News 2/13/09

From Squirmy: "Re: Compuware. Compuware’s Covisint subsidiary hires convicted former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick for their Dallas office." Kilpatrick, on five years’ of probation and disbarred after serving 99 days in jail for obstruction of justice and assault following his sex-and-text trysts (and his administration is still under a federal corruption investigation), bags a job as a Detroit-based Compuware account executive. Hopefully he’ll be well paid since he owes $1 million in restitution.

From Mark: "Re: stimulus. I was looking for comment or perspective on a disturbing article published in the WSJ. As a healthcare IT professional who works with EMRs, this scares me." The article, A Health-Tech Monopoly, is actually an editorial that claims the bill will make ONCHIT all-powerful, concluding it will "be deciding which platforms are up to code and shutting down competitors" and will hamstring IT users with "faux privacy provisions," leading to government healthcare price controls and micromanaging providers. The author isn’t named, but if it’s not Betsy McCaughey, it’s someone who thinks like her. ONCHIT is not new and has been entirely benign, although I’d double check once their bank account gets all those extra zeroes. They won’t (can’t) shut down software vendors, at least those able to pay a not-huge sum to earn CCHIT certification (maybe that would have been a nice use of the stimulus money – fund CCHIT and make its EMR certification free). Also, the stimulus bill isn’t a never-ending blank check for imposing socialism or running roughshod over privacy — voters will still have some say. Right-wingers like me hate the bill because it’s probably going to be one giant wasteful failure that will eventually leave the country worse off once the big spending party is over and they bring the bill to our children. Democrats love it because it tries to do something, at least, and might help average people now that the fat cats have gotten their handouts. Like always, zealots on both sides preach loudly to the choir and breathe each other’s air, convincing nobody who wasn’t already in their camp (here’s a liberal counterpoint, for example). Right or wrong, the stimulus bill is pretty much a done deal at this point, so editorializing is pointless. You saw the effect of grassroots opposition to the bank bailout – zip (about the same as its results).

From HawkI: "Re: University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. They had a successful go-live of Epic’s Inpatient Pharmacy, Critical Care, and eMAR products this week. May 2, they go live house-wide with documentation and CPOE." Nice. Congratulations to them. How’s Epic Pharmacy and the connection to CPOE? I haven’t heard anyone say.

From Inside Outsider: "Re: Sunquest. More layoffs yesterday, including the remainder of the Service Exec team, which coordinated support for clients."

From Art Vandelay: "Re: HIMSS conference. Never thought of it before, but another alternative could be some podcasts, video podcasts, and use of SlideShare for an ‘open source’ conference. Mr. HIStalk, you could take the next step with this one. Allowing attendees to make requests would be pretty cool and then use the normal discussion board to have a time-bound Q&A. The authors could distribute free with HIStalk as the coordination point pointing to their URLS." A brilliant idea. An HIStalk education center, which could also screen presentations imposing publication-like standards (disclosure of interests, author affiliations, etc.) and no commercial pitches (or at least clearly labeling them since those can be educational, too). And, letting readers vote on each using a star system (like Amazon’s) and with a mini-discussion board for each presentation like Art said. All free, of course. Art and I just ran the idea up the flagpole — are you saluting or not? Let me know.

Listening: Sunny Day Real Estate, defunct emo since 2001 for obvious reasons: they declined publicity, refused to play in California, lost their lead singer when he converted to Christianity, used gibberish for lyrics to get the songs out faster, and released an all-pink album with no writing. I admire that, although I’m not sure why.

Harris Corp. gets a 10-year outsourcing contract from nearby Health First (FL) to provide support, training, and network security.

Cerner gets a two-year extension of its UK contract with Atos for Choose and Book. And, BT will resume its Millennium rollouts in London after fixing earlier problems.

Students in Rwanda can take an 11-month software development program that encourages them to further develop the OpenMRS system, a project led by Regenstrief Institute and Partners in Health. Students are trained in Java programming, web development, and informatics.

The Army buys 10,000 more Dragon Medical licenses for its physicians as part of a provider satisfaction project with the AHLTA EMR. "Being able to speak notes into an e-health record at the patient’s beside — rather than staring at a computer screen typing — also helps improve doctors’ bedside manner and allows them to narrate more comprehensive notes while the patients are there, or right after a visit. That cuts down on mistakes caused by memory lapses and boosts the level of details that are included in a patient record.”

