of people checking them out.
• Alert had a long booth that was kind of confusing, but they did have cute white outfits and were demoing in some language that wasn’t English. I thought it was interesting
• Pulse had a nice booth and a card guy.
• Pepid had the first guy I’ve ever seen doing a theater presentation who read directly from index cards and didn’t even try to hide that fact.
• Chipsoft had the cute yellow shoes again.
• HCA had a booth to recruit people in informatics, pharmacy, Meaningful Use, and Meditech.
• HT Systems (the palm reader people) was one of the companies in the New and Emerging Technologies section, with stand-up areas instead of full booths. Check that area out since those are the up-and-comers everyone says they want to support. Also there was My Health Direct. Both companies had their HIStalk signs out.
• ONC had a sizeable booth. They were giving away money (kidding).
• MED3OOO had a couple of really cool giveaways – little preloaded bubblegum machines and a nice computer cleaner with one gadget for the screen and another for the keyboard.
• Success EHR had the nicest people I ran across, two cute girls making fresh popcorn.
• MedAssurant was making fancy coffee like café con leche and café cubano.

That’s all I have time for tonight. Back at it tomorrow. Hopefully folks will send me pictures from HIStalkapalooza since I didn’t bring a camera. I believe Medicomp was planning to have video from tonight running in their booth Tuesday, so drop by.  

E-mail me.

HERtalk by Inga

Just a super quick post before I start my beauty regime for HIStalkapalooza!

,

A couple of pics of the nicely presented food at the reception last night. It’s hard to cook for 20,000, but I guess it was tasty enough.The best part of the evening: hanging out with Mr. H and critiquing the whole affair. I then joined some friends for one glass of wine (the glass never went empty, so I am assuming it was only one glass). Regardless, I made it to bed probably too late, but was up at 6:00 a.m. and in time for my painfully early 7:00 a.m. breakfast. Fortunately I arrived in style in the HIStalk limo, the interior of which is probably bigger than the bathroom in my budget hotel.

I’ll provide more details on my day tomorrow, but wanted to share some additional photos from the day.

He wins. ‘Nuff said.

I am guessing that she was concerned she wouldn’t have time to change clothes before the party tonight, so she wore her gown to the booth. Sorry I don’t remember the vendor, but the girls were good sports.

A little business meeting with the HIStalk sponsor sign prominently displayed. Thanks, iMDSoft.

Merge bought me lunch.

I thought the skirt was a wee short, but this guy thought it was worth looking at more than once.

I sat on the floor for awhile recharging my phone. What’s up with the official “recharging stations” having no power connected to them? I did find that by sitting on the floor I was nicely positioned to check out shoe fashions.

Much, much more later, including HIT X 2.0, commentary on exhibits and vendors, and some gossip. Look for big announcements probably tomorrow from Microsoft, Cisco, and perhaps Gateway EDI.

E-mail Inga.

EPtalk by Dr. Jayne

I was dying to post pictures today, but with my employer locking down my Facebook, it was difficult.  Inga beat me to the knight in shining armor, but be on the lookout for lots of other photos as she and I cruised the exhibit hall together.  Let me tell you, we saw some prime photo opportunities.

My goal today was to visit all of HIStalk’s sponsors.  I didn’t make it everywhere, but I did make it to quite a few.

A couple of shout outs:

• Iatric Systems (3601) is offering a special drawing for HIStalk readers, but also has a guy shooting trick pool shots.  Pretty entertaining!
• Enterprise Software Deployment (2777) not only has a special reader drawing, but also was giving away flip flops and sports sandals and had fondue in the booth.  Perfect for a mid-day pick-me-up!

Keep your eye out for the autographed (by Mr. H and Inga) signs alerting you to vendors who are HIStalk sponsors.  Be sure to tell them you read HIStalk.  Maybe next year I’ll get here early enough to put my physician-esque scrawl on some of them.

I said I’d be visiting Merge Healthcare to check out their kiosk solution, and was happy to find their Wall of Candy as well as a nice demo of their product.  I was a little concerned by the sales rep scanning her own drivers’ license and swiping a credit card, but I guess they can control where it goes.  I wonder, though, does the kiosk come in hot pink or zebra stripe?  They also have video games, including Big Buck Hunter.  Good for a break when you’re tired of walking the floor.

I visited Surgical Information Systems and was pleased to see that this year, not only were they serving the IngaTini but also the InterOpTini which is more my speed.  They also had chocolate covered everything, and I am the kind of girl that appreciates that.  Thanks again for the hospitality!

FormFast has a great Indiana Jones “Peril of the Untamed Workflow” theme and was throwing fedoras into the audience, but I wasn’t lucky enough to get one.

The “Best Badge” award goes to the attendee who replaced his first name with “Talk To Me” in bold letters.  I didn’t fully appreciate the value of that badge until I was given the brush off by a couple of vendors. 

News flash – you might want to find out a bit about the prospects that stop by so that you can make an educated pitch to them.  And if you can’t answer the questions, find someone in your booth who can, or schedule a follow up.  Trying to “fake it” is just really a bad idea and we can tell.

I enjoyed seeing so many members of the armed forces at HIMSS11 today and wanted to take the opportunity to thank all of you for your service to our country and around the world.  We appreciate each and every one of you and the excellent healthcare you provide to our troops and their families.  Seeing you puts everything in perspective and is an excellent reminder for those of us that tend to get focused on what in comparison are some fairly petty issues.  We’re not trying to keep systems up while caring for wounded on the battlefield or anything like that, and you deserve our utmost respect.

The big ticket of the day was of course HIStalkapalooza, and major thanks to Medicomp for their support.  It was a great bash and certainly one to remember. Thanks to my many new friends, especially Evan – your velvet jacket made my night.

E-mail Dr. Jayne.

From HIMSS 2/20/11

The weatherman calls for no snow today. Oh wait, HIMSS isn’t in Chicago this year – happily since it’s 35 degrees there but in the mid-70s in Orlando as I write this Sunday. I got out for a nice walk Sunday morning and it was perfect – green grass, swaying palms, colorful flowers, and egrets strutting around the fake water features and tacky tourist shops.

HIMSS is on the old side of the convention center again this year after being one of the first to use the new side when it opened a few years back. I think the old side is actually better, or at least I saw no drawbacks as I looked it over Sunday morning. it’s a pretty easy walk to the convention center form any of the I-Drive hotels between Sand Lake Road and Westwood Drive, as sidewalks are wide and crossings well laid out. 

Just a reminder: I hired a limo to cruise up and down I-Drive Monday and Tuesday mornings, so if you want a ride to the Convention Center, flag down the car with the HIStalk logo on the side and it will drop you off (sorry, the bar is not stocked – maybe next time when I book the one with the neon, massive sound system, and stripper pole). 

Badge pickup was easier than ever. HIMSS had e-mailed a barcode and you just waved it under the imager and out came your badge. I guess it was embarrassing for such a pro-automation organization like HIMSS to be running a conferenced on paper handouts, packaged symposia CDs, and forms.

I was happy to find that the convention center still has free WiFi, although it will probably be iffy once the whole world piles on it Monday morning. I saw plenty of food stand options and a good amount of seating in those areas (there’s never enough, but Orlando isn’t one of the convention centers that has almost none). The HIMSS people were zipping along at alarming speeds down the hallways on Segway-type standing tricycles for no apparent reason.

It’s worth making time to don casual attire (you can buy hideous tourist shorts and tee shirts if you didn’t bring warm weather clothes) and hit the street for a stroll. The mini-golf places are doing good business and all the restaurants have their patios open, so if it’s not summer where you came from, it is here. They were almost all totally booked Sunday evening, with big groups using large tables and in some cases buying the restaurant out (like we’re doing for BB King’s Monday night).

I checked out Pointe Orlando and it’s infinitely better than it was a few years ago.  BB King’s looks very nice, like all the other restaurants in the complex. It’s an easy walk or very short cab ride from the convention center and the surrounding hotels. There’s a parking garage attached if you’re planning to drive to HIStalkapalooza (easy on those IngaTinis if so, which is why I mentioned walking).

I dropped by CIO Forum area at W330, which always has free food and other goodies that the non-decision making peons don’t get (or as today’s Healthcare IT News headline surprisingly said, “Senior execs get VIP treatment.”) They already know that and the rest of us don’t like to feel less than special, so maybe that article should have been tossed. The CIO agenda didn’t look all that interesting, but the room seemed full and I saw quite a few familiar faces.

Speaking of Healthcare IT News, which was never afraid to tread the feel-good, self-congratulatory side of HIT, it’s just as cheerleaderly now that it’s owned by HIMSS. I think I made the day of the girl handing them out by actually taking a copy, instead of doing like everybody else and body-Englishing away from her thrust-out copy or mumbling, “already got one.” The “news” part of its title could be debated based on what’s in this issue, especially when some of the articles are about some vendor’s exhibit or product and contain nary a discouraging word

There’s a little picture of David Blumenthal on the front page – honestly, has the man never had another picture taken than the cocked-head, slightly-smirky one that runs ever single time he’s mentioned? It actually appears at least three times in the same issue.

Two different people reacted separately to me about a well-known industry figure who I won’t name: “Man, that guy is weird.” I can’t say I’m shocked.

I saw Judy Faulkner walking around wearing a purple cast on her left arm. I felt sorry for her, not because of the cast, but she was like Brad Pitt trying to see a movie or get on a plane – people kept stopping her to introduce themselves or to pester her in some way.  

I saw some small vendor women dragging huge cases bigger than themselves. It must be a pain to set up the booths and then work the show. Somehow I don’t think HIMSS is a place where vendor people have a lot of fun.

This year’s sappy conference tagline: Linking People, Potential and Progress (I abhor the ever-so-trendy omission of the second comma – it makes it harder to read). They should have included the fourth, most-important P in the HIMSS vocabulary: politics. Once again all things Meaningful Use and taxpayer handouts dominate the conference. Do medical conferences obsess on Medicare payments?

The opening reception was no different than those from past years, other than drinks were unlimited (!!) and no tickets were required (thus squelching an entire secondary market for unused tickets). The drinks were cheap wine and horrible beer (Bud and two others that I’d rather not remember). There was the usual soulless cover band playing away in decoration-free room with an acoustics-killing concrete floor (insert my usual airplane hangar reference here) and allegedly ethnic foods that, while probably better than usual for the opening reception, were mostly harmless filler with no real distinguishing characteristics. Mostly it was a staging area for dinner.

HERtalk by Inga

It’s Sunday afternoon and my first half day of HIMSS is behind me. I sat in a few different sessions today, even though I wasn’t technically eligible to listen in on all of them. Fortunately HIMSS has cute college students assigned as doorkeepers. I just smiled at them, walked into room, and acted like I owned HIMSS.

Today’s highlight: Aneesh Chopra. OMG he is hot! He’s got a great face, but is also tall and lean. And as a speaker, he is dynamic and charismatic. I was ready to say “Hallelujah, I love technology!” just to see if he’d notice me. But I refrained myself. I also observed outside of the session and he is clearly the funnest- guy-in-the-room-type guy. Aneesh, if you would like an invite to HIStalkapalooza, drop me an e-mail. Better yet, just drop by the party and just tell them “Inga’s new heartthrob is here.”

I did actually listen to Aneesh, by the way. He and Farzad Mostashari (ONC Deputy) shot on how HITECH is driving innovation for the market. The soft-spoken Mostashari, poor thing, seems plenty smart and all, but Aneesh is a hard speaker to follow. Their presentation was geared to individuals that perhaps didn’t have a deep understanding of the current state of the HIT market and all the implications of HITECH. It was interesting enough, but I didn’t learn much new.

I had a Judy Faulkner sighting. She seems to be sporting a purple cast on her left wrist. Fell out of the tree house, perhaps?

I feel quite nerdy saying this, but I got all tickled each time I saw an HIT celebrity like Martin Harris, John Glaser, Ed Marx, Lynn Vogel, and Marc Probst.

Overheard: lots of ACO discussions. Based on the number of times ACOs were mentioned today (and I was not in an ACO-specific session) I think we’re going to hear a lot about accountable care organizations this week.

I am having serious iPad envy. Quite a number of people seem to have them in sessions and the units seem so small and easy to tote. I must go sign up for every single exhibit booth contest.

Also overheard: plenty of concerns about healthcare going bankrupt. Healthcare reform won’t be repealed because no one has anything better. Meanwhile, we are going to be in for some kind of serious hurt if we can’t figure out a way to control costs and improve quality. The musings aren’t necessarily original but are definitely prolific.

I am thrilled to be meeting up with Mr. H to go to the cocktail reception. Surprisingly I don’t think he and have even spoken on the phone, much less seen each other, since last HIMSS. So it is quite a treat to get to spend some time together critiquing the HIMSS experience. Then I must go to bed early tonight because tomorrow is going to be a long day before one long and exciting evening!

E-mail Inga.

EPtalk by Dr. Jayne

After another delightful trip on my favorite on-time airline, I have arrived at HIMSS11.  I daresay these flights are always a bit more entertaining and less annoying with a vodka/cranberry cocktail.  Although most airlines don’t have in-flight entertainment unless you’re flying cross country, we did have a bit of drama with two passengers being escorted off the plane before we even left the gate.

It seems like every year these events get busier and more over the top.  I can’t tell whether no one has noticed we’re in a recession or whether they’re just trying to stimulate the economy.  Although it’s been great comparing notes with Inga to make sure the fun parties are equitably distributed between the ladies of HIStalk, frankly putting my agenda together for the week has been a bit like preparing for an amphibious assault.

I’m traveling with my work BFF who commented, “I’m not sure we’re going to survive this trip.  I have visions of ‘The Hangover’…”  So if you see a sassy CMIO passed out in the convention hall, please find the nearest AED and follow the instructions when you open the cover.

I’m most interested in the physician-focused sessions, of course, but also those around interoperability and HIE.  I have an aggressive list of booths to visit – if you have a gadget that promises to make my physician world easier, more connected, or more fun, I will be stopping by –  so make sure you show the physician attendees some love, because you never know when you might actually be visited by Dr. Jayne or her crew.

Registration was smooth but I was disappointed by the lack of CMIO ribbons for my lanyard.  The opening reception seemed low key — reasonably good band and well-behaved attendees — but then again the week is early.  No dessert, though – and I am a chocolate girl – so we were forced out to the traffic of International Drive to hunt our prey.

The downside of the day was discovering that my hospital IT department figured out I had the Facebook app on my BlackBerry and blocked it, so there will be no updates from the convention floor unless an intrepid reader has ideas. I’d have a hard time calling and asking them to open it up.

I’m off to get my beauty rest so I can be at my best to walk the HIStalkapalooza red carpet Monday night.  I’m excited at the number of actual physicians on the list and can’t wait to see you all on the other side of the velvet rope!

Have a question about medical informatics, electronic medical records, or whether the paper on the exam table is really changed with each new patient? E-mail Dr. Jayne.

Dr. Gregg Goes to HIMSS
By Gregg Alexander

From back in my days as a rock-n-roll sound engineer, I have always loved the set up/tear down times better than the actual show. Same goes for when we put on the “Pediatric Office of the Future” in the exhibit hall for the American Academy of Pediatrics’ annual conference; the behind-the-scenes stuff is so much more fun. At least, for me it is.

That’s why I finagled my way into the HIMSS exhibit hall floor today as all the vendors were still in their pre-show frenzy. The HIStalk press pass wasn’t powerful enough to open the exhibit hall doors until actual show time begins on Monday, so I had to do a little smooth-talking. (I’ve learned a thing or two about shows and how to … well, maybe I’ll get in less trouble if I just stop there.)

I sent Mr. H a few of the almost obligatory shots of the convention center and the gigundo HIMSS logo and signage now adorning the Orange County Convention Center (West Concourse.) I couldn’t help also including a few shots from the exhibit hall, like the one below:

It’s just a random shot down the main corridor, but if you’ve never seen the exhibit hall pre-show controlled chaos, well, your bucket list just isn’t complete.

You can’t see the madness here because they’re pretty far along in the set up process, but the frenzy of union crews and forklifts, rolling travel cases and hydraulic lifts, show folks and vendor reps all makes for one truly entertaining phenomenon. (Actually, tear-down is even more impressive because stuff just flies apart, into its assigned shipping containers, and then out the loading dock doors faster than you can say “accountable care organization.”)

Anyway, the show is huge as always, celebrating HIMSS 50th year (really?) and, so far, seems much better organized and technologically adept than any I’ve seen before. (The tech abilities of some conventions are weak, to say the least; HIMSS seems to be getting a good grip on the concept.) Yes, I may change my opinion of that once the busloads of people hit and the masses overwhelm the walkways and meeting rooms, but on this pre-show day, it all looks very well put together here in Orlando.

– – – – – – – – – – – – –

Got to go to dinner last night with the good folks from Medicomp who are sponsoring this year’s already infamous HIStalkapalooza. I can say with 100% assuredness that if even a tenth of the event goes as they and Mr. H/Inga have planned, it’s going to go down in the annals of HIMSS history as one of the all-time great events ever. The team they’ve assembled is off-the-hook fun. The plans I’ve heard that Mr. H and Inga have set in motion are “memory book” material. I can’t wait. (I even brought my tux for Inga’s red carpet entrée!)

– – – – – – – – – – – – –

There is just so much to see and to hear and to take in here. All the pre-HIMSS marketing almost dulled my sense of anticipation. (It’s just tooooo much.) But, here on the eve of show time, the news and the people and the techno-geekiness are starting to re-enliven my senses. I’m looking forward to the hoopla.

But, I have one last question for the pre-HIMSS Marketeers before I head off to the opening reception: just what the h*** is an “embargoed” press release? Really? Do marketing people actually think that labeling some PR shout out as “secret” will make press people think they’re getting in on some super special sneak preview?

E-mail Gregg.

HITlaw 2/18/11

EHR Contracting Redux – Balance is Better

Hospitals and physician groups should review, research, and compare proposed vendor agreements during the EHR selection process. Too often, this critical step is left out of the selection process. Some prospects believe themselves to be too far down the road to back up and review their selection in light of unfavorable contract terms. Commencing review of contract terms after selection is extremely disadvantageous to the prospective customer.

Sometimes, however, it is not a factor of time or diligence, but rather market position, perception, or recognition that leads to the casual (non-diligent) review and treatment of a technology contract. For example, the small physician practice looking for EHR software may consider itself to be “mooing along with the other cattle," lining up for contracts and services from the EHR vendor selected by their affiliated hospital. They do not sweat over the EHR contract language because they assume the hospital and big practices have done the work, or if not, they are at least all in the same boat, which in my opinion is borderline negligent.

Next, some prospective customers do not raise important objections due to the “bigness” of the vendor involved. It is sad to agree that in many cases the little customer receives little attention. Important issues often get brushed aside with the somewhat careless, “We are too small to get concessions from the vendor” thought process.

Small HIT companies take similar risks in contract negotiations. They aren’t negotiating — they are jumping when the big prospect flexes. Some small-vendor executives courting the giant provider entities walk right over their poor sales folks’ backs on the way to the signing table, seemingly willing to sign anything asked of them.

Balance would be better. I’ve seen it too often when the big side does little or nothing contractually for the little side, yet cooperates when the other side is also a big player. Capitalism at its best? Survival of the fittest? Maybe so, but I dare to say that with the advent of HITECH and the injection of billions of dollars in reimbursement, this is not an absolute true free market at the present time. That’s OK, but from where I sit, the term “partnership” gets tossed around way too much without a corresponding balance in contract terms.

Commanding one of the most unusual perspectives in the HIT world through representation of hospitals, physician groups, and vendors, either directly or with select consulting firms, I find myself occasionally stepping back and taking a good hard look at the HIT acquisition process. This is one of those times.

Putting the above “Balance is Better” position into a practical example, let us consider the ever-popular “Limitation of Liability” language.

First, a quick lesson:

Indemnification (or “Hold Harmless”): This is when a party takes on legal / financial responsibility for a certain circumstance. For provider customers, determine what, if any, indemnifications are provided by your selected vendor (what they are agreeing to cover, or protect you from). Then determine what, if any, indemnifications the vendor requires from the customer (what they expect the customer to cover, or protect them from). Whichever side is providing the indemnification is legally on the hook for the costs if the circumstance comes to reality.

Limitation of Liability: Not the same as indemnification. Simply put, this is a declaration by a party that states, “I am not responsible for XYX.” Watch these carefully — VERY carefully. The heading for a contract section may read “Limitation of Liability” and include such limitations (often in ALL CAPS), but sometimes an indemnification of the vendor by the customer is also included, and as we all know, one of the things attorneys add at the end of a contract is a section titled “Headings not Controlling” (which to this day makes me chuckle … I sometimes ask to delete the title, which makes for an interesting conversation … but I digress).

Now, for the contract reviewer, look first at limitation of damages. Determine what the vendor disclaims. You will have no recourse from the vendor for these situations. Then look for indemnifications required from customer to vendor. These are critical, because it is not simply a matter of having no recourse, but rather an affirmative obligation that the customer is taking on. Finally, look for indemnifications from the vendor to the customer, which represent areas where the customer gains protection(s).

Prospective customers reviewing limitation of liability language will typically find an exclusion of all consequential, special, indirect, exemplary damages (think “over and above” the baseline direct damages). First question – is it mutual? If not, that is your first demand. Make the exclusion mutual. There is no reason not to request this. Fair is fair. There is also probably a limit on direct damages, which for perpetual licenses is usually the value of the contract, and for SaaS models, the value of one year of subscription fees.

If it were that simple we would be done, but it is not. Direct damages are fairly straightforward. It is the exceptions to the exclusion of all consequential damages that takes the time and expertise.

Carving out exceptions to the blanket disclaimer of consequential damages is part of the bargaining process. Arguably, whatever is good for one side should be considered for the other. The best example would be damages for a breach of confidentiality provisions, which the provider customer expects to be carved out from the disclaimer by vendor – meaning the vendor would be responsible for these damages.

Now here comes the balance part. The exclusion should then also be applied for customer’s breach of confidentiality regarding vendor’s material. Intentional acts or omissions and willful misconduct could collectively merit a mutual exclusion as well. Not all situations will be mutual however, and the best example would be damages for copyright / patent infringement, in which case the vendor should be willing to carve out an exception to the disclaimer on consequential damages.

In situations involving exceptions to disclaimers of consequential damages (which means where a party does agree it is responsible for these damages) it is important to note that intermediate levels of responsibility can be introduced. It does not have to be unlimited. Levels of applicable insurance coverage are often used as limits. This is all part of the negotiation process.

Once you have found all the limitations and indemnifications, map them out. Do the same for each vendor. Then compare. This should assist greatly in the selection process.

Projecting the total project cost is essential in any acquisition. It is critical that you note the potential additional costs (also known as risk) that you are taking on. This is an unavoidable exercise and enables IT leaders to make informed business decisions prior to executing the final agreement. Damages for which you may have no recourse and indemnifications for which you will be responsible are both critical components to risk assessment.

Now, if you’ve made it this far, here is your reward.

Amazingly, after a quick review of projects with which I have been involved over the past two years, I am stunned to report that the fairest (most balanced) contract terms regarding liability were those belonging to mid-sized HIT companies! Surprisingly, the very small companies and the behemoths act most alike in their attempts to disclaim most everything. The small because they have to, and the big because they can. Granted, this is by no means a comprehensive analysis of a majority of vendors in the industry, but it is an interesting slice.

What I think this means, to be philosophical about it, is that the medium companies have recently “made it.” They are very happy to be where they are and have not forgotten how they got there. They appreciate their position in the market and their balanced terms reflect their understanding and appreciation. Maybe I’m wrong, but it certainly made me feel good.

William O’Toole is the founder of O’Toole Law Group of Duxbury, MA.

News 2/18/11

From Klinger: “Re: HIMSS. Here’s a link to a HIMSS presentation (PDF) on its policy priorities for 2011.” It says only around 20% of hospitals are at or above Stage 4 in the seven-stage EMR Adoption Model. There’s more stuff on policy that didn’t really interest me too much.

From Allscripts Person: “Re: your ONC poll. This explains the biased results.” Apparently someone from Allscripts sent an e-mail to all employees urging them to vote for Stephanie Reel. From the e-mail included, “To show our support for her, we want you to visit the HIStalk Blog and vote for Stephanie Reel … She is currently in the lead – let’s make make sure she wins!” She’s got 62% of the vote so far. I think she would do a fine job just like she’s done at Hopkins, although all of the ONC-heads so far have been physicians and she isn’t one. She would be good at establishing consensus since she’s responsible for IT throughout Hopkins, not just Johns Hopkins Medicine.

From WildcatWell: “Re: Apple. Does not want to get anywhere near the liability threshold of having the iPad as the hardware interface of choice for true EMR/CPOE encounter usage.”

The VA and DoD are closing in on agreement to use a single electronic medical records platform, according to VA CIO Roger Baker as quoted by the excellent NextGov. The article quotes a source as saying the winner will probably be the VA’s VistA, with the loser being DoD’s AHLTA. That’s a huge decision and a likely windfall for the usual contractors who will have to tweak whichever system wins to appease the pouting loser. The chair of the committee says the departments spent a combined $10 billion to create the two systems, which I’d bet is a low number intended to hide the real cost (especially of AHLTA, which is surely one of the biggest HIT boondoggles in history).

IBM, Nuance, and the University of Maryland School of Medicine are working to turn the Jeopardy-playing IBM Watson computer into a physician’s assistant, analyzing real-time information against the literature and making suggestions. They’re hoping the computer can make sense of the hodgepodge of scanned and discrete data and make it all searchable.

Parrish Medical Center (FL) chooses McKesson’s Horizon Clinicals, HERM, ambulatory EMR, and RelayHealth solutions.

Let’s have a word about our benevolent and fun HIStalkapalooza sponsor, Medicomp Systems. They’ll be talking at HIMSS about Quippe, their just-announced Web-enabled, browser-based, interoperable EMR tool that gives physicians a touch screen interface backed by the MEDCIN Engine for handling the codes needed for compliance and reimbursement. Check out the video above of it running on an iPad and stop by Medicomp’s booth (#2231, I believe) to check it out, meet the party architects, and maybe see some video shot at HIStalkapalooza running from Tuesday on (you never know what people will do after a few IngaTinis). We have quite a few practicing physicians coming to HIStalkapalooza and Medicomp will honor them during that event (hint: make sure to show up). That’s Dave Lareau starting off the video – he’ll be your emcee and will oversee the red carpet interviews. I haven’t told anyone but Inga this, but I had a beauty queen sash made for Dave that says, “I Paid For All of This.”

University of Kansas Hospital (with the illogical abbreviation of KUHA) and CSC announce their development of the CareVeillance clinical surveillance tool, which analyzes data from multiple systems to provide alerts and quality metrics.

Dave Miller, executive director of application systems at the University of Chicago Medical Center, tells me that he has accepted the position of Vice Chancellor for Information Technical Services/CIO at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock. 