Former Summit Healthcare CTO Charles Williams starts his own company, Infinity Healthcare, which I ran across in this news item.

Odd: a visitor reaching into his pocket to pay for lunch in a Colorado hospital’s cafeteria hits the trigger of the gun in his pocket, shooting himself in the leg (he’s been Burressed!)

I swear those Hollywood types need to start writing spec scripts about the Emageon saga. It’s off-again for the umpteenth time, as HSS’s parent company, Antigua-based Stanford International Bank, won’t provide the money for it to acquire Emageon. Meanwhile, these blogs (Link 1, Link 2, Link 3 – thanks to the reader who sent them) paint an interesting picture of the bank, which the first one claims has one shareholder, a single board member who is an 85-year-old used car dealership owner, is audited by a tiny Antigua company run by a 72-year-old local, and somehow manages to pay abnormally high interest rates on CDs despite big losses. That last linked article makes some rather strong statements, claiming the bank is a scam and "going down very soon." All unverified by me, of course.

Strange lawsuit: A Florida woman is arrested and charged with practicing medicine without a license after two women suffered injuries from the "buttocks enhancement" injections she administered.

Canada is running its own EMR stimulus: $500 million more to Canada Health Infoway, bringing the total to $2.1 billion ($1.7 billion US).

Want to see the real-time ED load of several Western Australia hospitals? Sure you do.

Open source software companies (seems like an oxymoron, doesn’t it?) urge President Obama to consider open source EMR applications. "Open-source software brings transparency to software development. There are no ‘black boxes’ in open-source software and therefore no need to guess what is going on ‘behind the scenes.’ Ultimately, this means a better product for everyone, because there is visibility at every level of the application, from the user interface to the data implementation. Furthermore, open-source software provides for platform independence, which makes quick deployments that benefit our citizens much easier and realistic."

Another Vendor You Won’t See at the HIMSS Conference

A reader had asked us to confirm that Picis will not attend the HIMSS conference (along with several other companies that we already told you about). Inga jumped to action and e-mailed some questions to CEO Todd Cozzens. Since I’m a neurotic rule-follower, I’ll run his answers here instead of as a "Moment With" since she asked only three questions, not my standard five.

How’s business?

We’re holding up pretty well. We just finished a very strong year in 2008, with new bookings up well over 40% over 2007 and solid improvements across all business lines in a quarterly customer satisfaction survey. Our SaaS business is driving a lot of that, but we were pleasantly surprised to contract with many net new ED and OR customers in the back half of the year. In all we picked up over 20 new hospital systems – not many companies doing that these days. And of course these contracts also help drive better margins and cash flow. 

We also released a slew of new products in 2008 – most notably our integrated EDIS and facility coding system and some very well received BI tools and decision support capability in our OR product line. Our focus in recent years of integrating point of care revenue management seamlessly into our high acuity clinical automation products is helping us maintain good traction throughout the slowdown in hospital capex spending.

Has Picis pulled out of HIMSS?

We’re being very conscious and prudent about controlling costs and hunkering down on our business. Don’t let anyone tell you there isn’t a completely different environment out there now — if they do, they’re either lying to you or have their head in the sand. For example, we’re balancing our portfolio with our marketing spend — we’ve increased our attendance at domain-focused trade shows (ACEP, ASA, ENA, HFMA, etc.) and decreased our presence at more general shows such as HIMSS. 

We surveyed our prospects and customer base and found that over half had imposed a travel ban or would not be attending. We figure that spend is about the equivalent of an investment in a small R&D team that could work on a new product. We want to maintain our focus on innovation and R&D in this downturn to come out even stronger on the other side. We still will do a lot of HIMSS-sponsored events, such as HIMSS virtual tradeshow presentation. Our Webinars on driving profitability through clinical business intelligence had record attendance for HIMSS last year.

What’s your take on the HITECH part of the economic stimulus package?

When I ask the same to CEOs and CFOs of providers, they say, "Make my hospital solvent and viable and I’ll have the right capital to invest in IT." So, the $80 billion to prop up Medicare for the states will surely help there.