A report suggests that the HITECH gold rush is hurting the PACS, RIS, and CVIS markets as hospitals divert IT budgets to fund EHRs. It predicts that vendors of those systems will have to discount as they fight a share of a smaller total market, at least through 2013.

On the HIStalk Job Board: Project Manager – Healthcare Implementation, Implementation Consultant, Healthcare Informatics Analyst. On Healthcare IT Jobs: RN Clinical Informatics Transformation, Director Implementations EHR/PM, VP Business Development, Meditech PCM Implementation Analyst.

Ivo, Dana, and the Encore Health Resources crew are famous for throwing relaxing, no-pressure, open-ended social events (“Pub Nights”) at HIMSS, where the game plan is basically: (a) anyone who feels like it just shows up and eats and drinks for as long as they want to hang around, and (b) Ivo pays. Our pal Amy says you are all invited, every night at 9:00 from Saturday through Wednesday except Monday, at the bar at Tommy Bahama’s. It’s right up the street from the convention center and hotels at Pointe Orlando, the same complex as BB King’s (swanky in a tropical way). Encore isn’t exhibiting at HIMSS, but I’m sure they wouldn’t mind talking shop with prospects, old friends, and potential consultants about their offerings (IT planning, EHR implementation and optimization, analytics, and project management). I’m planning to be there at least one night.

More HIMSS fun: if you’re staying in a hotel on or near International Drive north of the convention center, be on the lookout Monday and Tuesday morning for a limo with my smoking doc logo on both sides. It will be cruising the circuit between the convention center and Sand Lake Road, offering rides to the convention center to anyone who flags it down. I thought that would be a nice gesture to the folks staying in the less expensive hotels up the street who don’t have the luxury of the short stroll over from the Rosen or Peabody (not to mention that it’s good HIStalk PR to have the logo riding around in plain sight). Take advantage of it so I’ll feel like I got my money’s worth. I’m not sure of the color, but it’s a 10-passenger stretch and I doubt there will be many of those on I-Drive early in the morning.

Merge Healthcare announces Q4 numbers: revenue up 139%, EPS $0.10 vs. –$0.03. I interviewed new CEO Jeff Surges a couple of weeks ago.

Welcome to new HIStalk Gold Sponsor CCT Solutions, Ltd. of New York, NY (and London). This is an interesting business: the company provides software training for big clinical system rollouts like CPOE, clin doc, bar coding, etc. They can provide a large number of instructors plus 24×7 on-site go-live support, which hospitals are rarely staffed up to effectively do themselves. They’ve handled some impressive volumes, training 16,000 employees of Continuum Health Partners and proving up to 500 support staff. Some of their other clients include Beth Israel Medical Center, Broward Health, and Albert Einstein Health Network. They’ll be at HIMSS and would be happy to chat. Thanks to CCT Solutions for supporting HIStalk.

I got an e-mail from Grady Memorial Hospital (GA) SVP/CIO Deborah Cancilla, asking for a “retraction of the information posted” in my mention that the hospital was laying off EMR contractors to address a budget shortfall. I replied that I really couldn’t retract anything since all I did was link to AJC, which quoted CEO Michael Young directly (“Part of the staffing cuts will likely include temporary and contract workers who were brought in to set up the hospital’s new electronic medical record system, Young said”) but I would update my post with whichever of the three possibilities she would verify as the problem: (a) the paper misquoted Mr. Young; (b) Grady changed their mind on the “likely” cuts; or (c) Mr. Young’s statement was incorrect. Michael Young e-mailed me that he misspoke – the cuts won’t affect the contract workers. Deborah also wanted to clarify that the $40 million cost for Epic is the five-year budget. I appreciate the updates.

 

Thanks to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor InSite One, now a Dell company. InSite One focuses on cloud-based digital medical data management solutions: data archiving, disaster recovery, and digital health data exchange. The company’s cloud-based, intelligent vendor-neutral archive and its disaster recovery services are offered from within Dell’s Unified Clinical Archive solution, which allows clinicians to share patient information regardless of the PACS, modality, or application that created it. I interviewed Mitchell Goldburgh, who talked about infrastructure simplification, the company’s one-time fee per image that allows customers to stay current on technology without spending capital or managing infrastructure, and the 3.6 billion objects and 54 million studies they are managing in a single archive. I learned a lot from that interview. Thanks to InSite One for supporting HIStalk.

Telemedicine systems vendor New Mexico Software will offer second opinion teleradiology services directly to consumer, charging the customer’s credit card to have one of its remote radiologists review their digital images.

FDA relaxes its pre-market review standards for low-risk medical devices, such as hardware that stores glucose meter readings or that sends lab results to nursing stations.

I’m not sure whether I’ll do a Sunday update from Orlando as a substitute for the Monday Morning Update. I’m sure I’ll run something, provided my hotel’s Internet connectivity is better than the last HIMSS in Orlando, where I had to sit around with the convention center cleaning people until late to latch onto the free WiFi to write HIStalk once it became clear that my hotel’s connectivity was worthless. Safe travels to everyone. If you’re staying home and your bosses are allegedly working hard at HIMSS, feel free to goof off next week. We’ll have lots of updates from Inga, Dr. Jayne, Dr. Gregg, and me.

E-mail me.

HERtalk by Inga

From Henrietta Winston: “Re: HIStalkapalooza. Tell Inga my most special shoes are placed out by my suitcase – ready to be packed. Unfortunately, my footwear is not as snazzy as as hers ): but I will wear jewelry that will make her claws come out!” Thanks for sending Mr. H this warning so he can hold me back, just in case. I failed to mention this before, but bling is absolutely encouraged to finish off your outfit Monday night!

Another day, another data breach. Charleston Area Medical Center warns of a “security incident” affecting 3,655 patients. Apparently a hospital-generated spreadsheet containing names, birth dates, addresses, and Social Security numbers popped up when a patient’s brother-in-law was searching for her address. The hospital says the data was viewable for four months and the site was viewed 94 times before it was shut down. Most hits came from authorized personnel, but one came from India, another from Germany, and a third from a private proxy service designed to anonymously download information from a Web site.

Strong Q4 numbers from athenahealth: revenues of $69.4 million compared to $54.4 last year, an increase of 27%. GAAP net income for the quarter was $7.3 million ($.21/share) and non-GAAP adjusted net income was $98.8 million ($.28/share). Analysts expected earnings of $.20/share and revenues of $67.60 million. athenahealth also mentions that as of December 31st it had 3,348 active providers using athenaClinicals, including 2,383 physicians, compared to 1,471 providers and 920 physicians at the end of 2009.

No surprise here:  achieving Meaningful Use is the top budget priority this year for 75% of hospitals. Over half say physician adoption of EMRs is the biggest obstacle for achieving that goal. The same Imprivata survey found that physicians are using more mobile devices and about half of hospitals either use or plan to deploy virtual desktop infrastructure.

HITArkansas narrows its list of supported EHR vendors to 12 finalists, including Allscripts, eClinicalWorks, e-MDs, Ingenix, McKesson, and Sage. The REC is now working with the vendors to establish pre-negotiated and vetted contracts based on a negotiated base price.

Two thousand clinicians and staff at Genesis Healthcare (OH) are using BIO-key fingerprint biometrics to establish identity in Genesis’s Epic software for meds administration. Genesis will also deploy fingerprint biometric user logon with Vergence, the SSO solution from Sentillion.

Intermountain Healthcare (UT) opens its Homer Warner Center for Informatics Research, which is dedicated to optimizing the use of information in health and biomedicine. The center employs about 60 people, but Intermountain CIO Marc Probst says they could add a couple hundred more over the next decade.

As others have  mentioned, my inbox is overflowing with pre-HIMSS press releases. I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: your company needs to work on its marketing pitch if takes a reasonably smart person (like me) multiple reads to figure out what exactly the company is trying to sell. KISS, as it were.

Ingenious Med introduces an iPhone/iTouch/iPad app that gives users access to the Ingenious Med charge and data capture platform.

I believe this would qualify for a bad day at the office. An ER patient uses a doctor’s stethoscope in an attempt to strangle his doctor. Apparently the patient became combative during his exam, and when the doctor tried to use the stethoscope, the patient attempted to wrap it around the doctor’s neck. Felony assault charges are pending.

I spent about an hour today attempting to map out my HIMSS game plan. I am sure that I am overly ambitious and I’ll run out of time and energy long before I’ve seen it all. I’m wondering if I will really make that 7:00 a.m. breakfast (what was I thinking?) and even an 8:30 start time Tuesday sounds torturous (post-HIStalkapalooza and all). Then there are the 900+ exhibitors to check out. And of course I’ll need to make time for a few HIStalk updates so readers at home can live vicariously through my adventures. I’m exhausted just contemplating it all.

By the way, I downloaded HIMSS11 mobile app for my iPhone and it’s pretty handy. The best part is the ability to search for the room number of individual sessions as well as exhibitor booth numbers. Far better than carrying a paper schedule – or asking for help.

See you in Orlando!

E-mail Inga.

Sponsor Updates by DigitalBeanCounter

• Mediserve client Burke Rehabilitation Hospital (NY) becomes the first post-acute care hospital in the country to achieve HIMSS Stage 6 certification.
• MedCentral Health System (OH) selects MobileMD to provide health information exchange to its medical community using the 4DX HIE product.
• McKesson awards Peninsula Regional Medical Center (MD) its 2011 Distinguished Achievement Award for Clinical Excellence based on its use of Horizon Clinicals to drive improvements in care. Peninsula decreased its sepsis-related mortalities 37% since October 2009 and attributes its use of technology and process change for saving 77 lives.
• MEDSEEK announces an 833% growth in sales in 2010. MEDSEEK also introduces ecoSmartTM, a targeted marketing solution with predictive modeling capabilities to customize a patient’s online experience based on user behavior.
• ICA releases a series of white papers offering guidance on health information exchanges, including issues on interoperability, technology, Meaningful Use, and privacy.
• Ashe Memorial Hospital (NC) deploys PatientKeeper CPOE and PatientKeeper Physician Portal. The hospital will next implement PatientKeeper NoteWriter.
• Beth Israel Deaconess Physician Organization contracts with Ingenix for its Impact Suite of software. The Impact solution will provide analytics to measure clinical performance and reduce variations in care.
• Picis announces its Perioperative and Critical Care solutions version 8.3, which includes automated medication interaction checks, a content library, and a quality reporting portal.
• InSite One completes integration testing at the IHE North American Connectathon and the InDex technology passed testing for conformance to the IHE technical frameworks. You can experience more of InSite One’s technology at the HIMSS Interoperability showcase.
• Enovate announces its e900 series of wall arms that allow clinicians to maintain eye contact with patients while working on the keyboard.
• New Brunswick’s Stan Cassidy Centre chooses Orion Health Patient Portal.
• EDIMS says it experienced a successful 2010, which included  a sale to Saint Barnabas Health Care Systems, New Jersey’s largest healthcare system. EDIMS also signed a unique agreement with Clara Maass Medical  Center (NJ) to provide onsite medical services at Red Bull Arena.
• Greenway Medical collaborates with HP to offer practices EHR solutions running PrimeSUITE 2011 EHR and HP hardware. Also, Greenway client Children’s Clinic of Muskogee (OK) is the first pediatric practice in the country to qualify for Meaningful Use funds. The clinic’s four providers are set to receive an $85,000 check, which will be handed out at the HIMSS conference.
• Orchestrate Healthcare will give away a free Apple MacBook Air at HIMSS. Booth 6151.
• Philips introduces a Philips Recorder for iPhones and iPads, which turns the device into a wireless dictation dictation recorder and works with the SpeechExec Enterprise suite.
• Shared Health and Health Language partner to use HLI’s Language Engine in Shared Health’s web-based applications and products. In case you missed it, Mr. H interviewed George Schwend of Health Language here.
• UNC Hospitals chooses Carefx’s Fusionfx Physician Insight Plus performance improvement dashboards.
• John Muir Health (JMH) and MuirLab contract for AT&T’s HIE solution, Healthcare Community Online.
• Speaking of AT&T, its partnership with Vitality to make Vitality Glowcaps (mentioned in a previous HIStalk) wins the 2011 Global Mobile Award.
• AHA Solutions announces an alliance with HIT research and advisory firm CapSite, which offers hospital executives due diligence and RFP information from hundreds of vendors.

EPtalk by Dr. Jayne

The pre-HIMSS mailings have finally tapered off, but I did receive two fairly funny “personalized” emails this week. The first was from a vendor whom I’ve repeatedly told that I am not interested in meeting with, addressed to me but sent to my brand new administrative assistant, who dutifully replied on my behalf, not realizing this was bulk mail and that if they really had a relationship with me and had left me a voice mail as they stated in the e-mail, that they wouldn’t now be spamming her.

The second one was from a voice recognition vendor with minimal proofreading skills, apparently missing the fact that EHR had been changed to HER before bulking it out. I hope their product has better translation abilities, but we shall see.

The first reader has responded to my challenge to create a funny Xtranormal clip about implementing technology in the healthcare realm. Love it!

Friday is the last day for the RelayHealth Facebook contest. I’m delighted to see wine and chocolates making the list, as my Valentine’s Day was a little lacking in both and I’m looking forward to making it up. RelayHealth published pictures of the gift bags for participants on their site – tres cute – so vote for your favorites (although they didn’t post my shameless attempt at entering myself, I’ll be sending an anonymous helper to try to score a gift bag, so be on the lookout). If you’re stumped for something to suggest, drop me an e-mail.

I’m off to pack my suitcase and wondering if I can meet the fashion bar that Inga has certainly raised, but wanted to share some recent reader questions before I head to warmer climates:

Dear Dr. Jayne,

What’s up with all these CMIOs who haven’t seen a patient in years, walking around in white coats with stethoscopes for necklaces? Just curious.

Dean

Dear Dean,

This just may be one of the greatest mysteries in health care. One thought is that these physicians are locked in an internal struggle between losing their clinical identity and realizing that they have become far too fluent in Administralian. Maybe this is their way of subconsciously saying, “Hey, don’t forget me, I really still am one of you!” I can sympathize with them when they have to walk through the hospital and see their colleagues on rounds being “real” doctors, although that doesn’t justify the behavior.

Unfortunately, this condition has another insidious manifestation. This is where doctors insist on wearing the white coat out of the clinical office for no reason whatsoever. I can understand if you have an administrative meeting and have to run from rounding or seeing patients to another on-campus building, but that doesn’t explain why one of my colleagues insists on wearing the white coat to administrative meetings at our building, which is a six-mile drive from the nearest patient care facility.

Personally, I think it’s just a bit pretentious. And kind of gross — let’s carry all the germs from the clinical space into the administrative space. (Although, I guess that’s a good cautionary tale for my staffers who don’t want to get a flu vaccine because they don’t work in direct patient care – reminding them that they have to work with these chaps when they visit the IT shop).

I think the worst version of this condition is shown in those poor souls who wear scrubs (complete with surgical shoe covers) outside the hospital. Really, you couldn’t take two seconds to take the booties off? Or you’re willing to bring the contamination of the outside world back into the operating theater? Is it really that critical to let the world know you work in an operating room?

If any of my other CMIO readers have theories, I’d love to hear them.

Dr. Jayne

Dear Dr. Jayne,

Thanks for your comments on doctors using the computer in the exam room. My doctor has been using a computer for years. It is attached to a wall mount right inside the exam room door. He stands up to type on it while he is talking to me. He looks at me, answers questions, then looks down to look over the record or type in information. Why is this so foreign to people? We work every day with people who are putting information into computers, from airlines to the pharmacy. I’m glad he can look to see how I’ve improved my weight, HDL, etc. over the years without bringing in a five-inch paper record (which they never did before anyway, just why you were there today).

Betsy

Dear Betsy,

Thanks for your note. I agree with you, but it still seems to be a big deal for some people. I always enjoy when patients tell me they’re glad that we have the computer or comment on a way it’s made a difference in their health care. I think it makes it more real to be able to show patients graphs of their blood pressure, weight, lab results, etc. I’ve also used it to launch videos on patient care sites to teach patients how to do certain exercises I’m recommending, or to research bits of info patients say they saw on a Web site.

It’s funny how accepting this has evolved over time. When I started my first “paperless practice,” our health system newsletter ran an article about the transition and what made us different. The CMO of my hospital made a big deal of editing out the comment where I said I used the Internet to research health concerns while in the room with the patient. He thought it made me sound like I didn’t have all the answers and that patients wouldn’t trust a doctor that had to look things up.

Fast forward a decade and now we have savvy, empowered patients that understand that we can’t know everything and expect us to not only be using the technology to find the most up to date information, but pushing it out to them via secure portals.

Dr. Jayne

Have a question about medical informatics, electronic medical records, or whether doctors would want their kids going to med school? E-mail Dr. Jayne.

News 2/16/11

From Wombat: “Re: Blumenthal replacement at ONC. Stephen L. Ondra, MD is the frontrunner.” Unverified. He’s a veteran, neurosurgeon, and senior policy advisor for health affairs at the VA. I doubt he’s a heavy EMR user, but I guess at ONC level that will always be the case. Maybe that should be a pre-requisite.

From CIO or CPA: “Re: Allscripts. Am I the only one that wonders about the Allscripts balance sheet? Nearly $1.6B out of a total of $2.4B assets is either intangibles or goodwill. There is also $460M of long term debt. This is a total of about 85 % of total assets. This compares to Cerner’s totals at about 21%. Seems like a large hole. What am I missing?”

From WildcatWell: “Re: Verizon Health Information Exchange. May offer its own MU-certified EMR to physicians who subscribe, use Verizon Business, FiOS, whatever. Info could then be pushed right into a doc’s home. Game changer, baby!”

From PureSpam: “Re: McKesson. Not a rumor – big layoff happening now (Tuesday morning).” Nasty Parts sent this on Monday: “Wholesale slaughter of the McKesson sales force on 2/15. Over 450 folks being let go.” Monday’s rumor from Doolittle specifically named McKesson, although I didn’t until I gave the company time to respond to my inquiry (they didn’t). I don’t have firm confirmation, but one insider places the number at 84% of the sales organization, or about 200 people. Supposedly a consulting firm convinced MCK that the client executive role was not worth keeping. I’ll let you know if they provide a statement.

From IKnowPlenty: “Re: vendor parties. Any insight about what they’re doing for entertainment? Keep up the good work – I enjoy every issue.” I haven’t followed the events too closely since I never have time to go. I think I signed up for the Allscripts party on Tuesday evening at Hard Rock Live with the hopes they’ll have name entertainment just in case I have time to attend, but in Orlando you usually end up with white-bread Disney day-jobbers doing an imitation of a band.

Just a brief note on HIStalkapalooza: it’s more than completely full from those who signed up during the designated period, so I can’t add more folks – sorry. I wish everybody could be there, but we just don’t have the room.

Kaiser’s George Halvorson extols the virtues of its new computerized clinical library in his organization-wide e-mail this week. It’s available everywhere to users, is being used 10,000 times per day, and in addition to references, also includes includes best practices, protocols, and links for using Kaiser services.

I feel odd mentioning new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor GE Healthcare since I don’t always have nice things to say about the company and they know their sponsorship won’t change that. Still, I was encouraged (and said so) a few weeks back when they were quick to reply honestly to a rumor I asked them about (true, as it turned out) and I admire them for supporting a somewhat loose cannon. Everybody knows GEHC, so let’s talk about what they’ll show you if you head over to that block-long booth they always have (#2401) at HIMSS: Centricity EMR solutions (Advance for small practices, Practice Solution for mid-sized ones, Centricity EMR for the big boys, and Enterprise for hospitals); eHealth Solutions (HIE, image exchange, and community desktop portal); digital pathology from its UPMC partnership; the Qualibria Clinical Knowledge Platform; and other tools (wireless devices, patient monitors, etc.) You can schedule a demo here (if it were me, I’d check out the HIE and Qualibria products since those are new, I think, and I don’t know a thing about either product) or head over to a theater presentation. Thanks to GE Healthcare for supporting an honest and opinionated HIStalk instead of some fawning publication or site.

Allscripts announces Q4 numbers: revenue up 87%, EPS –$0.03 vs. $0.10. The costs of the Eclipsys acquisition took MDRX into the red; otherwise, it would have beaten estimates at $0.20.

Valley Regional Hospital (NH) chooses the HMS hospital information system.

Orlando Health is partnering with Rothman Healthcare to evaluate the Rothman Index as an admissions patient surveillance tool and to enhance the effectiveness of the health system’s Rapid Response Team. I interviewed Michael Rothman in October and it was one of my better ones, if I do say so myself, because it’s an interesting product they’re creating and they’re doing it for passion, not money.

Quite a few of you filled out my reader survey – thanks. I only run it once a year, so this is your last chance to weigh in. I read every response and try to find time to run with a few of the ideas offered every year.

An ABC News piece covers a project by a former Stanford student to improve healthcare in Africa by setting up a telemedicine network based on text messages sent via discarded cell phones. I mentioned it last June when it was called FrontlineSMS:Medic. The new name is Medic Mobile.

Deborah Peel, MD of Patient Privacy Rights was scheduled to testify Tuesday before the PCAST work group of the HIT Policy Committee and HIT Standards Committee. Her group’s concerns: (a) universal data exchange formats without privacy consideration will make it easy to violate patient privacy; (b) it takes time to build privacy into systems; and (c) de-identification doesn’t really work very well.

University Hospitals (OH) will expand its deployment of the Allscripts EHR and Sunrise Enterprise.

A Boston Globe article covers patient harm caused by alarm fatigue with hospital patient monitors. It mentions a 15-bed unit at Johns Hopkins that averaged 942 critical alarms per day. It also cites a Mass General case in which a patient slowly died while experiencing a fatal heart attach after his cardiac monitor was turned off and staff did not respond to ongoing alarms triggered by his low heart rate. A nurse was quoted: “We have 17 types of alarms that can go off at any time .. It becomes … background.” Studies also found that up to 85% of the alerts are false alarms.

CSC’s big NPfIT contract is in danger of being cancelled over repeated missed implementation dates, some of the go-lives years overdue. NPfIT has gone through many vendors, some of them big, and I don’t know of any that made any money. It probably wouldn’t break CSC’s heart to be shown the door.

Privacy software developed by a Canadian researcher is being tested by two hospitals. It scores the likelihood of being able to identify a particular patient based on their available information and then selectively de-identifies the records as needed. I see by Googling that he’s already formed a company to sell it.

HHS launches the HealthIndicators.gov portal, opening up the HHS health indicators data vault to developers and researchers.

Billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong makes another healthcare technology investment, this time in UK-based wireless monitoring device vendor Toumaz. The company will start by developing sports sensors, but will then look at wireless healthcare.

A Virginia hospital, hit by Facebook-posted rumors that patients were dying of sepsis contracted there, strikes back by saying “not true” on its own Facebook page. At least it doesn’t cost anything to argue on Facebook.

E-mail me.

HERtalk by Inga

From Fancy Nancy: “Re: HIStalkapalooza attire. I am so excited about the reception coming up and am wondering how formal people are dressing? I need your guidance and wisdom.” Fancy Nancy, I am so glad you asked. I hope that we see lots of velvet and taffeta and strappy high heels. If you can’t decide whether it’s worth it to pack that special outfit, here is something to consider: the two winners of the Inga Loves My Shoes contest will each receive a $100 gift certificate from Zappo’s, courtesy of Mr. H. Then there is the HIStalk King and Queen event for the the best-dressed attendees. These royal winners each take home iPod Touches (not the cheesy 8GB version, but the new 32GB model, complete with Facetime and HD video recording). Here is a hint, if you want to be in the running: don’t be late. We will have a red carpet entrance, and if you really want to strut your stuff, make sure you take a moment for a photo and chat with our red carpet interviewers. The formal presentation part of the evening will begin at 8:00 p.m. and our finalists will be selected by that time. To give you an idea of how high the bar is set for the shoe contest, our esteemed judge sent me the above photo of what will be adorning her feet. Meanwhile, our head judge for HIStalk King and Queen has been cramming to watch all eight seasons’ worth of “What Not to Wear” and to memorize all of Stacey and Clinton’s rules.

From Pretty in Pink: “Re: Winning party attire. Real men wear pink, so I am hoping that someone from my team will have a shot at HIStalk King.”  While we love you pink-pants-wearing guys, we hope you have time to change before heading to BB King’s. Of course, if you show up in a pink tux, our judges will likely make you a finalist.

A big thank you to everyone who shared with me news of other fun evening events during HIMSS.  Some of the hot parties include Cuba Libre for “music , dancing, food, and fun” and a casino night at one of the big hotels. It seems like I also saw something about an event at the Amway Center with appearances by Orlando Magic players, but I can’t find that e-mail. So much for staying in and ordering room service.

Misys Open Source Solutions will leverage technology from Apixio to improve data search and filter capabilities.

Allina Hospitals & Clinics (MN) deploys Mobility XE, a mobile VPN solution from NetMotion Wireless.

2010 was the second worst year in the last 15 for mass hospital layoffs , affecting a total of 10,490 individuals.

Nuance continues to be the “power player” in the speech recognition market, according to a new KLAS report. Nuance’s eScription was the highest rated back-end system, followed by Dolbey Fusion Speech. Nuance’s PowerScribe and RadWhere led the front-end speech segment, followed by MedQuist’s SpeechQ. KLAS says the speech recognition market is ripe for healthy growth, with only one in four hospitals employing the technology.

GE’s philanthropic organization, the GE Foundation, awards $500,000 to two Erie, PA-based community health centers to support increased access to quality healthcare. Meanwhile, GE Healthcare enters into a joint development and marketing agreement with SAS to use SAS Analytics in GE’s Patient Safety Organization to mine data on patient safety adverse or near-miss events.

Siemens Healthcare announces that five healthcare systems have contracted for Soarian systems, including Baptist St. Anthony’s Health System (TX), Peconic Bay Medical Center (NY), Children’s Hospital (LA), Touro Infirmary (LA), and MaineGeneral Health.

Ken Graham, the newly unemployed CEO of El Camino Hospital (CA), will receive almost $1 million in severance pay. El Camino’s board of directors fired Graham last week “without cause.” Nothing like a million bucks to ease the pain.

Did you have a chance to look through Mr. H’s Must See Vendors for HIMSS11? Here are two reasons it’s worth your time: 1) you will be amazed at the variety of products and services that encompass the HIT world; and  2) there are some pretty nifty giveaways. I have printed my PDF version so I know which booths to hit. If you are short on time, here are a few tips, starting with the offerings exclusively for HIStalk readers:

• Vitalize Consulting (3070) – if you connect a “link” on their Chain of Hope, they will donate $5 plus an additional $5 if you say you are a HIStalk reader.
• Virtelligence (2131), MED3OOO (917), Emdeon (2201), and Cumberland Consulting (6943) are each hosting special HIStalk reader-only drawings for iPads.
• Iatric Systems (3601) – (3) $50 iTunes gift cards for readers.
• Enterprise Software Deployment (2777) – special drawing for a Sonos Music System.
• Billian’s HealthDATA/Porter Research (4579) – snack packs to the first 100 HIStalk readers.
• API Healthcare (3463) – HIStalk reader-only drawing for a Dell Inspiron Mini Netbook.