Another little-known provision is expanded tax credits for municipal bonds. That’s a major source of hospital financing that’s been completely shut down, and getting that market churning again will have a big affect. The average hospitals only has about 50-75 days of what they call uncommitted cash on hand to bridge the gaps between operating expense obligations and revenue from payors. It’s sad to see hospitals laying off people, not because their numbers are particularly bad, but because they need to bridge their working capital shortfalls

As to the grant money, we still haven’t seen wording in the final bill that obligates hospitals to spend the grant money on healthcare IT. I’m also curious to see how the incentive money is applied and what the criteria are — that still has not been worked out, to my knowledge. The increased funding for the national HIT office and interoperability could be very useful if spent wisely. Re-inventing the wheel is not the answer — there are already many interoperability standards available. 

The key is obligating the vendors to be interoperable. Don’t let them talk out of both sides of their mouth by saying they’ll comply with all standards, then propose proprietary data lockout products to health systems. I like Peter Neupert of Microsoft’s term of "data liquidity." We need to increase data liquidity in healthcare as much as we need to increase monetary liquidity!

E-mail me.

HERtalk by Inga

From Gary: “Re: NCR brings Patient Self-service Downunder. Love your work. Mr. H is lucky to have someone as dedicated and talented (and beautiful) as you on his team. Now that the obligatory ‘sucking up’ is done, we are doing a rather ‘soft launch’ of our entrance into the South Pacific region.” Since Gary appears to know how to work the system at HIStalk, I agreed to give him a plug. Plus I was excited to know we have readers in Australia, especially since he has agreed to take me shoe shopping in Melbourne any time. Gary is heading up sales in the South Pacific for NCR’s healthcare self-service group.

Marisco Capital Management acquires a 5.7% stake in athenahealth. The 1.88 million shares of stock are estimated to be valued at $630 million.

athenahealth also names David E. Robinson as executive VP and COO. His most recent role was executive VP at SunGard Data Systems.

Cancer Treatment Centers of America opens the nation’s first all-digital cancer hospital at Western Regional Medical Center in Goodyear, AZ, which would make it the first Stage 7 hospital in the HIMSS Analytics EMR Adoption Model. It’s using Eclipsys Sunrise.

Speaking of Eclipsys, it picks up an endorsement from Genesis Physicians Group, a 1,450-member IPA in Dallas. IPA members purchasing the PeakPractice product will be eligible for discounted pricing.

USC agrees to pay Tenet Healthcare $275 million to acquire USC University Hospital and USC Kenneth Norris Jr. Cancer Hospital. The deal ends a three-year fight over the control of the facilities. Employees will stay on.

A 57 year-old woman who questions a $143 pregnancy test charge on her detailed hospital surgery bill is told it’s standard procedure even at her age. She’s pushing for a policy change. I am still hung up on the fact that the test is $143 when the at-home version is about ten bucks.

Emory University Orthopaedics & Spine Hospital (GA) opens this week and will feature a Cerner CareAware my Station system in each of the 45 patient rooms. I also noticed the hospital offers four private luxury suites with two separate living quarters. Amenities include fine linens, plush towels, two fax machines, a conference/dining table, in-room newspaper delivery, and gourmet room service.

HCA seeks to raise $300 million in a bond offering to repay bank debt and to amend terms of some of its loans. Earlier this month, HCA announced its 2008 net income was $673 million, down 23% from 2007.

The son of an 89-year old woman who died at a UPMC hospital charges that the facility’s new and untested Cerner EMR system was a major factor in her death. The woman, who was undergoing treatment for strokes and dementia, left her unit and ended up freezing to death on the hospital’s roof. The suit claims that the staff caring for the woman was struggling with a system that “they were not properly trained on,” placing patients “at a severely increased risk of harm and death.” The family’s attorney charges that UPMC ignored warnings that the records system could put patients at risk because UPMC had an ownership interest in Cerner Corporation.

In an attempt to expose medical students and doctors to its new surgical procedures, surgeons at Henry Ford Hospital (MI) use Twitter to provide real-time time surgery updates. During a surgery on a kidney cancer patient, doctors used a laptop in the operating room to give a play-by-play of the action, plus answer online questions. Is it really 1.0 of me to hope my surgeon doesn’t Twitter during my next surgery?