For the HIStalk-exclusive goodies, you pretty much just need to mention you are a reader – no secret handshakes required. While you are touring the exhibit floor, here are a few other recommended stops:

• CareTech (1831) – raffling off a $1,000 donation to a recipient’s hospital foundation.
• Enovate (2738) – iPad giveaway.
• Enterprise Software Deployment (2777) – in addition to the HIStalk-only drawing, they are giving out cozy flip flops and a chance to win a FLIP camcorder.
• HT Systems/PatientSecure (218-10) – if you register to meet with them in advance, you have a chance to win an Android-based tablet PC.
• Keane (1548) – iPad giveaway.
• MEDecision (2563) – Starbucks coffee (!)
• Microsoft (3101) – Microsoft Arc Mouse giveaway.
• NCR (2805) – a singed copy of Paper Kills 2.0 by Next Gingrich to the first 25 people to schedule a booth appointment.
• NextGen (2163) – chances to win a smart phone or iPad. NextGen will also have “splash” artists creating works that will be given away.
• Sage (1713) – sign their Red by Sage Wall of Inspiration to commemorate someone’s life that’s been touched by heart disease, then get a chair massage.
• Wolters Kluwer (6162) – chance to win a trip for four to the US Masters in Augusta.

E-mail Inga.

Sponsor Updates by DigitalBeanCounter

• Design Clinicals now supports integration with GetWellNework, allowing hospital patients to use the in-room TV to request bedside delivery of prescribed meds.
• Clairvia says sales of its Care Value Management software grew 85% during the last six months of 2010.
• MEDecision is launching a mobile application that enables providers to access its Clinical Summaries through smart phones and electronic tablets.
• GetWellNetwork announces a record number of new contracts, upgrades, and expansions with new hospitals.
• The Boston Globe cites Nuance’s Dragon Medical software in an article titled, “Writing exactly what they say.”
• Riverside HealthCare (IL) selects the eClinicalWorks EHR.
• Five CareTech Solutions clients will share their experiences at HIMSS11.
• Colleen Hittle, managing partner at Anson Group, will be a featured panelist at Indiana University’s Life Sciences conference on February 25 in Indianapolis. Shout out to DigitalBeanCounter’s alma mater!
• Imprivata partners with Thales, an information systems security leader, to deliver high level SSO cryptographic security.
• Stan Cassidy Centre for Rehabilitation (SCCR) chooses Orion Health’s Patient Portal to improve communication between patients and providers.
• Access will demonstrate the new version of its electronic forms offering at HIMSS, which includes an iPad version.
• Siemens will conduct on-the-spot interviews of experienced talent  at their HIMSS booth, with a specific interest in candidates for product line management and enterprise services positions.
• Phelps County Regional Medical (MO) will replace its document management system with Perceptive Software’s ImageNow document management, imaging, and workflow solution, integrated with Meditech.

EPtalk by Dr. Jayne

Barely a week left before HIMSS and I’m still having fun opening the mail every day. However, being in a part of the US that’s been having some weather, I don’t envy my mail carrier dealing with the vendor postcard that was mailed in an 8×10 rigid envelope that required it be carried through the proverbial rain, snow, sleet, and hail to my front porch. Yes, you got my attention with that, but you also could have gotten my attention with a smaller mailing, like the new Rapid Rewards update mailing that Southwest Airlines just sent. The size of a standard CD case, it caught my attention and kept my mail carrier warm and dry in his truck.

Lawson also got my attention (but in a positive way) with their tagline “Top Performers Make the Difficult Look Easy” and photographs of the contortionists they’ll be featuring in their booth. Although fascinating, I have a hard time watching acrobats because it brings back memories of Gross Anatomy class and having to memorize the name of every muscle, bone, and tendon.

Reader Bill, a veteran of the healthcare marketing trenches, emailed Mr. H and me about marketing:

Some folks complain about your HIStalk banner ads; I have embraced them as interesting. Not because I am sold on their offerings – not in the least. But when clustered together and winking at me with their clever little Flash graphics as I scroll, they seem otherworldly, almost anthropomorphic – "look at me!" "No, look at me!”

Mesmerized, I am transported to nearly 100 drab marketing conference rooms where overworked copy and graphic drones are prodded by their regional or national suit to, "Gimme something that ‘pops.’ Stale coffee, half-eaten bagels and doughnuts, pencil sketches, and wads of paper strew the table. Projector images flip through the ridiculous and unrealistic royalty-free stock photos of too-pretty male and female models with stethoscopes posing as healthcare workers. Bright young graphics and PR managers all convinced that they have the next best attention-grabbing gimmick.

With that in mind, my pre-HIMSS Winner of the Week is Aventura, which grabbed my eye with their tag-team Halloween-hued envelopes. The orange envelope held a fairly standard piece, but I enjoyed their promise of fixing all my staff’s roaming profile and VDI issues “in a way that will loosen their hands from your throat.” I’m not so sure though about their promise to “do things that will make clinicians run up and kiss you.” The black envelope held an invite to yet another private hands-on demo where they plan to show “the ultimate technological feat: how to make clinicians think you’re a decent, thoughtful, kind-hearted person.” I give them an A+ for marketing and a gold star for being a vendor that understands my world.

One last thought on marketing: the issue with the RelayHealth Facebook contest to create a welcome gift basket for me has been fixed – it no longer tries to get you to upload a video. I was starting to feel cyber-neglected due to lack of submissions until a reader e-mailed about the issue. The contest ends on February 18th, and if your suggestion gets high votes, you win a prize. Right now the field is wide open, so you’re guaranteed to be a winner! (I did shamelessly seed it with my own entry, though.)

I heard from some readers responding to my challenge to share the one product, add-on, or offering that is indispensable for practice. Several suggested a vendor who is also on Mr. H’s “Must See” list, so I thought I’d share it in advance of HIMSS so those of you who are not familiar can be sure to check them out. Intelligent Medical Objects (also an HIStalk Platinum Sponsor) will be at Booth 3517. I’m already a user and can tell you they saved my sanity as a physician and my life as a CMIO, providing the biggest “win” I’ve ever delivered to my docs. (And no, I’m not on their payroll, before some of you ask. But they did buy me drinks once as my ‘real’ self.)

Enough HIMSS-induced prattle. I have two articles to share this week.

First, from the Journal of Family Practice February 2011 issue, the first published case report in the United States of teenage text-induced tendinitis (although they did get scooped by The Medical Journal of Australia). This fourteen-year-old was texting four hours a day using only one thumb. The authors cite data that shows injury is related to high thumb movement velocities, with females being faster texters than males and thus more symptomatic. Use of a two-thumb style was protective, as was (drum roll) limiting daily texting activities, slowing down, and watching posture.

Second, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that two brand-new members of the Georgia senate have teamed up in an effort to force Medicaid clients (not sure why we can’t call them patients any more) to use an ID card with their photo and PHI on a data chip and to scan their fingerprints at the doctor’s office (at least they didn’t call us providers again).

Although I applaud legitimate efforts to fight fraud, I take issue with this proposed legislation for several reasons. First, doctors are already dealing with the unfunded mandate of Meaningful Use (anyone who believes this is a money-maker, we need to chat) and now you want us scanning fingerprints at $200 a device? Do you two newbie politicians have any idea about health IT or what it would take to implement this?

Second, they want the patient fingerprinted both on arrival and when they leave the office. Have they never heard of efficiency? Is the patient going to be a victim of identity theft while they are being treated? (Maybe our backless paper gowns can steal more than dignity!)

And third, this is going to be another reason why physicians and other providers are going to stop participating in the Medicaid program (as if low payments, administrative burdens, and medically complex patients with multiple socioeconomic factors influencing their care are not reason enough). The estimated program cost is $26 million. Vendors, start your engines!

Have a question about medical informatics, electronic medical records, or what good has ever come of turning your head and coughing? E-mail Dr. Jayne.

Dr. Gregg Goes to HIMSS
By Gregg Alexander

Amidst the din, nay, cacophony of getting-close-to-HIMSS e-mails from marketers (and Marketeers) and the PR firm mouthpieces for all things HIT, it gets pretty difficult to wean the worthwhile from the worthless … and most appear more -less than -while. Filters are running full bore these day as I try to figure out which pre-HIMSS blasts actually contain any real value.

One made it through a few weeks ago, when the cacophony was more hubbub than holler. Several factors, especially the concise descriptors the e-mailer used, allowed it to reach through my mental blockade (which has become quite the barricade these days out of sheer volume overload necessity). I am happy that it did, because it helps me to honestly say that not all the pre-HIMSS hype is just hype. There’s a few who truly deserve to be noticed. Here’s how:

Today, I had a sneak peak demo of a product that will be rolled out at HIMSS which I am actually thrilled to see coming. VitalHealth Software, which is the result of a collaboration between Noaber (pronounced knob-er) Foundation out of the Netherlands and Minnesota-based Mayo Clinic, is rolling out VitalHealth EHR at HIMMS. I truly think it is an EHR that is going to make a lot of people stand up and take notice. It is Web 2.0 for EHRs, human user interface at the fore, stupid simple on the surface while kick-ass smart below decks, easy on the eyes, workflow-savvy. It is what an EHR should look and act like.

If you’re hitting HIMSS, I highly recommend taking a peek. If you’re a provider looking for an EHR tool that has been turned on a really smart lathe, it should almost be mandatory. It is flat-out cool.

——————

Pretty much every talking HIT head has had a chance to spout about David Blumenthal’s announced return to academia. (I can’t wait to hear what the buzz around the HIMSS water coolers will be about his replacement.) Sure, he has to head back to keep his spot on the Harvard starting lineup, but who knows what other thoughts may have traversed his mind as he saw the sands running low in the sabbatical hourglass? Here is one possible scenario that I just loved from an author (I only wish I’d written it) who prefers to remain anonymous:

“I think Dr. Blumenthal sees the writing on the wall. Excerpt from his recent internal dialogue:

Government David: ‘CMS says we gotta make ‘em go CCHIT before they NIST and, after that, make ’em achieve MU, build an HIE, become an ACO, and then get NCQA to issue new PCMH regs.’

Human David: ‘OMG, this is wack. AMF.’ (Adios, Mother ——-s.)”

——————

Another pre-HIMSS marketeering note: maybe it works differently on real reporters, folks who deal with this kind of “Hey, listen to me!” on a regular basis, but in my opinion, the incessant reiteration and second / third / fourth e-mails from PR companies trying to land an interview time for their clients is mostly just off-putting. Especially if the first e-mail blast was poorly drafted, impersonal, insincere, or one of the typical hastily performed cut-n-paste jobs that seem so common. I’ve had a fairly busy inbox for some time, but the pre-HIMSS blasts have probably doubled my Junk…er, Inbox files.

My suggestion: put the effort in the first time and odds would be way better that you won’t need the second, third, fourth, etc.

——————

Most of you may remember the now-defunct TEPR (Towards the Electronic Patient Record.) I remember how helpful and well-attended it was back in Salt Lake City in 2005. What once was a thriving HIT showcase and helpful place for providers looking to learn more and get hands-on product experience died an ignominious death after the poorly attended 2009 exhibition in Palm Springs. Granted, it supposedly morphed into mHealth, but mHealth doesn’t fill the same bill, not by a long shot.

All the pre-HIMSS blasts have prompted me to consider if there is any way that the thriving, almost bursting at the seams HIMSS conference could one day soon go the way of the once grand-ish TEPR. I mean, once the numbers have reversed and 85% of providers are working electronically and, especially, once the Obama-bucks have run dry, will there really be a need for this digital bacchanalia?

Not sure, but I’ll tell you what: I enjoyed TEPR in ’05 and I’ll betcha HIMSS ’11 is gonna be a ball – especially that HIStalk Reception!! Enjoy ‘em while you got ‘em.

E-mail Gregg.

Monday Morning Update 2/14/11

From Neal’s Deal: “Re: Cerner deal. The academic medical center referred to in the Q4 earnings call is USC University Hospital. It is somehow fitting that UCLA picked Epic and USC picked Cerner.” Unverified. It was amusing that Cerner bragged to investment analysts that it beat Epic in one deal. It’s a good win for Cerner, but then again Epic has had many good wins over Cerner lately. Competition is good for everybody.

From Held Hostage: “Re: Meditech. I have heard from multiple sources that they’re telling customers they must buy all modules to meet Meaningful Use under their certification as a Complete EHR. If you use third-party CPOE, for instance, you would have to replace it with Meditech’s because you don’t have the Complete EHR. Any comments or evidence supporting or refuting this theory would be helpful.” I posed your question to a Meditech spokesperson, who provided this official response: “The specific wording of this specific Comment below is not accurate.” Also, this is not likely a question limited to Meditech – the whole “Complete EHR” thing is getting people confused about what it means and whether it makes sense.

From Frank Poggio: “Re: certification. The certification/MU system is extremely biased towards full EHR vendors. Best-of-breed vendors and suite vendors can be left out. If your certified ‘full EHR’ (read: single vendor) generates the MU quality data, you are OK. But if you use other systems, such as a best-of-breed lab, pharmacy, registration, etc, then if that component is going to dump data to your data warehouse and it is used for MU reporting, that best-of-breed system must be certified. If it is not, and you pass the data to your EHR (which is certified), you are OK. Anyone that has been in the business as a best-of-breed vendor knows those big EMR guys just love to cooperate with the little folks! The moral: if you’re a best-of-breed provider, you’d better get certified as an EHR Module.”

 

From Voidal: “Re: El Camino Hospital CEO. Dispenses with the lame ‘spending time with family’ excuse and flat out says he’s leaving because the board said so. He had quite a run: the Eclipsys pharmacy system fiasco, Microsoft snow job, Taj Mahal building project, and fierce local competition.” Ken Graham’s three-sentence announcement says his contract will end without cause at the request of the board.

From Doolittle: “Re: [vendor name omitted]. Obliterating their US sales operations. Their executive leader has been ‘reassigned,’ 20% of the management has elected to leave or been asked to, and a full 50% of the Client Executives (fully responsible for hospital/IDN relationships) are no longer there. Many of the 20-plus year veterans are gone as well. Bigger changes are expected in April. Loss of revenue, non-existent new business sales, the huge [product name omitted] failure … the house of cards is finally tumbling down. As a former employee, I took a new position within the past year when the writing was on the wall …it’s now on billboards in neon!” Unverified. I invited the company to comment; they have not responded so far. I’ll leave their name off for now just in case their response is forthcoming, but surely you can guess who it is. They could be gearing up to unload the operation by cutting costs short-term, but that’s just speculation. Otherwise, whacking the sales operation is eating the seed corn.

From The PACS Designer: “Re: cloud predictions. InformationWeek’s Charles Babcock has cloud predictions for 2011 and what the major players are doing to get a piece of the cloud business. Pioneers Amazon and Google are now facing challenges from the telecoms, mainly AT&T and Verizon, for a share of the cloud offerings to institutions who want to expand communications beyond their data centers.” 

Listening: new from Motorhead, punk metal with a croaking 65-year-old singer who’s even less musically gifted than AC/DC’s Brian Johnson. It still kicks, though. Newly added to the gym iPod: jangle from REM and Gin Blossoms.

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone. Guys, if you haven’t yet invested in picked-over and overpriced flowers, a sappy card with prose penned by a hack novelist wannabe, and maybe a dinner reservation knowing that even great restaurants will throw quality to the wind in favor of high-margin V-Day turnover, then this is your early warning system to man up. Sure, it’s a Hallmark holiday, but if you could spend that same couple of hundred dollars and get an EMR with an equally impressive ROI, you’d own several. Monday is the lightest HIStalk night where I work only 4-5 hours after coming home from the hospital, so I am prepared with a piece of jewelry, some of Mrs. HIStalk’s favorite dark chocolate covered cherries (the cheap Walgreens kind she likes), and a little heart-wearing stuffed bear (also from Walgreens) that plays I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch) by the Temptations when you poke his stomach. Yes, I am quite the catch.

One possible hitch in Monday’s VD plans: a vendor asked me to interview their CEO and that of another vendor as an exclusive prior to a Tuesday morning announcement, which I obviously have to do after I get home from work since the hospital doesn’t pay me to interview CEOs. If you aren’t signed up for e-mail updates, now’s a good time.

There’s no clear conclusion about the PCAST report, it seems. New poll to your right: I asked you last week to suggest a replacement for David Blumenthal at ONC, so this week’s poll lets you choose from the most-nominated individuals. Click Comments on the poll to bolster your argument. Chances are small that your vote will influence the outcome, but still higher than the zero percent chance inherent with not voting at all. Thanks to those who nominated me. I’ll respectfully decline since I’m anti-HITECH, I don’t trust politicians or the federal government, and Washington traffic is horrendous.

Thanks to everyone who filled out my annual reader survey. Thanks to everyone else for considering clicking the link and doing it now.

It’s always busy around here right before HIMSS, which means I don’t get much sleep for a couple of months. It calms down right after. Until then, please indulge me as I introduce some new sponsors. I don’t solicit sponsors and I don’t want to inundate you with announcements about new ones, but their unsolicited yet appreciated participation is a reflection of you as a reader, a desirable audience they want to reach.

New Platinum Sponsor Besler Consulting is a consulting firm focusing on healthcare finance and operations. It offers services related to observation management; Medicare / Medicaid appeals and regulatory analysis; cost report preparation; IME/GME analysis; revenue cycle; managed care contract review; physician billing and practice analysis; coding, documentation, and compliance; accreditation and certification readiness; and strategic and operational planning. More specifically on the software side, the company will be rolling out two new solutions this year: BVerified Screening and Verification (automated screening of employees, caregivers, contractors, and vendors against federal and state databases of fraud and abuse convictions) and BVerified Revenue Integrity Auditor (reporting of uncovered revenue opportunities). Thanks to Besler Consulting for supporting HIStalk.

Intelligent Medical Objects of Northbrook, IL is supporting HIStalk as a Platinum Sponsor. The company’s tagline is “Providing common ground for health vocabularies,” which it does by offering terminology mapping to EMR vendors for their applications (ICD, SNOMED, HCPCS, RxNorm) and vocabulary products for helping healthcare organizations support interoperability. The IMO iHealth Search is a search portal for EHR systems, a sophisticated knowledge search engine that translates clinician terminology to generate superior search results. IMO offers a free, voice-powered iPhone app that allows physicians to find problem and diagnosis codes by speaking clinician-friendly terms into their phones. A customer quote about their similarly clinician-friendly EMR-based lookups: “When we added the IMO diagnosis look-up feature to our templates, the positive response was overwhelming. Many physicians said it was the best thing we ever did for them!” They have some cool demos on their site, but probably some even cooler ones at HIMSS in Booth 3517. I appreciate the support of HIStalk and its readers by Intelligent Medical Objects.

Stimulus Search (love the name) is a brand new HIStalk Gold Sponsor. If you’re a healthcare software and services company in the hospital, payer, or physician practice markets and are looking for top sales and support people, get in touch with recruiting guru Dan Moriarty down in the New Orleans area. His firm can help vendors find niche talent, such as HIE, EHR, revenue cycle, RFID, PACS, CPOE, and HIM. There’s a long list of testimonials on the site. Dan will even lend his expertise to candidates interested in furthering their career objectives. Take Dan’s six-question survey about recruiting methods that do and don’t work and he will share the results. Thanks to Stimulus Search for its support of HIStalk.

Joining our august assemblage as a Platinum Sponsor is HT Systems of Tampa, FL, which you may know better as the PatientSecure folks. A couple of months ago, I gave a brief mention of a hospital (I think it was Carolinas HealthCare, but I’m not sure) implementing its palm vein recognition system and I stuck in a small photo. That generated quite a bit of interest among readers, and apparently the company’s interest in HIStalk. PatientSecure identifies people by scanning their palms, with their unique vein patterns being 100 times more accurate than a fingerprint (and free of the “you’re not taking MY fingerprints” stigma that I can say from personal experience is vexing to IT people trying to roll out finger-based biometrics). Registration people don’t need to manually look up patients or hope they’re who they say and not some nice but uninsured neighbor borrowing their insurance card – the patient puts their hand on the scanner and their files are instantly brought up in the registration application. The result is positive patient identification, no more duplicated medical records to be merged later, faster customer service, and integration with existing systems (and across systems – a patient set up at the hospital can be scanned in a physician’s office). Thanks to HT Systems / PatientSecure for supporting HIStalk.

CPSI announces that three of its hospital customers have received HITECH checks. CEO Boyd Douglas says, “There are still hospitals on the fence about doing this, wondering whether they’ll really get the money. This serves as proof that the money is flowing.”

ONC lame duck David Blumenthal is still defending EMRs and bashing critical studies, but he’s maybe getting a little crankier or less PC about it on his way out the door, which I rather like, actually. He reminds an audience that recession-hammered Americans involuntarily chipped in $27 billion to buy technology that providers “could have adopted by themselves but they didn’t. We are handing over tens of thousands of dollars to doctors and millions of dollars to hospitals to do something that you may hear them say is a burden and an obligation and a mandate … If you look at this from the standpoint of the average voter and the taxpayer, this is a big, big subsidy to a profession that on average earns considerably more than the average American.” All good reasons not to have done it, but unless the Republicans get an unlikely long lasso, that horse left the barn long ago with DB whipping its hindquarters.

TELUS signs agreements with three Canadian EMR vendors to use TELUS Health Space, powered by Microsoft HealthVault, in consumer health pilots that will target six million Canadians. The Canadian telecommunications company also reports Q4 numbers: revenue up 4.4% to $2.55 billion, EPS $0.70 vs. $0.49.

I’m still getting HIMSS spam at work, but here’s another gripe: I keep getting friendly-sounding “invitations” to events that aren’t free. Is it really an “invitation” to have breakfast with some magazine if I have to pay? Why would I want to do that?

Confirmed: the IngaTinis will indeed be flowing at the SIS booth (#5963) at HIMSS, Monday from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. (“a fun pre-game for the HIStalk reception,” Inga was reminded by a fun SIS’er). I was talking to SIS CEO Ed Daihl today and he joked that he’s sorry they didn’t copyright the name last year, so at least I can give them credit for the idea.

Authors of a new book on ACOs: Bruce Flareau MD (CMIO, BayCare, FL), Joanne Bohn (founder, Clinical Horizons, Inc.), and Colin Konschak (managing partner, DIVURGENT). Speaking of DIVURGENT, they announce their Activate! activation management services.  

Inga has spend a huge amount of time putting together a couple of pre-HIMSS pieces. She asked our sponsors what they will be doing at HIMSS (the page is here, or a downloadable PDF here). As a bonus, several of them have set aside extra-special giveaways that are only for HIStalk readers (she includes the secret code words). And on HIStalk Practice, she got some fascinating answers in latest installment of her executive question series, where dozens of vendor executives predict the hot topics at the HIMSS conference. That one’s definitely a fun read. Nobody can do this as well as Inga – the quantity and quality of the responses is amazing.

The Columbus paper covers the use of scribes by a company that contracts out ED physician staffing. It also quotes a dermatologist who says his EMR use was interfering with his patient relationships before he hired a scribe. “I’m able to go in and have good eye contact, be empathetic and not have to type. It’s difficult to type and look at moles at the same time.” An interesting and easy study would be to take the same doctors and patients, with and without the doctor interacting with the EMR in the exam room, and measure the patients’ perceptions about the encounter and the doctor. I still say it’s more about technique and physical placement of the computer than anything else.

IT outsourcer PHNS changes its name to Anthelio. There’s a long and unconvincing explanation about the origins and inspiration behind the lawsuit-unlikely name and the whole “new commitment, new focus” blah blah. Apparently the entire business and vision was being held back by having a pronounceable and simple name like PHNS, forcing a deep dive into the dictionary to turn things around.

An eight-physician primary care practice in Cincinnati says it’s considering joining a hospital system specifically because it needs an EMR that it estimates will cost $250K. “I’m a business owner who needs an electronic medical record. If it were not for EMR, I would not consider it.” That’s an unintended consequence of HITECH – killing off independent practices and letting high-profit hospitals integrate vertically, which doesn’t exactly foster price-lowering competition or provide benefit to the patient-widget (not to mention that it spreads rampant hospital inefficiency and bureaucracy).

Grady Hospital (GA), trying to offset a $25 million reduction in indigent care payments from the state, will cut contractors brought in to implement its $40 million Epic EMR. That might be a portent of healthcare reform: a tanking hospital somehow scrapes up $40 million to buy an EMR, but now can’t even afford the people needed to get it running.

Ness County Hospital (KS) chooses the ChartAccess EHR from Prognosis Health Information Systems.

Sutter and UC Davis will share their electronic health records.

Microsoft will announce new HealthVault features at HIMSS: a Getting Started wizard, the ability for users to authenticate their account by telephone, a single landing page, integrated Blue Button support to allow users to download their health information from various government sources and then upload it into HealthVault, and the ability for developers to set event notification for changes to an individual’s information.

I got a couple of invitations to some interesting conferences this week, include one to speak to a big group of venture capitalists, private equity people, and corporate types. Folks are so nice to offer and I really appreciate it, although the challenges of finagling time off at work means I always decline. As for speaking, anything interesting or insightful that pops into my head is right here on HIStalk, so I’d just be recycling anyway.

HHS is supposed to be unveiling a new site soon that will put into motion CTO Todd Park’s plan to open up HHS’s extensive healthcare databases to third-party developers to create value-added applications. Todd’s example is usually the government’s trove of real-time weather data, used by a plethora of companies to create new uses for it and make the information more publicly useful. Todd’s in the above video and talks about HealthData.gov at the 1:30 mark, saying it was supposed to launch in December, which apparently didn’t happen.

New York’s Health and Hospitals Corp. admits that the health records of 1.7 million of its patients were stolen in December when unknown thieves took backup tapes from an unlocked van belonging to its medical records vendor, GRM Information Management Services.

E-mail me.

Mr. HIStalk’s Must See Vendors for HIMSS11

Download a PDF copy.

Access

Booth: 2317

Contact:
Kiffer Davis
kiffer.davis@accessefm.com
214.272.0375

Access is the world’s leading electronic forms (e-forms) management, automation and workflow software provider. Our solutions transform any paper-intensive forms process into a paperless, collaborative workflow. Hundreds of hospitals worldwide are using Access solutions to improve patient care and safety, cut costs and enhance electronic health records (EHR), patient safety and downtime registration initiatives. Learn more at www.accessefm.com

Access Says: With Access solutions, you can print e-forms on demand with patient demographics and barcodes that auto index in ECM/EDM systems, paperlessly port clinical device and system output into EHRs, use online forms & electronic workflow to complete physician referrals and back office processes and complete eforms on the fly via mobile devices.

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AdvancedMD Software

Booth: 1079

Contact:
BStone@advancedmd.com
801.984.9500
www.advancedmd.com

Practices, Hospitals, RECs, ACOS and Billing Services: If you need a technology platform that can interconnect the smaller private practice into the larger, health community – you need to talk with AdvancedMD, booth 1079. Easy-to-implement, integrated EHR+PM technology, with customizable visit templates for the most “particular” physician and strong revenue management tools for the experienced billing professional. No large upfront capital expenditure. No complex IT infrastructure. Pay-as-you-grow model, scales up and down with business fluctuations. Month-to-month contracts. Put your brand on our application. We invest in our business partners with sales and marketing support.

AdvancedMD Software Says: It takes more than technology to successfully migrate the independent physician into the age of interconnected healthcare. It takes a partner like AdvancedMD. Low cost of acquisition. Flexible technology platform. Marketing and sales support programs.

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Allscripts

Booth: 2241

Contact:
Claire Weingarden, Public Relations Specialist
312.447.2442
claire.weingarden@allscripts.com

Allscripts provides innovative solutions that empower all stakeholders across the healthcare continuum to deliver world-class outcomes. The company’s clinical, financial, connectivity and information solutions for hospitals, physicians and post-acute organizations are the essential technologies that enable a connected community of health. To learn more about Allscripts, please visit www.allscripts.com, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Allscripts Says: True care coordination, both inside your organization and throughout your community, requires a single patient record. The new Allscripts, formed by the merger of Allscripts and Eclipsys, has the largest connected provider network in healthcare and provides connectivity for one patient record, on the industry’s first open platform.

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API Healthcare

Booth: 3463

Contact:
Scott Smith, Vice President of Global Sales
262.685.8309
scott.smith@apiheatlhcare.com
www.apihealthcare.com

API Healthcare is a leading provider of fully integrated healthcare-specific workforce management solutions. Full integration equates to a more satisfied, cost-effective workforce that is empowered to provide high quality patient care. Learn how your organization can improve workforce management processes – both in terms of the cost and quality of care delivered.

API Healthcare Says: Delivering the advanced integration capabilities that connect your workforce with your clinical and financial data, API Healthcare Synergy is the future of workforce management. Stop by and see how technology that fosters an alliance of goals between finance and nursing can achieve more positive clinical outcomes and a healthier bottom line.

Special Give-away Just for HIStalk Readers: API Healthcare will have a special drawing just for HIStalk readers for a Dell Inspiron Mini Netbook with an Intel® Atom™ Processor. Stop by booth #3463, mention HIStalk, and we’ll swipe the badge for chance to win.

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AsquaredM

Meetings By Request

Contact:
Victor Arnold
www.asquaredm.com
info@asquaredm.com
573.256.1135

We specialize in working with hospitals and their physician partners to better align interest, rewards and operations. We provide game changing services in three areas:

– Finance Operations Advisory Services
– Revenue Cycle Improvement
– Integration with EHR Products

In each of these service areas we have a well defined methodology consisting of assessment, advice and transformation. Our mix of management and healthcare consulting experience helps you to choose a solution that works best for your unique organization to drive up revenue and increase operations efficiency.

AsquaredM Says: We "sat in the seat" of management before we ever became consultants. Therefore we understand what it takes to implement sustainable improvements in complex healthcare environments. Few others can actually make that claim.

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Awarepoint

Booth: 1901

Contact:
Valerie Fritz, Senior VP of Marketing
858.345.5009 | 1.888.860.FIND
www.awarepoint.com
www.awarepointblog.com
vfritz@awarepoint.com

Analogous to indoor GPS, RTLS solutions are used in hospitals to locate key equipment and maintain optimal inventory; track patients and personnel (to impact throughput, improve workflows and track exposure to infection); and for condition monitoring to meet regulatory compliance requirements such as in temperature controlling equipment (refrigerators, freezers, warmers).  Today, Awarepoint leads the enterprise-wide RTLS in healthcare industry, with more hospital sites, more assets under management and more square footage of RTLS network coverage.

Awarepoint Says: Effective Hospitals are Aware. Is Yours?  We encourage you to visit Awarepoint at HIMSS Booth #1901 to experience our complete line of RTLS solutions, latest innovations and see a live demonstration to learn more about how hospitals can account for equipment, patient, personnel and processes throughout the enterprise, as well as understand resource status, usage and availability in more depth.  And, Awarepoint’s dedicated ZigBee®-based RTLS eliminates threats of data loss and other IT complications to your Wi-Fi network – because interference, interruption and downtime are not an option. If we miss you at HIMSS, contact us at info@awarepoint.com for your unique RTLS Impact Analysis summarizing projected quality, efficiency and cost savings using your hospital’s specific data and Discover the Awarepoint Difference.

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Billian’s HealthDATA/Porter Research

Booth: 4579

Contact:
Jennifer Dennard, Social Marketing Director
678.569.4872
www.BilliansHealthDATA.com/
www.PorterResearch.com
jdennard@billian.com

Billian’s HealthDATA is a provider of comprehensive information on healthcare contacts and facilities across the continuum of care, including healthcare IT, via its Portal online sales prospecting and lead generation tool. Partner Porter Research offers in-depth market research services for the healthcare industry.

Billian’s HealthDATA/Porter Research Says: Looking for accurate, real-time healthcare information on facilities across the United States that is updated daily and accessible anywhere – including via phone? Stop by booth #4579 to view a live demo of how the Billian’s HealthDATA Portal can help your sales team stop wasting time on finding qualified leads and start generating sales. Be sure to ask how partner Porter Research’s market research services can help take BHD data to the next level – whether that be via Bulletin Board Focus Groups for new product development, Win/Loss or Competitive Analysis, or White Paper Development, among many other services.

Special Give-away Just for HIStalk Readers: We’ll be offering Snack Packs to the first 100 people to stop by and mention they are a HIStalk reader.

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CapSite

Meetings By Request

Contact:
Leela Hauser
802.922.9961
leela.hauser@capsite.com
www.CapSite.com

CapSite™ is a healthcare technology research and advisory firm. Our mission is to help our healthcare vendor and provider clients make more informed strategic decisions that will enable them to accelerate the growth of their business. The CapSite™ database is the trusted, easy-to-use online resource providing critical knowledge and evidence-based information on healthcare technology purchases. CapSite™ provides detailed transparency on healthcare technology pricing, packaging and positioning.

CapSite Says: Schedule time with us to check out our latest industry research reports (including our Ambulatory EHR & Practice Management Study and Revenue Cycle Management Study) or for a quick demo of the CapSite Database.

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CAP STS

Meetings By Request

Contact:
Joe Schramm, Director, Business Development Services and Operations
224.223.5464
jschramm@cap.org

CAP STS (SNOMED Terminology Solutions™), a division of the College of American Pathologists (CAP), is a professional services provider with a diversified service offering related to health IT strategy and planning; clinical health information management; and health care standards. CAP STS is committed to improving patient care through the advancement of interoperable EHRs and works with provider organizations, hospitals, health IT vendors, health information exchange initiatives, universities, research centers, and government agencies throughout the world. CAP STS’ DIHIT (Diagnostic Intelligence and Health Information Technology) team advances health IT standards, practices, and tools, such as the CAP Diagnostic Work Station initiative; and standardized electronic reporting, including the CAP electronic Cancer Checklists (CAP eCC).

CAP STS Says: CAP STS is committed to improving patient care through the advancement of interoperable EHRs—and helping clients navigate complex issues and meet Meaningful Use and HITECH Act.

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Capsule

Booth: 1931

Contact:
Karen Jimenez
978.482.2340
www.capsuletech.com
karenj@capsuletech.com

For more than 14 years, Capsule has been the world’s leading, award-winning provider of solutions for medical device connectivity. Our leadership is made possible through our 510(k) cleared software and medical grade hardware products, our unique expertise in device protocols and firmware, and our strong partnerships with nearly every major medical device manufacturer and HIS company. Our proven Enterprise Medical Device Connectivity Solution, chosen by over 650 facilities, features a patient-centric, vendor neutral design that allows hospitals to connect virtually any medical device, to any information system, in any unit of the hospital. Featuring the innovative Capsule Neuron™ platform, the solution actually integrates with existing technologies and infrastructures and works within the established or planned caregiver work processes. Furthermore, Capsule’s solution is completely flexible and scalable thereby allowing a hospital to grow as their needs grow to meet their short and long term connectivity, patient care, and safety needs.

Capsule Says: Capsule’s proven Enterprise Medical Device Connectivity Solution, chosen by over 650 facilities worldwide, features a patient-centric, vendor neutral design that allows hospitals to connect virtually any medical device, to any information system, in any unit of the hospital.

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Carefx

Booth: 4543

Contact:
Amy Ferretti, Vice President of Marketing
480.833.5010 ext. 446
www.carefx.com
aferretti@carefx.com

Carefx is a leading provider of interoperable workflow solutions and supports healthcare organizations in achieving their vision of advancing the quality and safety of patient care delivery. Carefx supports more than 700 hospitals, health systems, regional health information organizations (RHIOs) and health information exchanges (HIEs) across North America and Europe.

Carefx Says: Come by the Carefx booth to learn how customers are responding to industry and regulatory changes—all while achieving High-Performance Healthcare (pick up a copy of our newly released White Paper on the topic).  See Carefx’s new Business Intelligence dashboards (originally developed and implemented at Cleveland Clinic).  Of course, our booth is always good for a little bit of fun, too.

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CareTech Solutions

Booth: 1831

Contact:
Anne Santori, Public Relations Manager
248.823.0908
248.312.8385 (M)
anne.santori@caretech.com
www.caretech.com

CareTech Solutions, Inc., an information technology and Web products and services provider for more than 150 U.S. hospitals and health systems, creates value for clients through customized IT solutions that contribute to improving patient care while lowering healthcare costs. From implementing emerging technologies to supporting day-to-day IT operations, CareTech offers clients expert health information management services across the entire patient data lifecycle earning it the 2008, 2009 and 2010 Best in KLAS award for IT Outsourcing (Extensive) as ranked by healthcare executives and professionals in the Top 20 Best in KLAS Awards: Software &  Professional Services report. For more information, please visit www.caretech.com.

CareTech Solutions Says: You could win a $1,000 donation for your hospital foundation when you stop by CareTech Solutions’ booth and enter the raffle drawing that celebrates healthcare’s extraordinary people doing extraordinary things. To learn more visit http://www.caretech.com/HIMSS_Raffle.

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Clairvia

Booth: 3123

Contact:
Phillip Madden, Vice President, Client Services
919.382.8282 ext.231
pmadden@clairvia.com
info@clairvia.com
www.clairvia.com

Clairvia serves more than 1,200 healthcare organizations, medical facilities, nursing departments, and group practices with advanced software solutions for patient and staff management.  Clairvia Care Value Management (CVM) is a comprehensive software suite that empowers healthcare providers to deliver the right caregivers to each patient – at the right time – to achieve the next, desired level of wellness. In more than 200 successful implementations, Clairvia CVM has driven measurable improvements in quality of care, patient safety, patient throughput and financial performance, as well as patient, staff, and physician satisfaction. The complete Clairvia CVM solution includes the following software products:  Staff Manager  |  Care Cost Manager  |  Demand Manager  |  Patient Progress Manager  |  Outcomes-Driven Patient Acuity  |  Demand-Driven Patient Assignment  |  MobileConnect  |  ShiftAlert Mobile.

Clairvia Says: Clairvia’s Physician Scheduler software automates the demanding, time-intensive task of creating an equitable schedule based on the complex rules of individual physician groups, while ensuring an equitable share of call and adequate coverage.

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Culbert Healthcare Solutions

Meetings By Request

Contact:
Brad Boyd, Vice President
Culbert Healthcare Solutions, Inc
781.935.1002 ext 13
bboyd@culberthealth.com
www.CulbertHealth.com

Culbert Healthcare Solutions specializes in assisting healthcare organizations with strategic planning, interim management, revenue cycle, clinical transformation and information technology services.  Our team of experienced healthcare professionals thrives on implementing best practices, optimizing technology and guiding clients through the change management process.

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Cumberland Consulting Group

Booth: 6943

Contact:
Jim Lewis, Managing Partner
615.373.4470
www.cumberlandcg.com
jim.lewis@cumberlandcg.com

Cumberland Consulting Group is a national technology implementation and project management firm serving ambulatory, acute, and post-acute healthcare providers. Through the implementation of new technologies, Cumberland works with providers to advance the quality of care delivered, and improve business performance. Named one of America’s Best Small Firms to Work For by Consulting Magazine in 2008, 2009 and 2010. Cumberland Consulting Group offers an invigorating, positive work environment and a commitment to superior talent acquisition, development and retention.

Cumberland Consulting Group Says: Make meaningful use of your time at HIMSS 11. Stop by and learn why Cumberland doubled in size in 2010. Cumberland has an excellent delivery record, straightforward implementation methods and lean operating model that delivers big company results at a very attractive price. Be sure to catch partner Dave Vreeland’s presentation on designing EMR programs for Voluntary Medical Staff: Session 223 on Thursday at 11:15.

Special Give-away Just for HIStalk Readers: Mention our listing in the HISTalk HIMSS Guide and be entered for a chance to win the top-of-the-line 64GB WiFi Apple iPad!

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CynergisTek

Booth: 4118

Contact:
Caroline Kirby, Director of Marketing & Business Development
512.402.8550
caroline.kirby@cynergistek.com
www.cynergistek.com

CynergisTek delivers a powerful combination of information security consulting and proven technologies that enables organizations to efficiently protect their information and comply with regulatory requirements. With decades of experience in the healthcare and IT security industries, the company offers its clients authoritative guidance for practical, data-centric approaches to solving specific security challenges, from fundamental HIPAA compliance to the complex, evolving regulatory requirements associated with the HITECH Act and healthcare reform.

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dbMotion

Booth: 2063

Contact:
Kate Kolbrener, Sr. Marketing Mgr, N. America
412-802-2248
www.dbmotion.com
katek@dbmotion.com

dbMotion is an innovative provider of health interoperability solutions for connected healthcare. The dbMotion™ Solution is a proven SOA-based platform that enables healthcare organizations and HIEs to meaningfully integrate and leverage information assets to drive improvements in the quality, safety and efficiency of patient care.

dbMotion Says: You will not want to skip a visit to the dbMotion booth this year at HIMSS! There you will have the chance to speak with our clients who are enjoying the benefits of truly connected healthcare such as genuine care coordination embedded within the caregivers’ workflow, mobility, payor/provider integration, analytics, ACO – all enabled by dbMotion’s technology.

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Digital Prospectors Corp

Booth: 968

Contact:
Chris Roos, Principal
603.772.2700 x201
croos@dpcit.com

DPC provides healthcare organizations with project management, implementation, integration, end user training and legacy systems support.  Over the last eleven years DPC has helped dozens of hospitals achieve their IS goals and stay within their planned budget.  Integrity, reliability and delivery of outstanding results are the key factors for the continued success of DPC’s HIS practice.  Our Consultants are experts in Epic, Siemens, Eclipsys and Quovadx.  Come visit us at Booth #968 and register to win an ipad.

DPC Says: Work with DPC when you need reliable, experienced and certified consulting resources to help manage, implement, customize and support your EHR/EMR and HIS Financial systems.

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DIVURGENT

Meetings By Request

Contact:
Colin Konschak, Managing Partner
info@divurgent.com
757.213.6875
www.DIVURGENT.com

DIVURGENT, a healthcare consulting firm focused on providing advisory services, revenue cycle management, project management, and clinical transformation services, will be attending the 2011 HIMSS conference Saturday, Feb. 19 – Thursday, Feb. 24.   They look forward to meeting new healthcare industry leaders and sharing insight on trending topics.  DIVURGENT will be presenting at 11:15 am on Thursday the 24th; Presentation # 229.  Reach out to info@DIVURGENT.com if you are interested in meeting.

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e-MDs

Booth: 5669

Contact:
Mike DeMuth, Executive VP of Sales
512.257.5200
sales@e-mds.com
www.e-mds.com

e-MDs delivers the most highly rated EHR/Practice Management solution in the United States. e-MDs, with over 30,000 users nationwide, offers affordable, easy to use products for small practices and enterprise organizations alike. As a physician informaticist led EHR company, e-MDs is committed to demonstrating how biomedical knowledge, coupled with powerful, simple to configure and customize HIT products, can improve the quality of healthcare. Through the accurate coding and practice optimization tools of e-MDs Solution Series™, many providers realize marked revenue enhancements well in excess of the HITECH incentive payments.

e-MDs Says: Visit us at Booth# 5669 and see why e-MDs IT-friendly integrated solutions received 2010 Best in KLAS in the Ambulatory EMR (2-5 physician) category, and 2010 Best in KLAS for Practice Management (2-5 physician). And get a sneak peek at our Mobile Solutions coming soon!

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eClinicalWorks

Booth: 2311

Contact:
866.888.6929
www.eclinicalworks.com
sales@eclinicalworks.com

eClinicalWorks offers a comprehensive EHR and practice management solution, allowing practices to improve efficiency and enhance patient care. With more than 50,000 providers and 225,000 medical professionals across all 50 states using its technology, customers include physician practices, out-patient departments of hospitals, health centers, departments of health and convenient care clinics.

eClinicalWorks Says: At booth 2311, eClinicalWorks will be showing Version 9 of its Comprehensive Electronic Health Records and Practice Management Solution, along with 100MillionPatients.com and eClinicalWorks P2P, our new integration platform.

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EDIMS

Booth: 2031

Contact:
Jamie Kohl, VP Marketing and Strategy
973.220.9577
www.edims.net
kohlj@edims.net

EDIMS 2.6 is CCHIT and MU certified –an advanced emergency department EHR, fully interoperable and ready to install out of the box with over 1000 evidence based medicine templates and order sets. EDIMS experienced team of ED professionals provides peer-to-peer training and support, optimization, customization and express implementation options. With industry leading clinical decision support, a robust charge capture engine, and the quickest and easiest to use documentation system, EDIMS improves profitability and productivity for every ED.

EDIMS Says: EDIMS will have several of their current clients on hand to discuss lessons learned from implementing and using a best-in-breed EMR. Booth activities will include playing Xbox Kinect, adult beverages, guest speakers, multiple give-aways, including a raffle for a great vacation to view the last shuttle launch, and of course opportunities to demo the product.

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Elumin Healthcare Solutions

Meetings By Request

Contact:
Mark Williams, CEO
866.597.5861 ext. 707
425.369.8211
www.eluminhs.com
mwilliams@eluminhs.com

Elumin Healthcare Solutions is a privately held premier national technology implementation and project management firm serving ambulatory, acute, and post-acute healthcare providers. Our comprehensive range of programs and services includes system implementation, integration, optimization, project management, custom reporting, education and knowledge transfer expertise. We primarily focus on the Allscripts, Cerner, Epic, and Siemens, customer bases.  We strive to successfully establish and maintain long term relationships by providing experienced professionals who consistently exceed their customers’ expectations.  Come out of the dark and let our expert consultants shed light on your projects.  Become Illuminated!!

Elumin Healthcare Solutions Says: Contact us to arrange a personalized meeting where we can focus on you and your organizations projects.  Elumin possess an excellent delivery record, coupled with straightforward implementation methods and a lean operating model offers clients big company results at a very attractive price. Our clients appreciate our business approach and the small firm commitment and personal attention we provide. We’ve been in healthcare IT for 20+ years and are invested in the success of each client.

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Emdeon

Booth: 2201

Contact:
www.emdeon.com/HIMSS11

Emdeon. Powering Clinical Information Exchange. Emdeon powers the exchange of clinical information. By using Emdeon’s existing independent national health information network hospitals, physicians, labs, pharmacies and other healthcare stakeholders are able to securely and cost-effectively exchange patient-centric information. With Emdeon, customers gain access to tools that help enable accountable care, achieve Meaningful Use and maintain regulatory compliance.

Emdeon Says: Stop by Emdeon booth 2201 at HIMSS in Orlando, February 21-23 to learn more about how Emdeon powers the exchange of clinical information and hear presentations from industry known speakers. 16 iPads® will be given away during Emdeon’s in-booth speaking events!

Special Give-away Just for HIStalk Readers: We are giving away one iPad just for HIStalk readers. Come by the booth for any of our speaking events and write “HIStalk rocks!” on your entry form. You will be entered to win the iPad drawing during the speaking event and again for a HIStalk specific drawing. That’s double the chance to win for each speaking event you attend!

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Enovate

Booth: 2738

Contact:
Tommy Hodge
thodge@enovateit.com
248 655 0548 ex 112
c 734 891 4620
f 847 890 6131

Headquartered in Canton, Michigan, Enovate is a national provider of mobile and wall mounted clinical workstations for the healthcare environment. Enovate provides multiple solutions for medication delivery, computerized physician order entry, clinical documentation, and electronic medical records and services. Enovate – advancing health information technology. For more information, please contact Enovate at (877)258-8030 or visit www.enovateusa.com.

Enovate Says: See our new products including the new e900 series, sign up to win an iPad.

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Enterprise Software Deployment

Booth: 2777

Contact:
David Tucker, VP of National Sales
512.350.1735
www.enterprisesoftwaredeployment.com
dtucker@enterprisesoftwaredeployment.com

We assist healthcare organizations implement new EHR technology in the most efficient way possible by preparing organizations for implementation. Through the help of our configuration experts, we train your staff with experienced clinical trainers and stay with you through activation to ensure your go-live runs smoothly. Whether it’s time to implement a whole new system throughout your organization or just a component to one department, we have the experience and resources to both complement your team, and meet your goals.

Enterprise Software Deployment Says: Are your feet aching from walking around the show? Come stop by our booth for a pair of cozy flip flops! Perfect for the Orlando beach, resting your tired conference feet, or for just hanging out in our booth that features an nice grassy floor and some healthy goodies! You can also register for your chance to win a FLIP Handheld Camcorder.

Special Give-away Just for HIStalk Readers: Tired of all of the ARRA rumblings? Well turn up the Sonos, and turn down the stress with a Sonos Music System! ESD will be having a special drawing specifically for HIStalk readers. Sign up at our booth  (#2777) and mention specifically that you are a HIStalk reader to qualify.

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FormFast

Booth: 4963

Contact:
Laura DeVries, Director of Marketing
www.formfast.com
ldevries@formfast.com
800.218.3512

Since 1992, FormFast software has enabled healthcare organizations to achieve significant lean process improvement across the enterprise, supporting HR, contract management, rogue clinical processes, risk management and countless other workflows. A top-ranked provider of electronic workflow solutions, FormFast serves more than 850 hospitals internationally. Our easy-to-use software helps healthcare organizations accelerate their progression from time-consuming manual processes to fully automated workflows.

FormFast Says: Become a lean high performance hospital with FormFast. Stop by booth #4963 to learn how our solutions can help your hospital gain efficiency, improve coordination of tasks, reduce supply costs, and eliminate errors resulting from misdirected routing, mistakes in form completion and delayed delivery.

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GetWellNetwork

Booth: 3635

Contact:
Tony Cook, Vice President Marketing
240.482.3200
www.getwellnetwork.com
info@getwellnetwork.com

GetWellNetwork offers the first digital platform — using the bedside TV in the hospital, TV or Web at home — that entertains, educates and empowers patients to throughout the care continuum, from pre-admission to home. This patient-centered approach enables hospitals to engage patients throughout their journey leading to increased patient activation, higher satisfaction, lower cost per case and better compliance with Meaningful Use Standards. The company is recognized by KLAS® as the leader in the new interactive patient systems category. The GetWellNetwork interactive patient care solution is exclusively endorsed by the American Hospital Association.

GetWellNetworks Says: Expand your hospital’s patient-centered care to the entire patient journey. From pre-admission through post-discharge, empower patients to take a more informed and active role in their care. The results are improved patient satisfaction, clinical quality and enhanced financial operations.

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Greenway Medical Technologies

Booth: 2430

Contact:
Laura Mendenhall, Trade Shows Coordinator
404.309.9326
lauramendenhall@greenwaymedical.com

Greenway Medical Technologies, Inc. provides a fully interoperable EHR and practice management solution PrimeSUITE® 2011 that integrates clinical, financial and administrative tasks to streamline the entire patient encounter. The platform also allows for tight data exchange and application networking to combine the needs of ambulatory and hospital systems. Custom templating currently in use by more than 30 specialist and subspecialty practices also allows for greater flexibility  and long-term results.

Greenway Medical Technologies Says: Having earned 11 KLAS awards in seven years while also staying current on 2011 ambulatory CCHIT certification and the addition of ONC-ATCB Complete Stage 1 2011/2012 Meaningful Use certification, Greenway’s PrimeSUITE® 2011 electronic health record (EHR), practice management and interoperability platform is a successful long-term business solution. See why CCHIT granted PrimeSUITE 2011 a 5-star usability rating. Visit www.meetgreenway.com to hear from our customers.

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Hayes Management Consulting

Meetings By Request

Contact:
Joy Tewksbury-Pabst
Joy@hayesmanagement.com
617.559.0404 ext. 235
www.hayesmanagement.com

Hayes works with healthcare organizations across the country to improve quality, efficiency and the bottom line. Our work ultimately leads to greater clinician, staff and patient satisfaction. Many of Hayes consultants are clinicians, and many have worked in hospitals and physician practices as business and clinical leaders. They are also certified and experienced in premier technologies such as Epic, GE Healthcare, Allscripts and NextGen. On average, our consultants have more than 15 years of experience.
We have been ranked Top Overall Professional Services Firm by KLAS* for four consecutive years (2007-2010). Hayes is 100% focused on healthcare. Seventy-five percent of our annual business is from repeat clients. Hayes’ services include: IT strategic planning, ICD-10, 5010 migration, system implementations, data conversions, revenue cycle management, and interim staff.

Hayes Says: We’re available for networking/coffee/lunch at HIMSS. Please contact Joy Tewksbury-Pabst at Joy@hayesmanagement.com or call her at 617-559-0404 ext. 235 to set something up!

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Healthcare Innovative Solutions

Booth: 4023

Contact:
Cody Calapa, BS BME, Vice President, Project Development
800.236.0141
www.CustomizedEHR.com
info@hisorg.com

Founded in 2001, Healthcare Innovative Solutions (HIS) delivers advanced consulting, systems implementation, optimization, and redesign services for any size hospital. Our customers range from large multi-facility health systems to small community hospitals. Several of our customers have received national recognition for EHR and CPOE adoption directly related to our work.

Healthcare Innovative Solutions Says: The HIS Difference is over 20 years of CPOE/EHR consulting expertise. Stop by booth #4023 to learn more about our clinician-focused approach, our team of clinicians and clinical process engineers, and our new CPOE workflow planner software, Pillars.

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Holon Solutions

Booth: 2475

Contact:
Sandra Schafer, VP Marketing
678.324,2939
sschafer@holonsolutions.com
www.Holonsolutions.com

Holon’s brings a new way of thinking about interoperability. We convert information from disparate systems into consumable formats, automate routine processes and provide comprehensive workflows to manage all of your information sharing needs. Holon is setting a new standard for delivery of actionable information managing both delivery and viewing preferences and enhancing and extending current systems to deliver information WHEN, WHERE and HOW you need it. For more information please visit us at www.HolonSolutions.com.