A new KLAS research report claims that more hospitals are looking for aggregation solutions that provide a more complete view of medical records and documentation. Such solutions would help clinicians improve patient safety. The report names six vendors that account for 85% of contracted deployments, with MEDSEEK owning the largest installed base. KLAS concludes the solutions from Microsoft and dbMotion are the most functional. The other top vendors include Medicity, PatientKeeper and CareFx.

Greenway Medical Technologies and Navicure partner to offer more integrated solutions and services. Both are “Best of KLAS” winners in their respective areas.

Perot Systems announces its Q4 financial results, which included a profit of $29 million, compared to $44 million in the same period last year. Perot blames the bulk of the 34% drop in profit on a client termination.

iMedica names Mark L. Richards its new VP of Sales. Prior to iMedica, he was the divisional VP of group practice sales at McKesson’s Physician Practice Solutions business unit.

Data Dimensions, a provider of business process outsourcing services for healthcare, promotes Jon Boumstein to CEO.

SCI Solutions wins three eHealthcare Leadership Awards for its Consumer Portal self-scheduling application. The awards included Best Business Suite, Best Overall Internet Site, and eHealth Organizational Commitment.

Healthvision closes the fourth quarter with 22 new client engagements.

Infinity Healthcare Solutions partners with Stratus Technology to resell Stratus hardware, software, and service products.

NextGen announces that AltaMed Health Services (CA) and Valley-Wide Health Systems (CO) have selected its enterprise software solutions. Both are community healthcare facilities.

E-mail Inga.

Readers Write 2/12/09

Submit your article of up to 500 words in length, subject to editing for clarity and brevity. I’ll use a phony name for you unless you tell me otherwise. Thanks for sharing!

Note: the first two articles were added as comments to previous articles, but because of the large number of links they included, they were automatically discarded by the blog spam-catcher, so I never saw them. I do not censor comments except in extreme cases (ones I’ve gotten include claims of past criminal records by named individuals, obvious vendor pitches disguised as a reader comment, and personal attacks – those I will either delete or edit). So, if you left a comment and it hasn’t appeared within a day or two, e-mail it directly to me.

Comments on MD Leader 1/27/09, Ministry Health and CattailsMD
By Pragma

Thank you for including links to back up your statements with peer review evidence. A good effort. It’s something we don’t see here often.

“EHRs Do Not Improve Quality” Your link to a study conducted between 2002 in 2004 (released in 2007) about ambulatory-only EMR systems, peer-reviewed, but disputed by many (even at the time). It is worth noting this is not a study referenced by… well anybody, in two years! And in medicine that wouldn’t hold up very well. Is it really that cut and dry? That clear?

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/bmj%3b330/7491/581
http://www.itif.org/files/HealthIT.pdf
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2253693
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/publications_show.htm?doc_id=685103
http://www.cchit.org/about/casestudies/index.asp
http://www.fhin.net/eprescribe/Benefits/AdvantagesToProviders.shtml
http://www.fiercehealthit.com/story/ehrs-boost-quality-raise-costs-at-community-clinics/2007-01-22
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1479999

There are other studies. Often peer reviewed and indexed. I could go on and on and on … and on. But wouldn’t it be worth people doing the research themselves? This is medicine, the last time I checked it was a science. Let’s do the clinicians the service we expect of them.

Your basic statement is a truism, but it’s an obvious truism (or it should be). It’s not the EMR, it’s how it is used. How it is customized, and how the data is normalized and utilized. We must be cognitive of EMRs allowing the customer flexibility. EHRs do enable this. Paper does not. Paper and EHRs are just tools. And humans are pretty good at using them, when they are not given reason to not use them.

I am sure in Egypt there were many who railed against the failures of papyrus. Who advocated for more use of stone. Well they lost, and we as humans adjust. Cows? Not so much. I happen to think clinicians are better than cows. I have seen this. I have actually seen Doctors say they have seen the benefits and enjoy using an EMR! Wow! Kinda goes against everything people are saying here, right? Sometimes reading this site I think clinicians are cows. Who simply must have workflows duplicate their paper world exactly. So isn’t the question what are these people doing wrong? Because it can be right.