Holon Solutions Says: Visit Holon Solutions to see interoperability in action and learn how Holon can deliver tailored, comprehensive services and solutions to help you put meaning into your exchange of healthcare information.

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HT Systems / PatientSecure

Booth: Innovation Technology Pavilion 218-10

Contact:
Carl Bertrams, SVP, Sales & Marketing
630.464.6002
www.patientsecure.com
cbertrams@patientsecure.com

HT Systems is a healthcare technology leader, providing the latest innovation in patient identity management. PatientSecure™, the company’s flagship Biometric Patient Identification Management System, links the biometric palm vein pattern of the patient to their medical record in any HIS registration, EMPI or EMR system. HT Systems is the first to successfully implement a large scale biometric patient identification system in the nation. PatientSecure is currently installed at over 50 hospitals and hundreds of affiliated clinics and physician practices, with more than 2 million patients enrolled.

HT Systems Says: Come join us to learn from your fellow healthcare systems about their experience with PatientSecure, an award-winning biometric patient identification system. Orlando Healthcare Systems is going to share their story on their successful implementation of PatientSecure at 4:15pm on 2/22 Tuesday at Innovation Technology Pavilion. Register with us in advance and enter the raffle to win an Android-based Tablet PC! Email to marketing@patientsecure.com.

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Iatric Systems

Booth: 3601

Contact:
John Danahey, Vice President, Sales and Marketing
978.805.4153
John.Danahey@iatric.com http://www.iatric.com

Iatric Systems is a leading provider of software applications, interfaces and reporting solutions for healthcare information systems. Our solutions help healthcare professionals optimize patient care while improving clinical, financial and administrative workflow.

Iatric Systems Says, “Interoperability is all about connections – connecting to patients, to providers and to communities. Iatric Systems has the solutions that make these connections and can put your healthcare organization on the forefront of Interoperability.

Special Give-away Just for HIStalk Readers: In recognition of Mr. HIStalk’s appreciation for music, Iatric Systems will be giving away three (3) $50 iTunes Gift cards. Simply stop by the Iatric Systems’ booth and mention HIStalk and we will enter you in the drawing. Three random winners will be chosen at the end of the show and the iTunes gift cards will be mailed to the winners.

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ICA

Booth: 2837

Contact:
John Tempesco, Chief Marketing Officer
615.866.1465
john.tempesco@icainformatics.com
www.icainformatics.com

Informatics Corporation of America’s (ICA) health information exchange (HIE) solutions, originally envisioned by practicing physicians at Vanderbilt Medical Center, capture, integrate and provide comprehensive patient data from numerous and disparate installed systems. ICA adapts and deploys this pioneering technology to design and deliver comprehensive HIE solutions to hospitals, IDNs, communities and states generating cost efficiencies and improving patient care and outcomes. ICA’s solutions align with physician workflow empowering caregivers to make informed decisions at the point-of-care with standards-based interoperability to help health care enterprises achieve operational efficiencies across multiple providers and settings. Visit www.icainformatics.com, follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/icainformatics, and Facebook at www.facebook.com.

ICA Says: Come preview the most comprehensive and easiest to use portal for the most comprehensive and powerful health information exchange available today. Visit Booth #2837 to see how clinics, hospitals, IDNs, communities and states are exchanging health information easily and quickly, using existing systems, and bringing patient information to the point-of-care and the moment-of-need.

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iMDsoft

Booth: 1050

Contact:
Steve Sperrazza, Vice President Sales, North America
866.4 iMDsoft
781.449.5567

iMDsoft is a leading provider of Clinical Information Systems for critical and perioperative care. The company’s flagship family of solutions, the MetaVision Suite, was first implemented in 1999. It captures, documents, analyzes, reports and stores the vast amount of patient-related data generated in a hospital. Over 125 hospitals worldwide use MetaVision to support their workflow, and arm their healthcare professionals with timely, accurate, and actionable information. iMDsoft products demonstrate 100% implementation success rate and a 100% customer retention rate.

iMDsoft Says: Come visit our booth to find out why 4 of the top 10 US hospitals have decided that MetaVision is the best choice for improving care quality and financial performance. Learn more about how MetaVision interoperates with the latest technologies, and seamlessly integrates with all standard hospital systems. Hear how Lehigh Valley Health Network reduced mortality by 31% on Wednesday, February 23, at 10:00 AM when Ethan D. Gershon, MD, Chief Medical Informatics Officer, iMDsoft, speaks about “Tele-ICU, Reduced Mortality, and Continuous Improvement.

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Imprivata

Booth: 3872

Contact:
Jim Whalen, VP Sales – Healthcare
781.674.2700
www.imprivata.com
sales@imprivata.com

Imprivata is the leading authentication and access management solution for simplifying password management and securing user access to patient health information.

Imprivata Says: Stop by Imprivata’s booth # 3872 to see live presentations from CIOs and CMIOs on how Imprivata’s solutions enable faster EMR access for their clinicians at their hospitals – with no clicks, no passwords and no problems. You can also test Imprivata’s #1 KLAS-rated single sign-on and access management solutions for yourself at one of our four live demo stations.

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Ingenix

Booth: 1163

Contact:
800.765.6713
www.ingenix.com
engage@ingenix.com

Ingenix is a leading provider of health information, technology and consulting services. In an effort to provide health care organizations with an end-to-end capabilities and expertise, we have brought together some of the health care industry’s leading companies, including Picis,  Lynx, Axolotl, Executive Health Resources and A-Life Medical. By combining these services and technology, Ingenix will provide a single vendor solution that helps health care organizations solve their most significant challenges to clinical and financial performance improvement and simplify the administrative complexities of health care. Visit www.ingenix.com for more information.

Ingenix Says: Much is riding on the decisions and actions health care professionals make in 2011. The ICD-10 implementation deadline is just two years away; new health care laws will soon require greater coordination of patient care and the ability to share critical patient and clinical information quickly; and Meaningful Use rules now detail what health care providers must do to receive federal incentives and avoid future penalties. HIMSS attendees will be looking to hear real-world success stories around these topics, plus developing accountable care organizations, establishing health information exchanges and accelerating clinical and financial performance improvement.

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Intellect Resources

Meetings By Request

Contact:
Tiffany Crenshaw, President/CEO
tcrenshaw@intellectresources.com
Anne Sydnor, Manager Client Services
asydnor@intellectresources.com
www.intellectresources.com

Intellect Resources is a search firm specializing in full-time and contract placements in the healthcare It industry, primarily in core HIS implementations. We’ve been working exclusively in the industry since our inception twelve years ago and serve the recruiting needs of both hospitals and consulting firms.

Intellect Resources Says: Finding resources is a current challenge for new and ongoing implementations. Feel free to reach out to our team. We are always happy to provide insight on and discuss the current and future talent pool.

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Intelligent Medical Objects

Booth: 3517

Contact:
Melinda Watman, VP of Strategic Relationships
www.e-imo.com
melinda.watman@imo-online.com

Intelligent Medical Objects (IMO®) develops and licenses medical vocabularies that allow clinicians to capture clinical intent when documenting in EHR systems while at the same time attaching the guaranteed billing codes. IMO has market-leading clinical interface terminology products that cross link standardized vocabularies such as SNOMED CT®, ICD-9, CPT®, MeSH, UMLS, and now even ICD-10-CM, that are necessary for healthcare organizations to connect providers with patient records, administrative information, academic references, decision support content and consumer information. This allows healthcare professionals to focus on patient care rather than administrative details. Products include Problem (IT), a vocabulary database allowing clinicians to enter diagnoses into clinical systems using common, familiar and desired terms; Procedure (IT), a powerful master index used to enter procedure terms quickly and easily for charge capture; Medical Necessity, which provides organizations with the tools they need to integrate reimbursement checking and iHealthSearch™, an intelligent search portal for content.

Intelligent Medical Objects Says: IMO’s suite of vocabulary products can go a long way to ease the transition to ICD-10-CM, which you can learn about along with our groundbreaking new Procedure IT solution at our booth (3517). While there, take “The IMO Challenge” to see if you have what it takes to stump our system – if you enter a key vocabulary term that’s not included in our system you’ll receive a gift and your term may be added to our extensive vocabulary database.

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iSirona

Booth: 6083

Contact:
Peter Witonsky, President
850.303.0575
Peter.witonsky@isirona.com
info@isirona.com

iSirona provides simplified, software-based solutions for medical device integration. By automating the flow of data from devices directly to a hospital’s clinical information system, iSirona helps improve clinician productivity as well as data accuracy and availably. Completely vendor-neutral, this proven solution integrates patient data from any medical device, regardless of manufacturer, into any CIS.

iSirona says: Are your nurses still writing patient device data on paper, only to have to key it in later? Why make them manage the data twice? Stop by our booth (#6083) to hear about how hospitals are saving 30 minutes per nurse per shift using our device integration solution.

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Keane

Booth: 1548

Contact:
Larry Kaiser, Marketing Manager
lkaiser@keane.com
631.824.5318
www.keane.com/hsd

In business since 1975 and based in the United States, Keane’s Healthcare Solutions Division (HSD) offers complete IT solutions to hospitals and long-term care facilities throughout the country. Keane’s proprietary software and services help health organizations increase efficiency, reduce medical errors, meet regulatory requirements, and enhance the revenue cycle. An electronic health record (EHR) solution, the Keane OptimumTM suite of fully integrated certified clinical applications helps hospitals and healthcare facilities reduce medical errors, increase efficiency, and improve the delivery of care.

Keane Says: Your journey towards meaningful use starts when you visit the Keane booth.  Find out how Keane Optimum can help you receive full reimbursement under ARRA and register to win an iPad.

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maxIT Healthcare

Meetings By Request

Contact:
Mark Fangman, Executive Vice President, Sales & Operations
877.652.4099
www.maxithc.com
mark.fangman@maxithc.com

maxIT Healthcare, the largest privately held healthcare IT consulting firm, has been completely focused on Healthcare Information Technology since our founding in 2001.  With over 525 consultants, maxIT is the trusted technology advisor and partner to healthcare organizations, providing seasoned professionals and expert guidance to maximize quality, safety, and financial performance. maxIT offers implementation, project management, and management consulting expertise in healthcare information systems (HIS), electronic medical record (EMR) systems, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, payer systems, and clinical imaging and informatics systems.

maxIT Says: The challenges and multiple priorities that healthcare information technology executives are faced with are well-documented. At maxIT, our focus is on our clients’ success and overcoming these challenges by maximizing IT outcomes. Whether you need help with Meaningful Use assessments and roadmaps, 5010 testing, ICD-10 assessments, ACO strategy, system selection, or HIS/EMR implementation, maxIT has the depth and breadth of experience you need. If you would like to discuss these critical initiatives or any other IT priorities with us at HIMSS, we would greatly appreciate the opportunity to meet with you and discuss your needs.

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McKesson

Booth: 6471

Contact:
Joey Nord, Director, Communications
www.mckesson.com/mpt
Joey.Nord@mckesson.com

McKesson Corporation, currently ranked 14th on the FORTUNE 500, is a healthcare services and information technology company dedicated to helping its customers deliver high-quality healthcare by reducing costs, streamlining processes, and improving the quality and safety of patient care.

McKesson Says: McKesson is focused on helping organizations make healthcare better. Our healthcare IT experts will be available in Booth #6471 to demonstrate how our solutions empower organizations to link clinical data, streamline processes, leverage analytics and improve financial performance.

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MED3OOO

Booth: 917

Contact:
Nicole Contardo, Marketing Director
919.794.5881
Nicole_Contardo@MED3000.com
www.MED3000.com

MED3OOO provides products and services that optimize clinical and financial results for healthcare providers. MED3000 solutions bring real meaning to meaningful use by delivering the tools necessary for positive outcomes. Outcomes matter and our 360 degree solution enables hospitals and physicians to operate efficiently and deliver optimal results for their patients.  We provide solutions for: physician practices, community health centers, integrated physician networks, accountable care organizations,    independent hospitals, health systems, labs, billing companies, employers & municipalities, and payers.

MED3OOO Says: Stop by booth #917 to experience MED3OOO’s 360 degree solution. We’re bringing a comprehensive set of solutions to Accountable Care Organizations with our Meaningful Use Certified EHR, PM, RCM, data warehouse and lab outreach products.

Special give-away just for HIStalk readers: We’ll be doing a HIStalk-readers-only drawing on Wednesday at noon for an iPad. Stop by the booth for details.

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MedAptus

Meetings By Request

Contact:
Jennifer Crowley, Marketing Director
617.896.4030
www.medaptus.com
jcrowley@medaptus.com

MedAptus’ offerings include powerful and easy-to-use Intelligent Charge Capture technologies and high-impact revenue cycle consulting services.  Many of the nation’s most prestigious healthcare organizations rely on MedAptus for financial optimization; additional product benefits include EMR enhancement, manual process re-engineering and substantially improved productivity.

MedAptus Says: MedAptus representatives will be attending HIMSS for networking purposes. Any organizations, particularly provider groups, EMR vendors and/or medical billing companies interested in learning more about our physician charge capture technology and financial benefit should contact us to set-up time to speak.

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MEDecision

Booth: 2563

Contact:
Eric Demers, Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer, Health and Life Science
610.540.0202
www.MEDecision.com

MEDecision offers collaborative health management solutions that provide a way for payers and providers to harness the power of knowledge to enable the best clinical decisions, engage patients and improve health outcomes. Designed around a patient-aware health management philosophy, MEDecision’s solutions include Alineo®, a health management platform for delivering outcome-driven case, disease, utilization and behavioral health management; InFrame™, a set of tools that facilitate the health and performance management processes for physicians and accountable care organizations; and Nexalign®, MEDecision’s health decision support service that applies analytics to information gathered from multiple sources to foster better business and clinical decisions on a patient’s behalf. For more information, visit www.MEDecision.com.

MEDecision Says: Stop by the MEDecision booth for a complimentary cup of Starbucks coffee! It’s the only Starbucks coffee available on the mile-long show floor. Sip on a hot latte and ask about our comprehensive solutions to support patient-centered medical home and accountable care organizations. We’ll be demonstrating the technology we’re developing to power these important new game-changing models.

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Medicity

Booth: 6749

Contact:
Lilian Myers, SVP of Marketing
801.322.4444
marketing@medicity.com
www.medicity.com

Medicity, the industry standard for health information exchange (HIE), is the leading innovator and largest provider of HIE technology – with more than 750 hospitals, 125,000 physicians and 250,000 end users in its connected ecosystem. Medicity’s solutions empower hospitals, physicians and HIEs with secure access to and exchange of health information – improving the quality and efficiency of patient care locally, regionally and nationally.

Medicity Says: Visit us at HIMSS to see how our certified meaningful use modules run on iNexx – the first open, modular, HIE-native platform for healthcare IT applications – to enable physicians to qualify for stimulus funds. We will also be presenting how our new partnership with ActiveHealth Management enables a turnkey solution for ACO technology and management.

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Medicomp Systems

Booth: 2231

Contact:
James Atia, Senior Product Manager
703.803.8080
www.medicomp.com
jaita@medicomp.com

Medicomp’s dynamic, as opposed to static template-based, EMR tools provide clinicians immediate access to the total patient picture, based on the way doctors think and work. At the heart of every product is Medicomp’s powerful MEDCIN® Engine, a robust clinical data engine in use throughout the world by a growing number of physicians and hospitals.

Medicomp Says: Come experience our newest innovation, Quippe, that enables clinicians to access and document information in the cloud. We’ll also be rolling out CliniTalk, Medicomp’s voice-enabled, easy-to-use EMR tool. Look for a big HIMSS announcement on HIStalk on Monday evening, February 21.

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MediServe

Booth: 5054

Contact:
Ruth Taylor, Corporate Event & Trade Show Coordinator
480.831.7800
www.mediserve.com
medimail@mediserve.com

MediServe delivers software solutions designed to manage the unique workflows associated with providing rehabilitation care. MediServe solutions are fully integrated companions to any EMR.  MediServe works with clients to improve revenue and make compliance easier in the complex environment of rehabilitation care.

MediServe Says: Come see us at booth #5054.

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MedPlus, a Quest Diagnostics® Company

Meetings By Request

Contact:
Steve McDonald, President, Hospital Sales
MedPlus, a Quest Diagnostics Company
800.444.6235, ext. 2792
smcdonald@MedPlus.com

MedPlus, the healthcare information technology subsidiary of Quest Diagnostics, provides clinical connectivity for hospitals/IDNs and physician practices, helping bridge the gap between inpatient and outpatient worlds. Care360™ EHR provides physicians with a step-wise approach to EHR adoption that helps transition key activities from paper to electronic with features like electronic lab order management, clinical messaging, ePrescribing, document management and multi-system interoperability. For more information, visit www.Care360.com.

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MEDSEEK

Booth: 1149

Contact:
Lori Moore
Lori.moore@medseek.com
205.982.5881 office
205.834.5263 cell

Since 1996, MEDSEEK has focused exclusively on creating a 360-degree optimal eHealth experience for patients, clinicians and administrative staff by removing traditional integration and communication barriers, workflow roadblocks and redundant processes. Used by more than 785 hospitals, MEDSEEK solutions enable hospitals to execute enterprise-wide strategic objectives by improving quality of care, uncovering new sources of revenue and generating meaningful loyalty among physicians and patients with a low-risk, high-return investment that leverages existing IT investments and infrastructure. For more information, visit www.medseek.com or call 1.888.MEDSEEK.

MEDSEEK Says: We began this journey in 1996. Now,785 hospitals later, MEDSEEK is happy to mark 15 years in eHealth.  Join us for our 15th anniversary celebration Tuesday, February 22 at 5pm at booth #1149 at HIMSS in Orlando, and hear Apprentice’s Bill Rancic present “Entrepreneurship in Health Care”. Space is limited, so get details and RSVP online today.

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MedVentive

Meetings By Request

Contact:
Info@medventive.com
781.290.2511

MedVentive – in the right place and now the right time. While healthcare was evolving the concept of an accountable care organization, MedVentive was busy operating as one. MedVentive was founded as the PSN in 1997 by the CareGroup Healthcare System, an integrated, at-risk network of 4,500 physicians and eight hospitals that cared for more than 450,000 at risk patients. Our origins as an ACO give MedVentive a deep understanding of provider organizations and the healthcare environment. Having been an at-risk provider network, MedVentive is uniquely qualified to support an organization’s transition from a fee-for-service payment environment to risk-based contracting, and provide the clinical integration/ population management infrastructure necessary to be successful under this new model.

MedVentive Says: Take the opportunity to schedule a one-on-one meeting – breakfast, lunch, dinner or more detailed meeting at our onsite guest suite – with our Executive team to discuss how our history can impact your future in transitioning from managing patients to patient populations (clinical integration and registries) to successfully taking on risk-based contracts.

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Merge

Booth number: 3348

Contact:
Jennifer Jawor, Marketing Manager
312.565.6825
www.merge.com
jjawor@merge.com

Merge Healthcare develops software solutions that automate healthcare data and diagnostic workflow to create a more comprehensive electronic record. Our products, ranging from standards-based development toolkits to fully integrated clinical applications, have been used by providers, vendors and researchers worldwide for over 20 years. In addition, we provide Interoperability solutions that link systems together and image-enable broader health information exchange.

Merge Says: Hurdle ‘Meaningful Use’ with ease with Merge Healthcare – your partner for diagnostic content and instrument connectivity! Visit booth #3348 to discover Merge iConnect™, our new comprehensive and modular solution suite built to enable interoperable image exchange and management. We’re the guys in orange with a Tesla in our booth. Stop by, check out the car and get a photo!

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Microsoft Health Solutions Group

Booth: 3101

Contact:
Nancy Narraway, Senior Industry Marketing Manager
nancyna@microsoft.com

Over the past 13 years, Microsoft has steadily increased its investments in health with a focus on addressing the challenges of health providers, health and social services organizations, payers, consumers and life sciences companies worldwide. Microsoft closely collaborates with a broad ecosystem of partners and delivers its own powerful health solutions, such as Amalga, HealthVault, and a portfolio of identity and access management technologies acquired from Sentillion Inc. in 2010. Together, Microsoft and its industry partners are working to deliver health solutions for the way people aspire to work and live.

Microsoft Says: Come learn more about Microsoft’s health solutions: Amalga™, HealthVault™, HealthVault Community Connect, Vergence™, ProVision™, ExpreSSO™ and Way2Care™ — and check out some cool tablets made by Microsoft partners.  While you’re in the booth, test drive Kinect™ for Xbox 360® and try your luck at the Way2Win kiosk for a chance to win a Microsoft Arc™ Mouse.

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MyHealthDIRECT

Booth: 218, Kiosk 11

Contact:
Carol Heideman, Director of Marketing
262.787.3439
www.myhealthdirect.com
cheideman@myhealthdirect.com

MyHealthDIRECT “connects people to providers” through its web-based service solution.  We offer the missing gateway, which enables hospitals/health systems, managed care organizations, HIE and state Medicaid agencies to link patients to the right health professionals offering the right health care services at the right time and location.

MyHealthDIRECT Says: Come see and learn first-hand through a live demo of MyHealthDIRECT on how our SaaS-enabled application links supply-to-demand in the referral and scheduling process by connecting patients to provider appointments in real-time; taking only 1-3 minutes. MyHealthDIRECT analytics and reporting can clearly quantify the outcomes—as well as the real-dollar-results of more efficient care delivery, and access to timely care. Come hear Jay Mason, CEO and president of MyHealthDIRECT speak during HIMSS at the New & Emerging Technology Pavilion (Booth #218), Monday, February 21st (1:30 pm – 2:15 pm).  Marilee Benson, VP Community Alliances will also be speaking on Monday (3:30 pm – 4:15 pm).

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NCR

Booth: 2805

Contact:
Jim Dowling, VP of Sales
Jim.dowling@ncr.com

As the #1 provider of patient self-service, NCR can help you manage the anticipated 32+ million new patients entering the healthcare system as a result of Healthcare Reform. Our proven online, mobile and kiosk-based solutions automate routine transactions, allowing patients to pre-register, schedule appointments and pay bills how and when it is most convenient. We have the consulting, industry and consumer expertise to help you improve the patient experience, optimize revenue cycle and streamline workflow.

NCR Healthcare Says: Visit us at Booth 2805 to see the latest, most innovative and widely deployed patient self-service solutions. Free copy of "Paper Kills 2.0: How Health IT Can Help Save Your Life and Your Money", signed by Newt Gingrich, founder of the Center for Health Transformation, to the first 25 people who schedule a booth appointment.

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NextGen Healthcare

Booth: 2163

Contact:
NextGen Healthcare
www.nextgen.com
215.657.7010
Sales@NextGen.com

NextGen Healthcare drives patient-centered, accountable care across the continuum. Ambulatory and inpatient providers of all sizes are leveraging our integrated clinical, financial and connectivity solutions, along with our quality management and consulting services, to improve care coordination within their communities and drive business growth. NextGen Healthcare is proud to share that its product suite was one of the first to be Meaningful Use certified for both eligible professionals and hospitals.

NextGen Healthcare Says: In our booth this year, HIMSS11 attendees will see the vision of collaborative, higher quality care come alive before their eyes, as incredible splash artists embody the characteristics that make world-class products, services, and partnerships on canvas. Don’t miss the chance to see them in action, and then win one of their amazing creations, a new smart phone or an iPad! Also stop by to check out the NextGen Patient Portal, test NextGen Mobile on an iPad, and catch the unveiling of our revolutionary new data capture device.

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Nuance

Booth: 2744

Contact:
Mark Erwich, Senior Director Marketing
781.565.5070
www.nuance.com/healthcare
mark.erwich@nuance.com

Nuance will be exhibiting our full suite of speech-driven clinical documentation and communications solutions including eScription, which will be receiving its 7th consecutive Best-in-KLAS Award at HIMSS this year (an accomplishment of very few HIT software products!) At the booth, also visit our Physician Station, to see hands-on best practices demos of Dragon Medical in the EHR; a Clinical Language Understanding (CLU) Station where we will highlight new technologies for extracting structured data from free-form text, and our VERY COOL Mobility Station where we are previewing a bunch of clinical documentation apps for the iPhone and other devices!

Nuance Says: Stop by our booth too see how Nuance Healthcare is building on its leadership in speech-driven clinical documentation, communication and decision-support systems to capture and transform clinical data into actionable patient information.

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Orion Health

Booth: 5146

Contact:
Michael Burke, VP of Sales
310.526.4030
www.orionhealth.com

Orion Health is the leading Health Information Exchange solution provider with over 15 years of experience in clinical workflow and integration technology for the healthcare sector. Orion Health’s easy to use solutions and applications improve patient care and clinical decision making by enabling the exchange of healthcare information among disparate systems and providing integrated health data in a single, unified view. Our HIE solution also meet the ‘meaningful use’ requirements and the goals of Accountable Care Organizations to improve care coordination, cut cost and provide better quality of care.

Orion Health Says: Come visit the Orion Health booth at HIMSS and hear what other CIOs and IT professionals have to say about using the Orion Health HIE solution including outcomes of a successful statewide implementation, achieving better collaboration between regional physicians in a competitive market, and ROI from an effective regional disease management program. Register for free today.

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PatientKeeper

Booths: IO showcase Hall E, booth #7343,  Exhibitor booth #5543

Contact:
Kathy Ruggiero, director of corporate marketing
www.patientkeeper.com
kruggiero@patientkeeper.com
781.373.6433

PatientKeeper® Inc., the leading provider of physician healthcare information systems, enables physicians and hospitals to focus on their patients, not technology, by providing highly intuitive software that streamlines physician workflow to improve productivity and patient care.

PatientKeeper Says: Stop by our booth or visit us at the Interoperability Showcase to learn how PatientKeeper offers customers an alternative path to Meaningful Use to meet the stimulus requirements outlined in the HITECH Act.  See how we’ve designed our CPOE and Physician Documentation software to increase the probability of physician adoption; our new handheld platform to support all the latest mobile devices for many of our applications (Charge Capture, Mobile Clinical Results, etc.); and our HIE solutions to create a longitudinal view of patient health status across a community.

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Perceptive Software

Booth: 5163

Contact:
Adam Meloan, Marketing Program Manager – Healthcare
800.941.7460
adam.meloan@perceptivesoftware.com
www.perceptivesoftware.com/healthcare

Perceptive Software creates enterprise content management (ECM) technology that integrates easily with your EMR, EHR and HIS applications to complete the patient record and connect staff with the information they need. With ImageNow document management, imaging and workflow, you can capture, process and collaborate on important documents, protect data integrity throughout its lifecycle and access precise content in the context of your everyday processes.

Perceptive Software Says: Accessing the content you need isn’t brain surgery. Visit us at Booth #5163 and see how ImageNow easily puts patient information and content into the context of your facility’s daily processes. While you’re there, register to win one of three Apple iPad mobile digital devices. Plus, on Tuesday, Feb. 22, we’ll be serving fresh-baked cookies and gourmet coffee starting at 9:30 a.m.

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Picis

Booth: 1163

Contact:
Mark Blazejewski, Sales Operations Manager
781.557.2271
Mark_Blazejewski@picis.com
www.picis.com

Picis, an Ingenix company, is a global provider of innovative solutions that enable rapid and sustained delivery of clinical documentation, financial and operational results in the emergency departments, surgical suites and intensive care units of more than 2,200 hospitals in 19 countries.

Picis Says: Learn how Picis takes the guesswork out of meaningful use. Stop by our booth to hear how hospital executives are using our solutions to support HIEs, meet CPOE requirements, ease quality reporting and optimize continuity of care.

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Quality IT Partners

Meetings By Request

Bruce A. Werner, Director of Business Development
828.635.6525
828.234.0075
bwerner@qitp.com
www.qitp.com

Quality IT Partners (Quality) is a premier national healthcare consulting firm with an unparalleled reputation of taking good care of their clients and employees.  We provide implementation and support services for healthcare applications such as Epic, Cerner, QuadraMed, Siemens, Eclipsys and McKesson.  Quality also specializes in Meaningful Use, ICD-10, Revenue Cycle Management, Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Planning, and New Construction IT Infrastructure Planning & Management.

Quality IT Partners Says: Quality is interested in meeting with clients and prospects as well as professionals who may be interested in joining our firm while at HIMSS.  Please contact (Bruce Werner, Director of Business Development, Office: (828) 635-6525, Mobile: (828) 234-0075, or e-mail: bwerner@qitp.com) to schedule a time.

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:RATIO, a division of Software Testing Solutions

Booth: 2975

Contact:
Brent Christensen, VP
877.765.0100 ext. 408
bchristensen@ratio.us.com,
www.ratio.us.com

Software Testing Solutions has been the leading provider of true technology-based quality assurance solutions to Primary Acute Care organizations for over a decade. Our dedicated staff of Healthcare and IT professionals leverage over 70 years of experience to deliver state-of-the-art automated testing solutions to hospitals of all sizes throughout North America. Our focus on setting the highest possible standards of testing in the lab, the blood bank, and across a wide spectrum of CPOE offerings brings the flexibility of a customized solution with the ease of use of a turnkey implementation, bridging the gap of patient safety by eliminating the risk of untested applications.

Ratio Says: Learn new ways to make your CPOE application more robust, insure higher levels of quality care, and meet critical standards of “meaningful use” more efficiently and with greater speed. Stop by to discuss options with the experts in the automated testing at booth 2975.

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RelayHealth

Booth: 1663

Contact:
Lynette Cortez, Solutions Advisor, RelayHealth
888.743.8735
rhinfo@relayhealth.com
www.RelayHealth.com

RelayHealth enables information exchange for all those involved in healthcare – including providers, patients, payers, pharmacies, financial institutions and pharmaceutical manufacturers – to simplify clinical and financial interactions. RelayHealth’s SaaS solutions accelerate quality of care, financial health and workflow efficiencies. The RelayHealth network provides connectivity services to approximately 1,800 payers, 2,000 hospitals, 200,000 physicians, 1.35 million patients and thousands of retail pharmacies across the nation.

RelayHealth Says: RelayHealth’s clinical integration capabilities offer a low-cost, scalable and highly networked SaaS solution that doesn’t require a costly infrastructure and is sustainable. RelayHealth creates a way for hospitals and physicians to facilitate care coordination and take advantage of federal ARRA incentives. Visit RelayHealth at Booth #1663/Hall B and experience Health Connections Brought to Life.

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Renaissance Resource Associates

Meeting By Request

Contact:
Maria McBride, Managing Director
206.949.6011
maria@rraconsulting.com
Laura Noble, CEO
425.241.9210
laura@rraconsulting.com

Renaissance offers over 20 years experience in meeting the challenges of HIT in an ever changing and evolving industry.  We get it right the first time, saving IDNs time and money, and delivering optimized use of technology in a clinical care environment. Meaningful Use, ICD-10, Clinical Informatics, Strategic Planning, Process Redesign, Implementation, Upgrade, Maintenance.

Renaissance Resource Associates Says: We make sure you implement your vendor’s software in a way that will achieve the meaningful use criteria. Buying a certified product will not get you there – we will take you from product to your first payment.  We can get you to ICD10 – mapping, transition, even certified coders until you get up and running!

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Sage Healthcare

Booth: 1713

Contact:
Tony Ryzinski, senior vice president of marketing, Sage Healthcare Division
813.202.5511
www.sagehealth.com
tony.ryzinski@sage.com.

At Sage, our philosophy is simple: We are physician-focused and patient-centric, providing clinical and financial technology solutions for the ambulatory market, serving more than 400,000 healthcare professionals including approximately 80,000 physicians in small, medium and large practices and Community Health Centers. Our products are designed by clinical and technical specialists who focus their skills on developing solutions for key medical specialty areas including primary care, OB/GYN, Pediatrics, Cardiology and Orthopedics. Sage’s certified connected solutions meet the end-to-end technology needs of physician practices from portal to integrated Practice Management and EHR to Revenue Cycle Management and Practice Analytics.

Sage Says: Experience the Sage difference: We are physician-focused, patient-centric. Sage has teamed with the Larry King Cardiac Foundation to highlight the importance of prevention and early detection of heart disease, the leading cause of death in the US. At Sage, we’re putting the “care” back in healthcare technology by providing practices with the technology they need to enable them to take better care of their patients and achieve better outcomes. As such, feel free to come by and sign our Red by Sage Wall of Inspiration to commemorate those you know and love whose lives have been touched by heart disease. Or, just stop by and get some heart health information, and enjoy a complimentary stress reducing chair message.

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Salar

Booth: 1141

Contact:
Greg D. Wilson, RVP Sales
860.294.9877
gwilson@salarinc.com
www.salarinc.com

Salar delivers the healthcare industry’s most flexible and physician-centric inpatient documentation and billing solutions. With Salar, physicians and hospitals alike achieve notable productivity, financial and patient safety improvements. Physicians are free to document the way they want, using customized electronic forms that save time and improve collections by automatically transforming physician notes into billing and clinical data.  By integrating with existing health information systems, Salar helps hospitals capture and share this data in real time to achieve a higher-quality, more complete EMR.

Salar Says: If you’re struggling to migrate physicians to an electronic clinical documentation platform, or seeking a better solution than traditional dictation systems and paper processes, let Salar show you a better way.   Actually, let our customers show you. Visit us a booth 1141 and talk directly with several CIOs, CMIOs, and physician champions who have increased physician satisfaction and adoption of the EMR using Salar’s intuitive documentation and charge capture solutions.

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Sentry Data Systems

Booth: 1737

Contact:
John Peebles, CIO
john@sentryds.com
Samantha Stevens, Administration Manager
sstevens@sentryds.com
800.411.4566 xt. 2403
www.sentryds.com

Sentry Data Systems offers healthcare business intelligence technology solutions that address a variety of operational, workflow, compliance, and financial challenges found within hospitals and pharmacies. Built upon Datanex™, a healthcare cloud computing platform, they include the pharmacy management product Sentinel RCM™ (Revenue Cycle Manager), pharmacy transaction processing platform Sentrex™, and the healthcare business intelligence platform HealthBIT® (Business Intelligence Technology).

Sentry Data Systems Says: Stop by to learn how healthcare cloud computing can save you time and money while giving you access to incredible processing power.  Watch us securely deploy a server for you in less than a minute.  Access your data with a powerful query engine.  Use application programming interfaces (APIs) to build applications or run advanced analytics on your existing data.  See how you can put hundreds of servers to work running queries on massive data sets without the headache of a large scale data center build-out.

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Shareable Ink

Booth: 623

Contact:
Suzanne Cogan, Vice President, Sales & Marketing
877.572.7423 x802
www.shareableink.com
scogan@shareableink.com

Shareable Ink is the natural approach to electronic health records that complements an organization’s existing IT systems and strategies. Enabling electronic capture of information with no change in workflow, Shareable Ink allows data to be routed to specific modules within an EHR, as if typed with a keyboard. Built-in analytics give hospitals and practices insight into their operations – from a clinical, quality, and efficiency standpoint –previously inaccessible from paper records.

Shareable Ink Says: Visit Shareable Ink at Booth #623 to learn how to achieve 100% physician adoption of electronic documentation without changing workflow or hampering productivity.

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SRSsoft

Booth: 349

Contact:
Evan Steele,  CEO
www.srssoft.com
esteele@srssoft.com

SRS is the leading provider of productivity-enhancing EHR technology and services for high-performance specialty practices—with a successful adoption rate unparalleled in the industry. Offered via the Unified DesktopTM, the robust EHR, SRS CareTracker PM, and SRS PACS increase speed, free physicians’ time, boost revenue, and heighten patient care and satisfaction.

SRS Says: SRS is all about productivity for high-performance physicians—specialists, in particular. Stop by the SRS booth to see how SRS has cracked the code to productivity-focused meaningful use.

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Stimulus Search

Meetings By Request

Contact:
Dan Moriarty, Chief Sales Officer
504.875.5172
www.stimulussearchllc.com
dan@stimulussearchllc.com

Stimulus Search LLC is a national search firm that helps Healthcare Software & Services companies achieve optimum results by attracting, qualifying and delivering high-performing sales and support talent.

Stimulus Search Says: Please contact Dan prior to the show to set a time to meet on Wednesday.

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Stockell Healthcare

Meetings By Request

Contact:
Rich Lewis, Vice President of Sales
800.786.2535, ext. 186 (Office)
314.616.2459 (Cell)
richl@stockell.com

Stockell Healthcare Systems features InsightCS®; our proven Electronic Financial Record (EFR) solution that effectively coexists and interoperates directly with the leading Clinical/EMR systems, and provides end-to-end Patient Access, Patient Accounting, and Revenue Cycle Management solutions to Hospitals, Behavioral Healthcare Providers, Rehabilitation Facilities, and Integrated Health Networks.  With InsightCS®, you get the tools you need to more effectively manage costs via a patient-centric, workflow-driven approach which delegates the right work to the right person at the right time and place.

Stockell Healthcare Says: InsightCS® is the ONLY proven EFR solution that dynamically captures, edits, and manages encounter-based patient care delivery data by converting it into actionable enterprise information.  We invite you to speak with us to learn more about the many benefits of InsightCS® and how it has been successfully deployed with a wide variety of EMR/CPOE systems at hospitals, mental health facilities, and rehabilitation centers across the United States.

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Sunquest Information Systems

Booth: 6171

Contact:
Chris Fraker, Manager, Marketing Communications
520.570.2302
chris.fraker@sunquestinfo.com
www.sunquestinfo.com

Sunquest Information Systems, Inc. delivers market-leading diagnostic information technology and outreach solutions designed and implemented to fulfill the business objectives of today’s healthcare leaders. Sunquest’s vision is encompassed by a commitment to patient safety, workflow excellence, predictive medicine, and physician & patient affinity. Sunquest serves the global marketplace with reliable laboratory technology required for mission critical applications. Transforming the delivery of healthcare, Sunquest continues to strive for strategic growth through expansion, operational excellence, technological innovation, and industry-leading thought leadership.

Sunquest Says: Solutions from Sunquest are transforming the lab like never before. At our booth, you will find outreach solutions, like Sunquest Outreach Advantage® and Sunquest Physician Portal™, that expand diagnostic services into the community. You will also see how Sunquest Diagnostic Intelligence™ provides laboratories with critical information in real time so they can make data-driven decisions based on meaningful metrics.

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Surgical Information Systems

Booth: 5963

Contact:
Kermit Randa, SVP, Sales and Marketing
678.507.1650
www.SISFirst.com
Randa@SISFirst.com

Surgical Information Systems (SIS) offers perioperative information management solutions designed to increase the safety, efficiency and profitability of healthcare providers. As the only healthcare IT company focused exclusively on the complex surgical environment, SIS provides adaptable single-database solutions that integrate easily with other hospital systems.

SIS Says: Stop by booth # 5963 to learn how the SIS solution, a certified modular EHR, fits into your EMR strategy.

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Thomson Reuters

Booth: 5263

Contact:
clinicalxpert@thomsonreuters.com
www.healthcare.thomsonreuters.com/HIMSS2011

The Healthcare & Science business of Thomson Reuters provides intelligent information for healthcare payers and providers to better manage the cost and quality of healthcare.  Our clinical decision support solutions use real-time clinical surveillance and integrated Micromedex® content to help clinicians improve outcomes and reduce costs by making more informed treatment decisions at the point of care.  Our payer solutions help employers and health plans manage healthcare costs, maintain regulatory compliance and identify fraud, waste, and abuse.  With our management decision support capabilities hospital administrators have the benchmarking tools they need to improve clinical, operational and financial performance.

Thomson Reuters Says: Hospital CIOs and IT managers.  Clinicians.  Administrators.  Payers – Thomson Reuters has the intelligent information you need to improve the cost and quality of healthcare.  Stop by booth 5263 to learn more about our clinical intelligence dashboards, our integrated content solutions or our HIE offering.  You can also register to win a Logitech Revue.

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T-System

Booth: 3323

Contact:
Corinne Tso, Director of Marketing
214.673.4696
www.tsystem.com
ctso@tsystem.com

T-System, Inc. sets the industry standard for clinical, business and IT solutions for emergency departments, with approximately 40% of the nation’s emergency departments using T-System’s products.  To meet the individual needs of hospitals, T-System offers both a paper template and an  emergency department information system (EDIS). These tools help clinicians quickly see information so they can provide better patient care, while improving efficiency and the bottom line.

T-System Says: Welcome to HIMSS11! We are excited to be demonstrating the capabilities of our EDIS at the Interoperability Showcase. Our T SystemEV® was one of the first ED solutions to be certified for Stage 1 Meaningful Use.  To learn more about our presentation and industry-leading ED solutions, please visit us at booth #3323.

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Virtelligence

Booth: 2131

Contact:
Akhtar Chaudhri, President and CEO
952.548.6601
www.virtelligence.com
akhtar@virtelligence.com

Virtelligence is a privately held premier healthcare IT consulting firm that offers solution advisory and healthcare IT consulting services to payor and provider organizations throughout the U.S. Our comprehensive range of services includes system implementation, optimization, reporting, technology integration, and training in the Cerner, Epic, Eclipsys, McKesson, MEDITECH and Siemens. Virtelligence earned recognition as a Top 500 Small Business in America by Diversity Business.com, “Great Places to Work” by Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal, Top 100 Healthcare IT Companies (HCI-100) by Healthcare Informatics Magazine and as one the fastest-growing private companies in America for Inc5000 by Inc. Magazine.

Virtelligence Says: Choose the most cost-effective alternative in Healthcare IT. Since 1998, Virtelligence has partnered with clients in a proven record of success. Our efficient operating model allows us to deliver top-quality results at a very competitive price. Our customer loyalty far exceeds industry standards. Virtelligence pairs a solid knowledge of HIT products with true client commitment. Enjoy the benefits that come from access to the best resources available. We keep a national focus but a local commitment.

Special give-away just for HIStalk readers: Virtelligence will give away an iPad during the HIMSS Orlando conference. Stop by booth #2131, mention you are a HIStalk reader, and drop off your business card.

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Vitalize Consulting Solutions

Booth: 3070

Contact:
Cyndi Cahill, Senior Vice President
610.444.1233 Ext. 4103
www.getvitalized.com
ccahill@getvitalized.com

Vitalize Consulting Solutions, Inc. (VCS) draws on the keen insight and proven methodology from its considerable HIT experience to help you fulfill organizational objectives. Our team of healthcare professionals joins your team and provides documented, high quality solutions for each engagement primarily based in Allscriptsä, Cerner, Epic, McKesson, MEDITECH, and Siemens solutions, as well as in the Ambulatory and Project Management practices. We offer the full breadth of consulting services from strategic services, operational improvement, and revenue cycle optimization projects to implementation, staff augmentation, project management, and training and go-live support. Together, through this blend of professional services and packaged solutions, we seek to forge positive outcomes that satisfy clinical, financial, and informational goals, all for a predictable cost.

VCS Says: Stop by booth #3070 at HIMSS ‘11 and help us giveback to the people of central Florida. In an effort to eliminate the need for individuals to choose between paying for healthcare and feeding their family, VCS will donate $5 to Orlando’s Second Harvest Food Bank for every “link” supplied to our Chain of Hope. You can pick up a link at the booth and attach it. Please help us help Second Harvest “fight hunger and feed hope.”

Special give-away just for HIStalk readers: For each HIStalk reader who stops by our booth and connects a link, we will double the $5 Second Harvest Food Bank donation to $10.

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Voalte

Booths:

Philips: 3845
Rauland-Borg: 3031
Meru: 2979

Contact:
Trey Lauderdale, VP of Innovation
941.312.2830
trey@voalte.com

Voalté provides compelling software solutions for healthcare institutions that solve communication problems at the point-of-care. We believe that better, more efficient communication improves clinical performance, which in turn improves patient care, safety and satisfaction. Our products are designed to be intuitive, high value, mission critical applications running on the latest generation of touch-based smartphones. We provide an exceptional end-to-end user experience. We do it better than anyone else, and we spend our time thinking about ways to improve this experience.

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Vocera Communications, Inc.

Booth: 4450

Contact:
salesweb@vocera.com
408.882.5600
www.vocera.com

Vocera Communications, Inc. is the leading provider of communication systems designed to restore the human connection to healthcare. By providing integrated communication solutions for voice, alarm and alert, and text systems, Vocera allows care teams, patients, and loved ones to exchange critical information at the point of care.

Vocera Says: Visit the Vocera booth to learn how hospitals across the country are elevating patient care with a variety of Vocera products. Stop by to hear about new solutions that deliver pages, text messages, and alerts directly to smartphones including iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android devices.

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Wellsoft Corporation

Booth: 2230

Contact:
Denise Helfand, VP, Sales & Marketing
800.597.9909
www.wellsoft.com
dhelfand@wellsoft.com

Wellsoft, developer of the industry-leading Wellsoft EDIS (since 1988), is an ONC-ATCB 2011/2012 Certified EHR Module*; is CCHIT® Certified and is consistently ranked the #1 EDIS by KLAS and MD Buyline. Wellsoft EDIS is recognized for providing the most complete functionality, and the most scalable and configurable product in the marketplace. Features offered include patient tracking, clinical documentation, CPOE, Charge Capture, Clinical Decision Support, workflow consulting and more. Wellsoft works with you to analyze patient flow and determine how to support best practices. Wellsoft is EDIS at its Best.

Wellsoft Says: We welcome the opportunity to discuss how Wellsoft can partner with your hospital to achieve Meaningful Use. We invite you to see our newest features and to see why Wellsoft is ED clinicians’ favorite EDIS. Easy to learn and easy to use, Wellsoft is EDIS at its Best.

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Wolters Kluwer Health

Booth: 6162

Contact:
Laura Gilbert, Sr. Director, Marketing Communications
612.313.1506
Laura.Gilbert@provationmedical.com
www.pointofcareapplications.com

Wolters Kluwer Health Clinical Solutions delivers intuitive clinical decision support tools designed by and for clinicians to advance the practice of evidence-based medicine and maximize outcomes from EMR/EHR, CPOE and other clinical information systems. These include ProVation® Order Sets, powered by UpToDate® Decision Support, an easily customizable order set authoring and management solution that streamlines the delivery of standardized care and integrates easily into any facility or vendor EMR/CPOE system; Medi-Span® Clinical, a robust CDS platform that delivers CCHIT-compliant medication-related clinical decision support; and UpToDate®, the resource of choice for more than 400,000 clinicians worldwide covering more than 8,300 topics in 17 medical specialties. Other offerings include its flagship drug reference, Facts & Comparisons®; pharmacy’s #1 Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider, Pharmacy OneSource; and procedure documentation and coding solutions from ProVation® Medical.

Wolters Kluwer Says: An opportunity to test drive some of the industry’s leading clinical decision support tools, including ProVation Order Sets, Medi-Span Clinical and UpToDate, isn’t the only reason to swing by the Wolters Kluwer Health booth (#6162). You’ll also have the opportunity to register to win a trip for four to the U.S. Masters in Augusta!

News 2/11/11

From HL7RN: “Re: result messages. I’ve submitted two flavors of this question to ONC and received no response – do you think your readers would help me out with their opinions? My hospital interfaces our best-of-breed ancillary systems to our certified EMR. Since the EMR doesn’t rebound the results to outside providers, we use our interface engine to send exact HL7 copies of result messages to a third-party vendor, who then forwards them to physician offices. Does this qualify for sharing electronic data for other providers or do we need to send the data directly from the EMR?” The floor is open.

From Cabana Boy: “Re: penetration testing companies. Who are the top one or two firms in the healthcare market?” 

From DrFeiedFan: “Re: Craig Feied. Calling him a vendor hack just because he works for Microsoft misses the fact that he’s a giant in informatics.” I don’t think HITworker said that; he suggested that people with Microsoft ties were overrepresented on the PCAST committee that recommended a national healthcare architecture that’s darned close to what Microsoft is selling. I think it’s a fair question, just like you’d ask when Wall Street types help draft financial policy. He’s brilliant, no doubt – drag the video timeline above to about the 37:50 mark.

From Dr. Herzenstube: “Re: Primary Care Home. Making good on their threat, Joint Commission has come out with proposed requirements for their version of the Patient-Centered Medical Home. Getting my attention: (a) practices would have to provide language translation at their own expense; (b) they would have to ‘facilitate access’ to dental care; (c) they would have to use e-prescribing, which doesn’t have much to do with the PCMH model; and (d) they would have to provide 24/7 appointment scheduling, prescription refill requests, and general health information (they probably have online resources in mind, but can you imaging a 3 a.m. page for a Viagra refill or outstanding balance request?) It’s nice to see a truly grassroots movement in health care, proven in multiple controlled trials, getting some recognition. I suppose that some kind of accreditation is necessary  for reimbursement, but I do wonder how much the spirit of the thing will be lost in reductionism into atomic functions that this kind of approach fosters.”

Listening: the just-released first album of The JaneDear Girls. It’s classified as “new country,” meaning it’s radio-friendly, overproduced pop with an occasional hint of banjo or unconvincing Southern accent (one of them’s from Utah, for God’s sake). I’m not a big fan of the genre, but this is pretty good in a Lady Antebellum or Taylor Swift sort of way. They’re young, cute, and chipper, so naturally they’re going to be massively popular except with fans of real country music.

If you haven’t completed my just-once-a-year reader survey, would you mind? It’s all I use to plan HIStalk for the next year.

Is is my imagination, or is HIMSS spamming the heck out of my work e-mail? I’m getting multiple e-mails every day urging me to attend the conference, which would be coming a bit late if I wasn’t already signed up, but thus being pointless since … I’m already signed up. I promise I won’t forget to show up.

Community Healthcare System (IN) goes live on its $40 million Epic implementation.

RelayHealth is running a Facebook contest to send Dr. Jayne a welcome basket. You suggest an under-$25 “fun gift to give her to express support for her new role,” and if other Facebookers like your idea, you get a stainless steel mug and other goodies while Jayne gets the gift you suggested. Sure, it’s obviously social network marketing, but I thought it was pretty fun when they e-mailed me about it earlier today.

SCI Solutions is another non-exhibiting HIStalk sponsor who would be happy to meet with folks interested in their solutions for access management. Contact Stuart Hammond to set up a time.

Canada Health Infoway sets up a $380 million fund to co-fund EMRs and invest in peer support networks throughout Canada.

Thanks to Aspen Advisors for supporting HIStalk as a Platinum Sponsor. I just finished interviewing founder Dan Herman if you need some background. The Pittsburgh-based consulting firm offers services that include strategic planning, system selection, implementation, facility expansion, informatics, physician strategy, healthcare reform planning, infrastructure services, business analytics, IT service management, and Meaningful Use planning. They don’t send out noobs: 75% of their consultants have more than 10 years’ healthcare experience and 40% have more than 20 years. If you’re a non-noob yourself, check out their leadership team and I bet you’ll know at least one of them. Their site has white papers, case studies, and open consulting positions (including clinical informaticists). Thanks to Aspen Advisors for supporting HIStalk.

Here’s the transcript of Cerner’s Tuesday earnings call. Nuggets: (a) they bragged on beating Epic in both inpatient and outpatient in a Q4 academic medical center deal; (b) they signed two outsourcing deals in Q4; (c) non-US sales aren’t doing much; (d) they’re big on Healthe, their cloud-based tool that allows EMR searching and future “microapps”. I always like reading the Q&A since the stock analysts and company people start speaking in financial tongues, asking for “color” on some obscure financial number and continuously saying “sort of” and “kind of” to keep it casual. Neal popped in for his usual 20 seconds at the end. Shares jumped past $100 for a short time, then retreated.

Jobs on the HIStalk Jobs Page: CPOE/EHR Educator, Project Manager, Project Manager – Healthcare Implementation, CMIO. On Healthcare IT Jobs: EMR Systems Analyst, Business Development Manager, VP Business Development, Soarian Clinicals Consultants.

Christ Hospital (OH) promotes Alex Vaillancourt to CIO.

QNX Software Systems announces an extension to its real-time operating system that could allow FDA-approved devices to connect to the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

Florida Governor Rick Scott (that still just sounds wrong to anyone who remembers Columbia/HCA) wants to shut down the state’s in-progress doctor shopper database even though it won’t cost the state anything to keep tabs on drug seekers. Scott answered a question about it by saying, “That program has not been working,” which is not surprising given that it isn’t even live – bid protests have gone on for more than a year.

Australia’s $56 million JeDHI military health records system (cool name) will be developed by CSC Australia, which will modify a British primary care system from EMIS. Technology from Microsoft and Oracle will be used, while Health Language will provide clinical terminology support.  

Speaking of Health Language, they are supporting HIStalk as a Platinum Sponsor. The company, with offices in Denver, England, and Spain, has 4,000 installed sites of its HLI Language Engine, a medical terminology management solution. Terminology management has always been important, but is now much more so for two reasons: (a) the ICD-9 to ICD-10 conversion, and (b) the HITECH push toward interoperability and the resulting need to exchange not just bits and bytes, but medical concepts. The HLI Language Engine supports over 100 healthcare code sets (ICD-10, SNOMED, LOINC, RxNorm, MVX, etc.), can prompt clinicians in medical terms to complete problem lists coded in SNOMED and ICD, links lab codes to LOINC, maps proprietary drug terminologies to RxNorm, and creates Consumer Friendly Terminology from medical terms for discharge summaries and patient education. Co-founder George Schwend was an interface engine pioneer as co-founder of Healthcare.com and its predecessor companies and he’s applying those same concepts to terminology management. I appreciate the support of Health Language.

Children’s Hospital Central California gets a $5 million gift from the foundation of financier Kirk Kerkorian to implement electronic medical records.

The new government in Victoria, Australia kills a hospital trial of 500 iPads, claiming the former government did not provide the necessarily wireless infrastructure. The health minister also wants to end Victoria’s $360 million HealthSmart healthcare IT program, which includes Cerner Millennium.