Wouldn’t a more constructive argument from the detractors be, “Which is the best EMR for quality, and why?”, not, “They do not work”, “There is no evidence”, “it’s a waste of money”? You wouldn’t know this from reading HIStalk, but there really is far more, recent, peer-reviewed empirical data to show they do. The truth is…. ahem.. out there?

Anyway, it’s an old and fruitless argument. They will be implemented, it’s just a case of how well. The people who care, and do not have an agenda, will ask questions such as “how do we make them better”, “How do we increase quality with available data”, “Isn’t all this data GREAT! What are we going to do with it!”, “Ok we have an EMR, now let’s try doing something for the Doctors, give a little back for the extra time they spend documenting”, “How can we make a logical thing like a computer, mirror illogical real life workflows?”, “How do we stop decision support annoying clinicians, so the continue to use it and not just click OK?”, “How do we take hospitals from hugely political organizations to ones that’s make decision to a truly best practice?”. The others often show their clear lack of objectivity.

Comments on the Interview with Glen Tullman, CEO of Allscripts
By Al Borges, MD

Dear Mr. Tullman:

Thank you for coming on HIStalk for an interview. This site is read on a daily basis for those of us with an interest in HIT, and having you come to visit is wonderful.

Didn’t President Obama pledge not to surround himself with lobbyists? Aren’t you, your company, and your coworkers the ultimate lobbyist group, showering Obama with donations for the past two years alone? From what little I could find on the Google, you personally gave President Obama at least $144,300.00 in donations in the two years prior to his election (1). Your employees gave $20,662 during the same period (2). Your company, Allscripts/Misys, also gave the possible future HHS Secretary Daschle $12,000 speaking fees on 8/2008 for a lecture (3).

Now this activity seems to have put you into the unusual position where you are the personal advisor of the President of the United States of America on how to channel money to your company, ultimately enriching yourself while the American taxpayer, and especially doctors have to foot the bill. President Obama has put the wolf to guard the hen house!

You can’t believe how much I resent the fact that you, a vendor selling a product, is now in a position of power where you can determine how Medicare pays me, a physician. I’m sure that I’m not the only doctor out there that feels this way. Unlike you, I don’t have the lobbying power to get Obama’s ear. You’ll be able to sign up in the short-term those who already have EMRs, but once you get close to 20% uptake of these incentives, you’ll begin to bump up against the less CCHIT-certified-EHR-hard-core, more knowledgeable physicians like myself who don’t want to buy into a multi-thousand dollar EHR to please the likes of the Medicare pinheads in order to be able to get paid adequately for our work.

What this bill will eventually do is to damage Medicare as physicians refuse to see new Medicare patients or dis-enroll altogether. It also will begin the process of destroying the small solo to group office over the next 10 years, offices where 75% of doctors work in currently. These offices won’t be able to survive under the burden of these unfunded, onerous, unneeded mandates that you are trying to promote to satisfy your agenda. Students will think twice before going into medicine if not only do they now have to pay off their loans but also pay for a $30,000.00 CCHIT-certified EHR, and worse yet, use it.

Lastly, you mention that “[CCHIT-certified EHRs are] a benefit to all of us in terms of quality and also in terms of cost reduction” without there being any real data showing such. In fact, there is data showing the opposite(13). Recently we’ve had alerts about data input errors from both the JACHO and the US Pharmacopeia (4,7-12). You have the National Research Council finding that HIT systems used by several major health providers has fallen short of achieving healthcare delivery goals envisioned by the Institute of Medicine (5). Recently, two HIT experts have penned an open letter to President Obama, warning him against investing too many federal dollars in existing electronic health records systems(6). David Kibbe, MD, a technology adviser to the AAFP, and Brian Klepper, PhD, founder of consulting firm Health 2.0 Advisors, stated that existing EHR systems are:

• too expensive
• difficult to implement
• disruptive to practice workflows
• not proven to improve patient care, and
• don’t do a good job of sharing information with each other.

So Mr. Tullman, do the right thing and stop the insanity of using taxpayer money to bail out a portion of the economy that doesn’t need the economic help, at least not in this way. If you can do me a favor — show this letter to the honorable President Obama so that he can get an idea of how the other side feels.