Nuance reports Q1 numbers: revenue up 11.5%, EPS $0.00 $(0.28 before one-time expenses) vs –$0.02. Analysts were expecting $0.31. Healthcare was called out as a strong performer in the conference call. Chairman and CEO Paul Ricci says Nuance has disrupted the transcription model, causing consolidation among transcription firms, but that works against Nuance in the short term because those companies have dropped prices to survive.

The head of the $76 billion Ohio Public Employees Retirement System will resign to take a job in healthcare consulting with Ingenix.

E-mail me.

HERtalk by Inga

From Practice Consultant: “Re: Meaningful Use costs. One of my clients, a user of Allscripts Professional EHR, was told that even though they have upgraded to MU version 9.2, they need to purchase two Stimulus Sets. Phase 1, needed to run reports for the 15 Core objectives and the 5 menu objectives, costs $200 per MD per year. Phase 2, the Clinical Quality Solution that lets the practice pull numerator and denominator quality numbers, is $185 per provider per month. I guess if the practice doesn’t pay, they won’t be able to pull quality data. This seems unfair.” I shared this information with an Allscripts representative, who provided this official reply:

As you know, not every client is pursuing Meaningful Use. There is a development cost to make the additional functionality beyond the traditional EHR available. Allscripts bundled the necessary capabilities for clients to pursue Stage 1 incentives if they wished. We are not aware of any other vendor bundling and marketing this as an easy, off-the-shelf option. And, naturally, we make certain considerations available to clients to encourage adoption of advanced technology.

From Louboutin Lover: “Re: IngaTinis. I do remember a certain vendor started the now-infamous cocktail at HIMSS last year and hear they will feature The Original IngaTini at their in-booth happy hour.” Perhaps Surgical Information Systems should have copyrighted the IngaTini name since they did concoct the original drink for HIMSS last year (you can see the SIS logo on the glass above). I do recall sipping a most delightful drink last year and am pleased to hear IngaTinis will be back. I’ll be back sipping, too.

From Gals Wanna Have Fun: “Hot parties. I am wondering what other hot parties (not on Monday, of course) are happening next week. Care to share?” I am amused that at least one person thinks I am privileged enough to be a VIP at all the fun gatherings. Interestingly, I did receive invites for about half a dozen events on Monday, but I don’t think I have seen anything for the other nights. I know HIMSS is having an event Wednesday at Universal’s Islands of Adventure, but that’s  about all I have heard. I suspect that between HIStalkapalooza, education sessions, and the exhibit floor I will be too wiped out to do much more than order room service and write HIStalk updates. (That’s my story, anyway.)

The Valley Hospital (NJ) begins implementation of Webmedx’s QualityAnalytics solution for clinical documentation. The hospital also deployed Enterprise5, Webmedx’s outsourced transcription services.

Carter BloodCare (TX) licenses Mediware’s KnowledgeTrak software to manage training requirements and improve reporting.

Advocate Health Care (IL) deploys Certify Data System’s HealthDock to provide enterprise health information exchange.

Florida selects open source software provider Mirth Corporation to provide the interoperability platform to power the state’s HIE.

Butler Health System (PA) will implement GE’s HIE solution.

Coming this weekend: Mr. HIStalk’s Must-See Guide to HIMSS 11. Mr. H will be publishing a list of some of the hottest exhibitors this year, all of whom happen to be faithful HIStalk sponsors. In addition to short summaries of each company, we are giving you the heads up for some of the coolest giveaways, including several just for HIStalk readers. I love trinkets, but some of the goodies are trinkets on steroids, including  iTune gift cards, a Dell netbook, a Sonos Music System, a trip to the Masters, and quite a few iPads. In fact, with the plethora of iPads being offered this year, I will be bummed if I come home iPad-less.

Also for your weekend reading pleasure: several HIT vendor execs share their predictions for the hot topics of HIMSS11. I am happy to report that most participants provided thoughtful and insightful answers that reflect what’s going on in the industry, and not just what will be going on in their exhibit booth. Meaningful Use is the hottest of the hot, of course, but there will be plenty of discussion on other subjects, including ACOs and other health reform implications, interoperability, ICD-10, and mobile health. You’ll want to read up before you head to Orlando. If nothing else, you will sound really smart while drinking your IngaTinis.

More cocktail party fodder, perhaps? Between August 2009 and the end of 2010, there were 225 significant healthcare security breaches that affected six million people. More than half were due to malicious intent.

Phelps County Regional Medical Center (MO) selects Perceptive Software’s ECM solution to integrate with its Meditech application.

Sequoia Hospital (CA) says it reduced its mortality rate in cardiac surgeries more than 50% through the use of IBM predictive analytics software by reducing risk and offering personalized patient care.

Microsoft continues to expand its healthcare-related offerings with the introduction of its new state Health Insurance Exchange (HIX) solutions.

Apparently Epic’s existing 5,300 seat auditorium is not big enough, so the company is proposing a new 13,000 seat venue. Epic says it needs the facility for its annual user group meeting, which in recent years has had to use tents for the overflowing crowds. The Verona City Council must approve the project.

Cold? Going to HIMSS? Here is something to look forward to.

E-mail Inga.

Sponsor Updates

• The Huntzinger Management Group is hosting a (free) lunch February 21 at HIMSS to discuss the future viability of hospitals. Attendees are automatically entered to win one of five iPads.
• Southern Ohio Medical Center will deploy Wolters Kluwer Health’s ProVation MD software for cardiology procedure documentation and coding in the hospital’s cath lab.
• Merge Healthcare announces seven new contracts for its clinical trial solutions.
• Dan Underberger, MD joins MedVentive as vice president and medical director. He was previously a board-certified anesthesiologist and co-founder of Peminic, a developer of reporting and compliance software.
• Ridgeview Medical Center’s Two Twelve Medical Plaza (MN) goes live with Wellsoft’s EDIS. It’s Ridgeview’s second ED to implement Wellsoft.
• NextGen clients have secured nearly $2 million in 2009 PQRI reimbursements leveraging their NextGen Ambulatory EHR and HQM reporting module.
• Carefx releases a new white paper, “High-Performance Healthcare: Gateway to Accountable Care.” Download here or pick up a copy at Carefx’s HIMSS booth (#4543).
• DIVURGENT announces ACTIVATE!, a new management service offering to help organizations improve go-live project quality and reduce activation support costs.
• McKesson’s Horizon Ambulatory Care earns Complete EHR certification from Drummond Group.

EPtalk by Dr. Jayne

I don’t know if any of you are familiar with the book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, which is a charming collection of essays by Robert Fulghum. After today, I think I’m going to start penning the companion volume, Everything I Needed to Know about Healthcare IT, I Learned Reading HIStalk. I’ve been reading for a couple of years now, and thank goodness for the search feature because I’m always looking for something that I think I read on one of the sites.

Today, I had one of those totally déjà vu experiences where life imitates art, living in a real-world version of the Accountable Care Organization clip that Inga shared on HIStalk Practice back in August.

Although I do distinctly remember sleeping through classes in medical school that had subjects like “101 Obscure Diseases You Will Never Ever See” and “Fungal Delights,” I must have also slept through the parts of CMIO school that covered the following: “Achieving ACO Status Without Physician Buy-In: Just Avoid the Tough Conversations”; “Blind Budgeting”; “Payers Know Best”; and my personal favorite, “How to Not Let Quality Interfere With Arbitrary Deadlines.”

The one class I did not sleep through, however, that the other folks on this hellishly painful half-day conference call apparently did: “Mute Features: Your Friend and Mine.” It’s calls like these that make me envy my friends who work at Critical Access Hospitals, where everyone works in the same building rather than the multi-state madness I cope with. Seriously people, learn how to mute yourself. I do not want to hear you emptying your dishwasher or snoring, both of which I have heard recently. If I cannot trust you with knowing how to mute, I am not going to trust you with a $200K interface project.

You may have noticed that I am a shameless fan of these clips created using Xtranormal. I’d like to issue a challenge to our readers who work the front lines of implementation with real, live users. Create a clip, three minutes or less, of the funniest scenario you’ve ever encountered during training. I’ll feature the best of the best, with the prize being eternal HIStalk bragging rights.

Obviously, the weather has been leading me to spend more time on the Internet than I usually do. I’ve been feeling a bit neglected when I see those Facebook updates that read “Tim Histalk and Inga Histalk are now friends with Joe Reader.” As a charming and sassy CMIO, why do I care if Mr. H and Inga have more friends than I? One snappy literature search later: Social Media: A Great Uncontrolled Experiment on Kids (and shame on MD Consult for trying to charge me for a subscription to read something that’s free on Internal Medicine News. Really.) Being a member of the social media as well as a scientist, I found it interesting.

Dr. Michael Rich, associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard, describes himself as a “Mediatrician” and educates parents about the impacts of social media (Facebook, Twitter, and texting) not only on behavior, but on brain development. His blog discusses the competitive nature of friending on Facebook and the fundamental shift in the concept of friendship that is happening because of these technologies.

Although I sympathize with the maladaptive behaviors that I see in some people due to technology (see comments on the importance of the mute button above), I’m encouraged by the potential for the human brain to adapt to a digital environment. For those of us in IT, if we hold out long enough, perhaps the doctors of the future will be a teensy bit easier to implement. (And if not, we can Tweet about them after class.)

Have a question about medical informatics, electronic medical records, or whether scrubs start to smell after 24 hours of resident on call? E-mail Dr. Jayne.

Dr. Gregg Goes to HIMSS
By Gregg Alexander

First things first: I must offer up my two cents to all the marketing folks who blast out pre-HIMSS emails attempting to engage the press and spread the love for their company.

Ladies, gentlemen, please – put a little effort into it. I realize you may be sending out scores, even hundreds of these e-mails, but that’s no excuse for using sloppy grammar. It’s no excuse for doing a poor job with your copy-n-paste when creating your reach outs. Honestly, with mixed fonts and blatant false personalization that looks as personal as an IRS form, who do you expect to impress? Some of these emails are constructed so poorly it prompted me to coin a term for my own use: “Mickey Marketeers.”

Now if a marketer or PR person puts a little effort in to insure that an e-mail promo: a) looks good; b) reads well; and c) has a little bit of real person, real outreach in it, well, then you’ve got a hook with some bait.

One of the best to hit my inbox was one from a rep who included personal info directed to me (we all want to feel a little important) and told an interesting, though brief, story. She mentioned a few IT biggies who were involved with this start-up: Jeffrey Wilkins, founder of Compuserve and Herb Smaltz, former CIO at THE Ohio State University Medical Center and recent HIMSS board of directors member. Also, the rep noted that the inimitable Ivo Nelson, chairman of Encore Health Services and highly successful 2010 HIStalk reception sponsor, had joined their board.

When Ivo talks, people listen. I did, too. I undertook a pre-HIMSS look into them, Health Care DataWorks, to learn more about what they do. (I had heard of them, but had only a passing familiarity.) What I found was that they aggregate more data than I even care to think exists within hospital systems and then create easily visualized and easily understandable reports, graphs, and drill-down dashboard items which allow for “Actionable Knowledge.” They create true ease of use for this mountain of collected data.

I don’t normally look forward to trickle-down technology from big centers – it usually works horribly in the private practice setting – but this tool appears so end-user useful, it’s one I hope eventually heads our way. (FYI – Incubated at THE Ohio State University, they have abandoned the academic nest to fly capitalistically.)

Another quality outreach came from GE Healthcare regarding Centricity Advance. The initial e-mail was short, but sufficiently descriptive, displayed enough personalization that I could tell the sender actually reads HIStalk/HIStalk Practice, and avoided the too formal business-speak so rampant among Marketeers. This approach enticed me enough to start a pre-HIMSS look at them, too.

Those styles, while less efficient for the sender, seem much more impressive and engaging. (They got me to take a deeper look.) I realize that corporate folks often speak to each other in a more formal fashion, even sending out press releases with the implied “you will want to talk with us” approach. Maybe that works for some, but I find I’m much more likely to want to set aside some HIMSS time (or pre-HIMSS time) looking into those companies whose outreach people come across more as people – and who look at me that way, too.

I know I’m no real HIT “reporter.” But, maybe what works for me might work for real reporters, too.

E-mail Gregg.

News 2/9/11

From DoDer: “Re: McKesson and General Dynamics for DoD’s EHR. I don’t see anyone reporting that they picked their product, only that the companies are collaborating to offer one.” It is indeed an annoyingly vague announcement. The wording (and McKesson’s involvement) suggested that DoD is getting an existing McKesson product (“McKesson’s EHR Solution”), but surely they don’t have anything that would work off the rack for the Defense Department.

From Cohort Certified: “Re: Epic non-compete. They’ll only try to enforce it if they can get away with it. That’s why KP has so many former Epic employees. I’ve also heard that if you mention ‘tortuous interference in employment’ or the NLRB in an exit interview, they’ll drop it down to 90 days, in writing.” Unverified.

From HealthITGuy: “Re: Ingenix. I hear they are continuing their expansion by acquiring HealthTech Holdings, parent company of HMS and MEDHOST.” Unverified.

From Verge: “Re: EMR software for dieticians. Any thoughts?” I’ll ask readers to chime in. That’s a great question given the cost of diet-caused illness in this country, although it wouldn’t seem to require an entirely separate EMR.

From Bobby Orr: “Re: API/Kronos. I can’t see the API clients being very happy with this. API had a number of wins vs. K recently and now the decision to go with API has been overturned. Big win for clients would be to run all healthcare out of API office going forward, but I’m guessing that is highly unlikely.” One reader told me the acquisition gives them hope of better integration between the systems, so that would interest some customers.

I usually wait until right after HIMSS to do my annual reader survey, but the month of SurveyMonkey I paid for runs out soon. Being cheap, I’ll start the survey early. Inga and I would appreciate it if you would fill one out. We always get good ideas, implement some, and appreciate all. Thank you.

It costs megabucks to exhibit at HIMSS and many vendors don’t expect to get much value from it, preferring to invest that money into something more directly related to their core business. With that in mind, we asked our non-exhibiting HIStalk sponsors to tell us if they will be available in Orlando to meet individually with interested folks. Inga assembled a list that you’ll find at the bottom of this post.

Gary Wright, formerly of Vasanova and Omnicell (no, he didn’t do Dreamweaver as far as I know and I’m sure he’s sick of hearing that) is named president and CEO of Allocade. Their system, which is used at University of Utah and Children’s Boston, creates a dynamic patient itinerary.

The UnSummit for Bedside Barcoding will be held in Louisville on April 27-29. A trip to a minor league baseball game is included, which is always fun.

Cerner reports Q4 numbers: revenue up 7%, EPS $0.82 vs. $0.71, beating earnings estimates (excluding one-time charges) but missing revenue expectations slightly. Bookings for the year were a record $1.99 billion.

The piece Ed Marx wrote on mentoring drew a huge amount of interest, with more than 75 comments. Ed has updated that post with answers to some of the questions he was asked.

Michael J. Fox is a keynote speaker at HIMSS, although I hate that they stuck him with the Thursday morning time slot when 90% of attendees will either be back to work or heading home (be honest: wouldn’t you rather hear Alex P. Keaton on Monday morning than sit through the standard HITECH stump speeches of Kathleen Sebelius and David Blumenthal ? correction – Monday’s “big” keynoter is economist Robert Reich) Anyway, RelWare is raising money for Team Fox for Parkinson’s Research with a contest offering as a prize a ride in the Back to the Future DeLorean. If you work for a hospital, you can head over to the RelWare booth, make a donation, watch a demo of RelWare’s EHR, and you’re registered.

Thanks to Concerro, supporting HIStalk as a Platinum Sponsor. The award-winning (Inc. 5000, Red Herring, KLAS, SaaS) San Diego company offers a workforce management system. Specific offerings are  RES-Q (acuity, staffing, scheduling, and productivity management), ShiftSelect (open shift management and scheduling), and CommandAware (incident management for emergency preparedness and response). Benefits: dynamic staffing, improved employee transparency, improved productivity, cost savings, and increase employee satisfaction. Hospitals can calculate their labor waste opportunity online. Thanks to Concerro for supporting HIStalk.

Since I have a short attention span, I’d rather watch a video than read Web pages, so here’s an all-customer one about Concerro that I found on YouTube.

PC World runs an article on iPads in hospitals, doing a good job of explaining that doctors (like most consumers) want to use their iPads at work and caught hospitals off guard with their requests for immediate access, but that hospitals and their vendors aren’t really ready to provide applications securely and efficiently. John McLendon of Adventist Health System says that, unlike PCs, he can’t manage iPads centrally, he can’t lock them down, he can’t install anti-virus software, and he can’t prevent them from storing patient data locally. Doctors really want to run Cerner Millennium on them, he says, but until Cerner comes out with a native iPad client, the Citrix version is a pain to use because the screen is too small and there’s too much clicking. Good article.

Above is the dapper vision of what an HIT sales guy and man-about-town of yesteryear looked like: a plaid polyester three-piece suit with flared pants, a chest-width tie, rampant hirsutism, impractical platform shoes, and the elegant accessorizing of a watch chain. That’s not Mike Brady or a member of Iron Butterfly headed off for his drug possession trial, but rather Vince Ciotti, looking unfortunately typical of a 1972 businessman, in his case girded for battle as a Shared Medical Systems installation director (note to young readers – they called it “installation” back then instead of “implementation” and the roadies were called “installers”). Vince is doing a retro session on industry history at HIMSS (Wednesday at 1:00 PM) and in deference to the topic, is eschewing PowerPoint for overheads (or “foils” as you Epic employees may have heard them called by your grandfather, the hottest thing to threaten the more conservative slide carousels back then). Vince may let me run some of his foils here, which would be cool. Vince looks and dresses exactly like this today, so make sure to drop by and flash him the peace sign.

I got a nice e-mail from Paul Roscoe, HIStalk fan (“Insightful, thought-provoking, funny, and a great source of inspiration for my iTunes collection”) and president of Sentillion when Microsoft bought the company just over a year ago. Paul is now CEO of the Crimson business intelligence unit of The Advisory Board Company, which helps hospitals support physician-led quality and cost improvement through performance management analytics. He tells me the company made an acquisition last week, bringing in Cielo MedSolutions, a leading provider of ambulatory population management analytics and patient registry applications (based on technology developed at University of Michigan). ABCO’s Q3 numbers: revenue up 24%, EPS $0.28 vs. $0.27.

I appreciate the support of Awarepoint, joining HIStalk as a Platinum Sponsor. You can get some good background from the interview of new President and CEO Jay Deady that I just ran, but here’s the CliffsNotes version: real-time location systems (RTLS) used by 88 hospitals; SaaS-based and powered by a little gadget that plugs into a wall outlet and instantly joins the ZigBee network as a node; no WiFi dependency or interference; active tags can track equipment and people in real time; and a per-asset/per-month fee that does not require upfront or hardware costs. If you’re the IT person, all you need to do is give them a rack in your server room. Reported benefits: Thornton Hospital saved $450K per year on IV pumps; UCSF saved 1,600 OR employee hours in three months by not having to send them out to find missing equipment (white papers here). Thanks to Awarepoint for supporting HIStalk.

And of course, my obligatory YouTube safari, which found only this year-old TV piece on Thornton Hospital’s use of Awarepoint.

A Wall Street Journal venture capital article says that last week’s IPO of Epocrates is an indication of how hot the healthcare IT market is. It points out that the company withdrew its IPO in 2008, is growing more slowly than companies like Allscripts and athenahealth, and faces “a nasty bunch of competitors” like McKesson and Allscripts (those don’t sound like Epocrates competitors, but that’s what it says), and yet shares jumped from their original $16 price to $26 by the end of last week (currently at $24, with a market cap of $182 million). The author says HealthPort and Greenway should go public and McKesson should spin off Provider Technologies.

One of the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics employees who was fired for inappropriately accessing the electronic medical records of hospitalized Hawkeye football players is protesting, with the assistance of her labor union. She says her computer screen suddenly went black and she went to work on another one, but that someone else recharged the original computer’s batteries and looked at the records while still logged in as her.

Australia’s health department bans the use of the supposedly live national patient identifier, saying the $90 million ID needs more testing to be considered safe.

A small New York hospital doesn’t know whether it made money in 2010, blaming its newly installed computer system for the uncertainty. Said the administrator, “It has helped as far as electronic medical records, but it hasn’t been that adaptable to accounting and finance.”

E-mail me.

HERtalk by Inga

From Stu Wiseman: “Re: the recession has ended. Fashion footwear sales were up 7.2% in 2010 and women boots sales were up 21%. Analysts say the economic recovery is on its way!” A market research firm notes that the fashion footwear market is the last to feel the pain of recession and the first to experience recovery, which is another way of saying that shoe connoisseurs hate to cut back on their shoe investments. This is such excellent news that I may have to go do my part to further stimulate the economy.

Franciscan Health System (WA) implements the Elysium Image Exchange service, giving HIE participants secure access to diagnostic-quality medical images.

Ebix closes on its purchase of A.D.A.M for $66 million.

Microsoft says that multiple health systems are implementing HealthVault Community Connect, giving patients and referring physicians secure access to hospital-generated records. Microsoft is relying on six organizations to sell, deploy, customize, and support the HealthVault Community Connect product.

This is sort of like one of those mystery shopper set-ups, but in this case the shopper was real. Sumner Regional (TN) CEO Mary Jo Lewis visits the hospital’s ED after experiencing chest pains. The ED staff didn’t realize she was the CEO until halfway through the visit. Lewis was complimentary of the care received, but she concluded that wait times were too long and the same questions were asked multiple times. Lewis is now working with the ED staff to implement changes that will increase efficiencies and decrease wait times.

Healthagen acquires AppointmentCity.com, a provider of mobile and Web-based scheduling services. Healthagen will integrate AppointmentCity.com technology into its iTriage platform.

MedQuist Holdings completes a $36 million IPO, selling 4.5 million shares of common stock for $8/share. The company was originally seeking to sell 7.8 million shares between $10 and $12 per share.

The ambulance services company that fired an employee over negative Facebook comments settles with the National Labor Relations Board. American Medical Response fired an EMT who criticized her employer on Facebook. The company’s policy prohibits employees from talking about the company in any way on the Internet without permission. The Labor Board claims the EMT’s comments were protected speech under federal labor laws; the ambulance company claims the EMT was fired because of complaints with work performance. In addition to an undisclosed financial settlement, American Medical Response agreed to change its policy.

Hawaii and Alaska are teaming up on a telehealth initiative to expand coverage in their states. The University of Hawaii at Manoa’s John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) and the College of Social Sciences and the Alaska Federal Health Care Partnership sign an agreement to cooperate in the development and fielding of telehealth technology throughout the Pacific region.

The Office of Inspector General posts its first-ever list of of most-wanted health care fugitives. HHS is looking for over 170 individual,s but the top 10 have allegedly defrauded taxpayers of more than $125 million.

Odd: a surgeon rock hound maintains a collection of over 100 stones – all of which have been obtained from the bodies of his patients. The largest rock weighs about 9.5 ounces. Ick.

The US market for virtual reality applications in healthcare reached approximately $670 million in 2010, which represents a compound annual growth rate of over 10% from 2006 to 2010. Market research firm Kalorama Information predicts more accelerated growth through 2015.

Also from Kalorama: lab information systems represented an $800 million market in 2010 and will grow about six percent a year for the next few years. More than two-thirds of labs operate with less than half their instruments interfacing with an LIS.

Hard to believe no one thought of this before. A female internist starts PROcreation, a company that designs and sells maternity lab coats. Dr. Maria Tranto created the company after not being able to find suitable lab jackets during her pregnancy. She and her partners say the 18-month old company is already profitable.

E-mail Inga.

Sponsor Updates by DigitalBeanCounter

• The College of American Pathologists (CAP) hires Charles Wagner as VP of its SNOMED Terminology Solutions division. He’s the former managing director of US healthcare operations and global healthcare application delivery at Dell Services and also served as VP of professional services for Eclipsys and EVP at HealthLink.
• Hayes Management Consulting announces that its MDaudit Hospital software is now preloaded with 150 audits based on regulatory auditors’ criteria.
• Stockell Healthcare Systems is awarded a US GSA IT Schedule 70 contract. The contract enables local, state, and federal government-managed hospitals and healthcare organizations to obtain fixed and discounted software and services pricing for Stockell’s InsightCS suite of solutions.
• University Medical Center at Princeton (NJ) will implement GetWellNetwork’s interactive patient care system. The health system will also install the GetWellNetwork system at a new hospital in Plainsboro when it opens in early 2012.
• KishHealth System (IL) selects Medicity’s HIE solutions, including the Novo Grid, ProAccess Community, and MediTrust Cloud Services.
• Heartland Regional Medical Center (MO) contracts for Voalte’s iPhone nurse communication solution.
• Tri-State Memorial Hospital (WA) and Pullman Regional Hospital (WA) select Greenway Medical Technologies’ PrimeSUITE EHR, PM, and interoperability solutions for their hospital-owned clinics.
• Capsule says that 2010 was one of its most successful years ever, with new installations in over 200 hospitals, an international footprint of more than 30 countries, and connectivity to over 50,000 devices.
• PatientKeeper experiences record growth in 2010, with a 200% increase in bookings over 2009 and a 73% growth in the number of physician users. The company has also expanded its employee base 21% over the last 15 months.
• FormFast is making headlines with their workflow tools as they gear up for HIMSS.
• Video: AllScripts CEO Glen Tullman is featured on FoxNews Business.
• Iatric Systems’ Clinical Document Exchange server receives ONC-ATCB 2011/2012 certification.
  

EPTalk by Dr Jayne

The icy blasts of winter are keeping me inside, where it’s toasty warm and I can do some serious pre-HIMSS prep. Luckily, the steady stream of e-mails inviting me to various Breakfast Briefings and Lunch and Learn sessions has kept me amused, as have the postcards and mailings that are appearing daily at Casa Jayne.

This is only my second go-round with HIMSS. Based on the total sensory overload that happened the last time I attended, I decided to try to actually plan in advance what I’ll try to accomplish. Whenever there’s large numbers of semi-repressed IT types in captive populations, there’s always the potential that too many IngaTinis or other libations will lead to less and less critical thinking as the week wears on.

I assume that the marketing people who craft these mailings have access to the job role data we provided when we registered, right? Or maybe wrong. Is it possible that they just decided, “Hey, she’s a CMIO, let’s send her anything and everything in an attempt to dazzle?” The sheer variety of things keeps me eagerly checking the mailbox each evening. I’ll be giving shout-outs to my favorites in coming days.

A few tips to the postcard creators (for those of us that are seriously thinking about the types of products our organizations are seeking to fill key business needs). It helps to say something on your card that explains what you are selling. Bonus points to vendors who make it clear what they are selling and what it does. Clear type and non-distracting graphics are also a plus. Negative points for cheesy doctor-looking models that bear no resemblance to an actual clinician —  these are a turn-off for those of us who work in the trenches on a daily basis. Feel free to use attractive people to get our attention, but don’t pretend they’re actual caregivers.

The winner of the week is Merge Healthcare, whose CEO was interviewed by Mr. H a couple of weeks back. Their postcard is clean, non-distracting, and has a summary statement that reads like the “elevator speech” format that many of us use daily to achieve buy-in on projects. It explains what they have and why you need it. Being from a best-of-breed organization, I’m a sucker for anything that looks like it might help tie it all together nicely with a bow, so I’ll definitely be checking out their offerings. Not to mention that kiosk is the buzzword of the day at my place and I’m frantically checking out as many as I can, theirs included.

The loser of the week (which I’ll leave anonymous, because I believe in public praise and private rebuke) is a consulting company whose ad uses so many stale buzzwords that it’s comical. Anyone ever played office BINGO, where you make a card of all the phrases people habitually use, then mark them off during a meeting? These guys would make us all winners. Maybe it’s intentional — the old axiom that even negative attention is still attention? Or perhaps they should seek out a marketing firm that provides better “expert, solution-driven strategies.” What does that mean, anyway?

I had another candidate for the marketing Hall of Shame but it was a victim of overzealous recycling, so I’ll just have to keep my eye out for more. If you have any personal nominees, do share by e-mailing me.

A challenge to my physician readers: If there is one product, add-on, or offering that you think is indispensable for your practice, send me their names and why you think they’re fabulous. I’ll be checking them out and reporting back on the best of the best.

This is my first time to a HIStalk bash, and even as a member of the team I was excited to open that HIStalkapalooza VIP e-mail. Looking at the pictures from the last event and after talking with Inga, the fashion bar has definitely been raised. Can’t wait to see all of you on the other side of that velvet rope!

Have a question about medical informatics, electronic medical records, or whether doctors share funny stories about naked patients after a couple of drinks? E-mail Dr. Jayne.

Non-Exhibiting HIStalk Sponsors

The following HIStalk sponsors will be attending HIMSS but not exhibiting. All are available to scheduling one-on-one meetings if you are interested in learning more about their offerings. And be sure to thank them for sponsoring HIStalk.

AsquaredM

Contact: Victor Arnold, www.asquaredm.com, info@asquaredm.com, 573.256.1135

We specialize in working with hospitals and their physician partners to better align interest, rewards and operations. We provide game-changing services in three areas: 1) finance operations advisory services, 2) revenue cycle improvement, and 3) integration with EHR products. In each of these service areas, we have a well-defined methodology consisting of assessment, advice, and transformation. Our mix of management and healthcare consulting experience helps you to choose a solution that works best for your unique organization to drive up revenue and increase operations efficiency.

CapSite

Contact: Leela Hauser, 802.922.9961, leela.hauser@capsite.com, www.CapSite.com

CapSite is a healthcare technology research and advisory firm. Our mission is to help our healthcare vendor and provider clients make more informed strategic decisions that will enable them to accelerate the growth of their business. The CapSite database is the trusted, easy-to-use online resource providing critical knowledge and evidence-based information on healthcare technology purchases. CapSite provides detailed transparency on healthcare technology pricing, packaging, and positioning.

CAP STS

Contact: Joe Schramm, Director, Business Development Services and Operations, 224.223.5464, jschramm@cap.org

CAP STS (SNOMED Terminology Solutions), a division of the College of American Pathologists (CAP), is a professional services provider with a diversified service offering related to health IT strategy and planning; clinical health information management; and health care standards. CAP STS is committed to improving patient care through the advancement of interoperable EHRs and works with provider organizations, hospitals, health IT vendors, health information exchange initiatives, universities, research centers, and government agencies throughout the world. CAP STS’ DIHIT (Diagnostic Intelligence and Health Information Technology) team advances health IT standards, practices, and tools, such as the CAP Diagnostic Work Station initiative; and standardized electronic reporting, including the CAP electronic Cancer Checklists (CAP eCC).

Culbert Healthcare Solutions

Contact:  Brad Boyd, Vice President, Culbert Healthcare Solutions, Inc., 781.935.1002 ext 13, bboyd@culberthealth.com, www.CulbertHealth.com

Culbert Healthcare Solutions specializes in assisting healthcare organizations with strategic planning, interim management, revenue cycle, clinical transformation, and information technology services. Our team of experienced healthcare professionals thrives on implementing best practices, optimizing technology, and guiding clients through the change management process.

DIVURGENT

Contact: Colin Konschak, Managing Partner, info@divurgent.com, 757.213.6875, www.DIVURGENT.com

DIVURGENT, a healthcare consulting firm focused on providing advisory services, revenue cycle management, project management, and clinical transformation services, will be attending the 2011 HIMSS conference Saturday, Feb. 19 – Thursday, Feb. 24.  They look forward to meeting new healthcare industry leaders and sharing insight on trending topics. DIVURGENT will be presenting at 11:15 am on Thursday the 24th; Presentation # 229. Reach out to info@DIVURGENT.com if you are interested in meeting.

Elumin Healthcare Solutions

Contact: Mark Williams, CEO, 866.597.5861 ext. 707, 425.369.8211, www.eluminhs.com, mwilliams@eluminhs.com

Elumin Healthcare Solutions is a privately held premier national technology implementation and project management firm serving ambulatory, acute, and post-acute healthcare providers. Our comprehensive range of programs and services includes system implementation, integration, optimization, project management, custom reporting, education, and knowledge transfer expertise. We primarily focus on the Allscripts, Cerner, Epic, and Siemens customer bases. We strive to successfully establish and maintain long term relationships by providing experienced professionals who consistently exceed their customers’ expectations. Come out of the dark and let our expert consultants shed light on your projects. Become Illuminated!!

Hayes Management Consulting

Contact: Joy Tewksbury-Pabst, Joy@hayesmanagement.com, 617.559.0404 ext. 235, www.hayesmanagement.com

Hayes works with healthcare organizations across the country to improve quality, efficiency and the bottom line. Our work ultimately leads to greater clinician, staff and patient satisfaction. Many of Hayes consultants are clinicians, and many have worked in hospitals and physician practices as business and clinical leaders. They are also certified and experienced in premier technologies such as Epic, GE Healthcare, Allscripts, and NextGen. On average, our consultants have more than 15 years of experience. We have been ranked Top Overall Professional Services Firm by KLAS for four consecutive years (2007-2010). Hayes is 100% focused on healthcare. Seventy-five percent of our annual business is from repeat clients. Hayes’ services include: IT strategic planning, ICD-10, 5010 migration, system implementations, data conversions, revenue cycle management, and interim staff.

Intellect Resources

Contact: Tiffany Crenshaw, President/CEO, tcrenshaw@intellectresources.com, Anne Sydnor, Manager Client Services, asydnor@intellectresources.com, www.intellectresources.com

Intellect Resources is a search firm specializing in full-time and contract placements in the healthcare It industry, primarily in core HIS implementations. We’ve been working exclusively in the industry since our inception twelve years ago and serve the recruiting needs of both hospitals and consulting firms.

maxIT Healthcare

Contact: Mark Fangman, Executive Vice President, Sales & Operations, 877.652.4099, www.maxithc.com, mark.fangman@maxithc.com

maxIT Healthcare, the largest privately held healthcare IT consulting firm, has been completely focused on Healthcare Information Technology since our founding in 2001.  With over 525 consultants, maxIT is the trusted technology advisor and partner to healthcare organizations, providing seasoned professionals and expert guidance to maximize quality, safety, and financial performance. maxIT offers implementation, project management, and management consulting expertise in healthcare information systems (HIS), electronic medical record (EMR) systems, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, payer systems, and clinical imaging and informatics systems.

MedAptus

Contact: Jennifer Crowley, Marketing Director, 617.896.4030, www.medaptus.com, jcrowley@medaptus.com

MedAptus’ offerings include powerful and easy-to-use Intelligent Charge Capture technologies and high-impact revenue cycle consulting services. Many of the nation’s most prestigious healthcare organizations rely on MedAptus for financial optimization; additional product benefits include EMR enhancement, manual process re-engineering and substantially improved productivity.

MedPlus, a Quest Diagnostics Company

Contact: Steve McDonald, President, Hospital Sales, 800.444.6235, ext. 2792, smcdonald@MedPlus.com

MedPlus, the healthcare information technology subsidiary of Quest Diagnostics, provides clinical connectivity for hospitals/IDNs and physician practices, helping bridge the gap between inpatient and outpatient worlds. Care360 EHR provides physicians with a step-wise approach to EHR adoption that helps transition key activities from paper to electronic with features like electronic lab order management, clinical messaging, ePrescribing, document management and multi-system interoperability. For more information, visit www.Care360.com.

MedVentive

Contact: Info@medventive.com, 781.290.2511

MedVentive – in the right place and now the right time. While healthcare was evolving the concept of an accountable care organization, MedVentive was busy operating as one. MedVentive was founded as the PSN in 1997 by the CareGroup Healthcare System, an integrated, at-risk network of 4,500 physicians and eight hospitals that cared for more than 450,000 at risk patients. Our origins as an ACO give MedVentive a deep understanding of provider organizations and the healthcare environment. Having been an at-risk provider network, MedVentive is uniquely qualified to support an organization’s transition from a fee-for-service payment environment to risk-based contracting, and provide the clinical integration/ population management infrastructure necessary to be successful under this new model.

Quality IT Partners, Bruce A. Werner, Director of Business Development, 828.635.6525, 828.234.0075, bwerner@qitp.com, www.qitp.com

Quality IT Partners (Quality) is a premier national healthcare consulting firm with an unparalleled reputation of taking good care of their clients and employees. We provide implementation and support services for healthcare applications such as Epic, Cerner, QuadraMed, Siemens, Eclipsys and McKesson. Quality also specializes in Meaningful Use, ICD-10, revenue cycle management, business continuity and disaster recovery planning, and new construction IT Infrastructure planning & management.

Renaissance Resource Associates

Contact: Maria McBride, Managing Director, 206.949.6011, maria@rraconsulting.com, Laura Noble, CEO, 425.241.9210, laura@rraconsulting.com

Renaissance offers over 20 years experience in meeting the challenges of HIT in an ever changing and evolving industry. We get it right the first time, saving IDNs time and money, and delivering optimized use of technology in a clinical care environment. Meaningful Use, ICD-10, clinical informatics, strategic planning, processs dedesign, implementation, upgrade, maintenance.

Stimulus Search

Contact: Dan Moriarty, Chief Sales Officer, 504.875.5172, www.stimulussearchllc.com, dan@stimulussearchllc.com

Stimulus Search LLC is a national search firm that helps healthcare software and services companies achieve optimum results by attracting, qualifying, and delivering high-performing sales and support talent.

Stockell Healthcare

Contact: Rich Lewis, Vice President of Sales, 800.786.2535, ext. 186 (Office), 314.616.2459 (Cell), richl@stockell.com

Stockell Healthcare Systems features InsightCS, our proven Electronic Financial Record (EFR) solution that effectively coexists and interoperates directly with the leading clinical/EMR systems, and provides end-to-end patient access, patient accounting, and revenue cycle management solutions to hospitals, behavioral healthcare providers, rehabilitation facilities, and integrated health networks. With InsightCS, you get the tools you need to more effectively manage costs via a patient-centric, workflow-driven approach which delegates the right work to the right person at the right time and place.

Kronos To Acquire API Healthcare

Workforce management systems vendor Kronos announced this morning that it has entered into an agreement to acquire competitor API Healthcare from Francisco Partners.

Kronos CEO Aron ain was quoted as saying, “This acquisition is great news for Kronos and API Healthcare customers, as well as the entire healthcare industry. Together we will leverage our complementary strengths to help organizations deliver high-quality patient care while maintaining tight control over their labor costs.”

API Healthcare President and CEO J.P. Fingado said, “This is a great opportunity to join the Kronos team and work together to drive additional value for our customers’ rapidly evolving needs. Kronos is dedicated to our commitment to innovation and customer support, and we look forward to this exciting new chapter for API Healthcare.”

Terms were not disclosed. The announcement states that “key API healthcare employees and resources” will be retained.

Monday Morning Update 2/7/11

From Secundum Artem: “Re: David Blumenthal. You should do a poll about his replacement.” I’m game. Nominate your recommended replacement here. I’ll put the responses together in a final vote once I get the most-nominated candidates. The result won’t carry any influence whatsoever, but it will be fun while we wait to see who gets the job.

From Asystole: “Re: 100-fold insulin overdose. Sorry, that’s not a function of low pay or working conditions. It’s a function of licensing incompetent people dependent on technology to cover their lack of knowledge. No math skills, can’t calculate a dose without a computer.” I don’t disagree, other than pay does figure into the equation. In many areas, nursing home RN salaries are at bottom of the food chain and, not surprisingly, so are some of their nurses. You have to be really dedicated (or in low demand for clinical or legal reasons) to accept being underpaid while dealing with the number of nursing home patients who are uncooperative, combative, and suffering from dementia. Obviously critical thinking skills were a problem here (“hey, does anybody know where we keep those 10 ml insulin syringes?”) and are no doubt in equally short supply elsewhere in healthcare. And for employees who like having a computer tell them what to do, nursing homes don’t use them much, so that’s another challenge. I don’t hear the technology advocates insisting that LTCs go digital for patient safety and efficiency reasons, probably because the largely for-profit nursing home industry has no money compared to non-profit hospitals (consider the irony).

From Lilliputian: “Re: Epic non-competes. For the folks who say they are illegal, the trick is that Epic swings a big stick with customers and consultants to make sure that folks within their year aren’t hired.” Unverified, but heard often.

From JustBecause: “Re: Ingenix. Charging its customers $25K to stay with them, if you want to upgrade to the claim scrubber version that supports ICD-10.” Unverified, but I’ll leave it to readers to weigh in on the general issue: is it unreasonable for companies to charge existing customers for upgrades necessitated by regulatory changes? Lots of EHR vendors are charging premium dollars for upgrades needed to meet Meaningful Use requirements, but those changes took away development time that could have been spent elsewhere and the timeline was short. I’d guess that most readers agree with me that maintenance fees probably weren’t scaled to cover government-mandated enhancements, but then comes the gray area: what level of surcharge is reasonable?

I’m in full HIMSS mode, assembling the HIStalkapalooza beauty queen sashes, salvoing e-mails with Inga about the work we need to do to prepare, and setting up all of our recently added sponsors. Someone said they envy me because of all the HIMSS fun, but it’s all work for me. The latest I’ve ever stayed for the HIStalk reception was 9:00 p.m. because I have to stay up half the night writing that day’s HIStalk (I ate nothing but Subway the last time the conference was in Orlando). Above is a picture from that HIStalk reception at the Peabody that year (2008) that I ran across. I never get many reception pictures, so I’m hoping I do this time around.

I’m happy to hear that so many readers have found work-life balance, with only around 16% saying they work 60 or more hours per week in their primary job. New poll to your right: what’s your take on the PCAST report’s recommendation of a universal healthcare exchange language based on tagged data elements?

A UK male nurse who prosecutors say killed his first wife and tried to kill his second, both times to collect insurance money, told a former lover that being a Cerner contractor in Saudi Arabia gave him a military rank of colonel. 

Maryland hospital is under fire for its delivery room policy banning cameras and cell phones and allowing no baby pictures to be taken until at least five minutes after delivery and only then with the medical team’s permission. The hospital’s stated concern: the privacy of its employees. The unstated concern: hospitals have lost malpractice lawsuits when videos taken by parents captured evidence of improper care. It’s interesting that some businesses record everything on video everything to protect themselves legally, while hospitals and practices are scared to death that cameras will catch them screwing up. Which they would, no doubt: you could do an interesting medication error study by putting a helmet cam on a nurse or a patient. In fact, I’ve just had one of my can’t-miss business ideas: a malpractice law firm could visit hospitalized patients and offer them a free stuffed animal Nanny Cam for their rooms in return for the inevitable lawsuit business that would result from a review of the images.

Thanks to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Merge Healthcare of Chicago, IL. We connected when I interviewed CEO Jeff Surges a couple of weeks ago. Merge is mostly known for RIS/PACS and innovative medical imaging software, but has expanded its product line to include radiology-focused solutions for billing, document management, and operational dashboards; cardiology and cath lab; clinical trials; master patient index; integration tools and services; kiosks; a laboratory information system; MRI; perioperative solutions; and a clinician access portal. Wall Street must like what it sees since the stock price has jumped 45% in the last 30 days. Drop by their booth at HIMSS and they’ll tell you about iConnect, the company’s comprehensive solution for interoperable image exchange and management. Thanks to Merge Healthcare for supporting HIStalk.

The VA announces the first four winners of its innovation competition, which will receive funds to run pilot projects: mVisum (cardiology data on mobile devices), Agilex Technologies (VistA on mobile devices), MedRed (collaboration tools for caregivers of traumatic brain injury patients), and Venture Gain (wearable sensors to detect heart failure).

Billian’s HealthDATA is supporting HIStalk as a Gold Sponsor, which I appreciate. The Atlanta-based company provides healthcare contact and facility data (hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, and long-term care facilities, for example). I checked out their hospital information, which includes statistics, affiliated organizations, contact names and titles, e-mails addresses, and financial and quality indicators. Most interesting to me is that they also have information on IT installations and upgrade plans (sample here) that I would love to get my hands on since I’m always needing to know who runs which systems, who’s the IT contact at a given hospital, etc. so I may need to find out what that costs. Thanks to Billian’s for supporting HIStalk.

I found this brand new YouTube video from Billian’s that demonstrates the new version of its portal, which covers over 40,000 healthcare facilities. They’ll be showing it at HIMSS.

DrLyle provided some information on the HIT Geeks Got Talent sessions at HIMSS. On Monday at 12:15, eight contestants (vendor coders, spare bedroom programmers, whoever) will do two-minute demos of their cool software, judged by Jonathan Teich (Elsevier), Erica Drazen (CSC), and Dave Garets (Advisory Board Company) and voted on by the audience using cell phones (apparently non-cell users are disenfranchised). The top four will move to Tuesday afternoon’s finals round, where they’ll do 10-minute demos to pick a winner. DrLyle explained that he got the emcee job not only because he runs a healthcare innovation program, but because “I’m a shorter, darker, and hopefully funnier version of Ryan Seacrest.” I like the idea, especially when considering the non-spontaneous “dark room with monotonic, over-rehearsed people reading from slides” sessions that predominate.

Speaking of overly rehearsed speakers, I just now cracked myself up with memories of peering into the Speaker Ready Room at previous HIMSS conferences. It’s hilarious to watch a roomful of suited-up, badge ribbon-bedecked presenters warming up by reciting their presentations with eyes closed and practicing their histrionic podium gestures in a sparsely furnished room in front of nobody in between bouts of anxiety-induced nausea. Too much practice is why 90% of the sessions are like watching a motorized Abe Lincoln at Disney, with speakers moving and speaking awkwardly while losing the audience’s interest in about two minutes (imagine Audio-Animatronics Abe reading from PowerPoints crammed with bullet lists). PowerPoint encourages formulaic Ben Stein-like recitations, but it does allow audience members to just grab the slide printout and run if they don’t need to have the slides read to them books-on-tape style. In fact, if it wasn’t for going to parties, hanging out with pals, and taking an Orlando vacation on company time, you could probably bag HIMSS completely and just buy the audio proceedings for a few hundred dollars, thereby gaining the audio advantages of “attending” every session plus being able to use the fast-forward button that would be ever so handy in those meeting rooms.

McKesson and General Dynamics sign a deal to create a centralized EHR for DoD. The announcement implies that an existing McKesson solution is involved since it references “the proven capabilities of McKesson’s EHR solution.” I’d be interested in knowing which MCK product was so strong that it was an obvious DoD choice (and what taxpayers are paying General Dynamic for bringing it to the table).

A New York hospital named by the state as an overseer of a failing nursing home files suit against the nursing home’s owner, HCA/Genesis. The hospital claims HCA/Genesis is threatening to pull out all IT equipment and services, not too surprising since the hospital was already planning to build a competing facility when asked to manage theirs for 18 months. 

Labor management systems vendor Kronos announces Q1 earnings of $37 million on revenues of $176 million. Which reminds me: why does “revenue” require a plural form? Is “revenues” different from “revenue?” I could look it up in “The Free Dictionary,” but the entry above tells me I might not want to trust the result.

FDA approves the first iPhone/iPad app for viewing medical images, although its 510(k) clearance was qualified in saying it should be used only when workstation access isn’t available (right). Mobile MIM passed FDA’s tests and its review of radiologist usage under variable lighting conditions.

Germany’s big HIT vendor, CompuGroup, reports Q4 numbers: revenue up 9% and net income up 131%. Revenue was lower than expected, primarily due to poor US sales. Its previous US acquisitions include HealthPort, Noteworthy Medical Systems, and Visionary Healthcare Group.

This is unusual: Roundup Memorial Hospital (MT) asks the local clinic to help it run its operations after the hospital ends its contract with a hospital management company. The clinic will help the hospital install electronic medical records. Actually, the clinic already operates a hospital from a 1993 merger, so it’s not exactly just a medical practice. I assume from the hospital’s name that it refers to cowboys, not weed killer.

University Hospital (UT) apologizes to 700 patients whose statements contained a phantom $2 million charge item. I found this funny: before the hospital implemented its new billing system in December, it mailed out a sample of the new billing format to patients, showing a mocked up bill for phony patient Dora Billings. Several recipients sent in checks for Dora’s bill. The article didn’t say if Medicare was one of them.

Aetna beats estimates with its Q4 earnings of $255 million, up 58% over last year. The insurer says it has a $1.2 billion war chest for acquisitions, with an analyst predicting that Aetna will buy other companies like Medicity, for which it paid $500 million a few weeks back.

Sponsor Updates

• Orchestrate Healthcare aligns with L-3 Global Security & Engineering Solutions and its Ingia data translation platform to offer an HIE solution.
• 1450 is named the exclusive North American distributor of Frisbee, a transcription workflow system that routes physician dictation to a transcriptionist and then allows the final Dragon-generated and approved transcription to be sent directly to an EMR. The video demo is here. There’s an iPhone version, too.
• The Anson Group blog has a post called What The FDA Doesn’t (and Does) Regulate May Surprise You.
• Emergency department systems vendor EDIMS has a number of position openings: clinical site support specialist, project lead – application systems and data, senior interface analyst, and senior .NET developer..
• FormFast posts an article called Workflow Automation – Where to Start.
• MEDecision will showcase ACO and patient-centered medical homes technologies at HIMSS.
• Holon’s Central Order Entry Pharmacy medication management solution goes live at all facilities of Greenville Hospital System University Medical Center.
• Sentra Data Systems is attending the 340B Coalition Winter Conference in San Diego this week.
• Carefx and IBM will provide NHS trusts with a real-time patient portal for clinicians.

E-mail me.

Healthcare IT From the Investor’s Chair 2/4/11

Ask the Chair

 

Why does the financial community attend HIMSS?

The tickets are bought, the hotel rooms booked, and the excitement is near. Time to start the HIMSS prep. Inquiring minds want to know – what do members of the financial community do at HIMSS?

Yes, in addition to vendors and healthcare professionals, Orlando will be swarming with a bevy of equity research analysts, both those who follow stocks for money managers and for brokerage firms (aka buy-side and sell-side); investment bankers; venture capitalists (earlier-stage private investors); and private equity investors (later-stage private investors).

One might wonder. Why do they come? What do they do? What do they hope to get out of it? As with most conferences, the goal is a combination of market intelligence, networking, and seeking business opportunities. Let’s take each attendee group in turn.

When I was a sell-side analyst, I started attending HIMSS primarily to learn more about the sector and those who play in it. I still remember the great San Antonio registration system crash, in fact! Any analyst, buy- or sell-side, goes to major conferences to see products, talk to management of the companies they follow and, ideally, actually speak with users / customers to get information about a vendor’s products and prospects beyond what they hear simply from talking to company management.

As the sector got more interesting to investors, a number of companies started having actual analyst briefings at HIMSS where they could parade not only part of the management team, but often a happy customer or two. Several sell-side analysts (often working together) will host day-long tours, leading groups of investors from booth to booth where they can get personalized demos and presentations from management. The best analysts use this time to build relationships with companies and users to help them with later channel checks to see just how well a product or company is performing.

It’s a long day for the sell-side, with 7:00 AM analyst meetings and late-night receptions. Most then publish a research note (known as a FirstCall) to update their buy-side clients on what companies are doing (and how diligent the analyst is in reporting it).

When a company actually releases earnings during HIMSS, it’s particularly challenging to juggle. Some of my best conversations, however, were held in hotel bars in the wee hours with tipsy company employees. I met one high-profile CEO (whose company I later covered) at lunch near the exhibit floor. I had started chatting, thinking he was merely a young sales exec.

Investment bankers use HIMSS primarily to seek out new business. With all the CEOs in the sector in one place, it’s a highly target-rich environment. As I’ve observed about the recently concluded JP Morgan conference, it’s an ideal opportunity to get together, trade gossip, catch up on a company’s recent performance and goals, and brag about your firm’s recent activities. Not to mention hinting about some "big deals” you have in the market in the hopes of eliciting future transaction business (sales or capital raises).

It’s also a time when bankers can arrange meetings between their current clients for sale and potential buyers. At any given time in Orlando, look around and you’ll likely spot one (their Ferragamo, Hermes, or Burberry ties are a giveaway) looking frazzled and hurrying to their next meeting. Several firms (including my former one) actually spend the money for exhibit space. Why? Partially to demonstrate how seriously they take HCIT, but also to give them 24-hour access to the exhibit hall so they can meet whenever they want. It’s actually a huge time saver given that HIMSS (like Christmas) comes but once a year.

Investors, both venture and later stage, come to assess how their current portfolio companies are stacking up against their competitors and to learn more about the sector. More importantly, they come seeking "ideas", that is to say, investment opportunities.

Investors in both stages of companies will spend time on the exhibit floor, wandering around looking for companies with interesting products or prospects in the hopes of finding a quality (and ideally undiscovered) company which might need venture or expansion capital. In many cases they’ve made pre-arrangements to get demos and to chat. In others, they are simply hoping to broaden their network of potential companies and increase their understanding in general. Much like with the vendor / hospital dynamic, few checks get written at HIMSS, but the road to do so is more smoothly paved.

Ben Rooks is the founder of ST Advisors, a consultancy which has worked with dozens of HCIT companies and investors typically on issues around strategy, financing, and outcomes/exit planning. He has attended HIMSS as an analyst, a banker (albeit with no fancy tie), and on behalf of venture and private equity investors. He also looks forward to seeing everyone in a few weeks!

Blumenthal Resigns ONC Post

David Blumenthal, MD MPP has resigned his position as National Coordinator for Health Information Technology for the Department of Health and Human Services. He will leave office sometime in the spring to return to Harvard University.

Prior to his March 2009 appointment, Blumenthal was a practicing physician and Director of the Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital / Partners HealthCare System in Boston. He was also a professor of medicine and health care policy at Harvard Medical School.