Sincerely,

Dr. Borges

Citations:

1) http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/glen-tullman.asp?cycle=08
2) http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/neighbors.php?type=emp&employer=ALLSCRIPTS
3) http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389×4968435
4) http://www.jointcommission.org/NewsRoom/NewsReleases/nr_12_11_08.htm
5) http://www.modernhealthcare.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090109/REG/301099965/-1/TODAYSNEWS
6) http://medicaleconomics.modernmedicine.com/memag/submitBlogEntry.do#blog_confirmation_anchor
7) http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2005/01/24/prsa0124.htm
8) http://www.jamia.org/cgi/reprint/14/3/387.pdf
9) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/09/technology/09compute.html?ei=5089&en=402b792e748d99a2&ex=1268110800&adxnnl=1&partner=rssyahoo&adxnnlx=1150474153-xVix1BcYkvTKJpuLyHStrQ
10) http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/293/10/1197
11) http://www.jointcommission.org/SentinelEvents/SentinelEventAlert/sea_42.htm
12) http://www.usp.org/products/medMarx/
13) see my 2 slideshows located here (~130 slides full of data)- http://msofficeemrproject.com/Page3.htm

Why Doesn’t Someone Propose a National EMR?
By Winston T. Goode

While I appreciate the commitment to healthcare that "billions a year for x years" represents, I can’t help but think that we’re trying to plug leaky faucets with fistfuls of money. Electronic Health Records are not a goal, Electronic Health Records are a tool, and they will only realize their potential if they are installed in the pursuit of a loftier goal.

The Apollo program was not funded as a $135 billion exercise in building rockets. Knowledge is the most powerful and most capricious tool we can bring to bear on our health. The ethics of healthcare often prevent controlled, double-blind studies, meaning that often useful knowledge can only be attained post hoc and en toto. Sorting through the interactions of multitudinous variables and extracting a modicum of causality to use for the betterment of all is not a challenge that can be met by a single doctor, or often even a single health system.

The barest hints of the potential of EHRs we’ve seen already. How many years did we spend collecting information on tobacco use? How many patients died of Vioxx-related heart failure before we managed to make a
connection? We would have known more, sooner, if we had a nationwide EHR infrastructure.

As the benefits of EHRs are society-wide, so to should be the scale of the tools and projects used to implement them. Providing for the health of a population is not a project that can be funded piecemeal with
earmarks and pork, run through unaccountable cronyism, or bloated bureaucracies. Nor is it a project that can be handled by the private sector, or tax breaks, or ‘small government’ rhetoric. It must be above either party,
and across government agencies. 

We need a national EHR project to realize the benefits of an EHR. Otherwise, EHRs will continue to be yet another false idol of future technology on which we will have squandered our wealth and potential. This should be a grand endeavor, not limited only to healthcare, but spanning industries from agriculture and education, to law enforcement and government. We must exert control on those variables that correlate to our desired outcome,be they chemical,  behavioral or other. This must be a results-focused, not rhetoric-focused enterprise.

Privacy advocates rightfully fear the ways in which this information may be abused. There must be protections and opt-outs put in place, but it should not be a system that people will want to opt out of. No one is forced to use U.S. dollars as a form of currency. No one is forced to open a bank account or use a cell phone despite the obvious privacy risks these present. We should have the healthiest, and longest lived, population in world.  EHR’s can help us with this goal.

I sincerely hope there is someone in Washington with the vision and leadership to harness the vast potential of EHRs to better the health of all. But I’m sure not seeing it at the moment.

News 2/11/09

From Brailer’s Revenge: "Re: another non-profit seeking hospital and vendor members. Most hospitals would have to ante up $8-20K for a seat at the table. Not clear what you get in return." Link. The National eHealth Collaborative’s initiatives include prioritizing standards initiatives and NHIN (it’s the AHIC successor, as it was known for awhile). It was just launched last month and John Glaser (who’s on its board) described it right here on HIStalk right after that. It’s a pretty big deal, especially with stimulus money coming and some structure needed around it, and entirely above board. I don’t know why hospitals would join either, but if they’re spending big money on EHRs, they at least get some voice in long-term direction. And, coincidentally, right after I wrote this, I got an e-mail from NeHC communications director Meryt, who sent over a newly released white paper developed with HITSP and CCHIT (fulltext on John Halamka’s blog, which saves me having to post it) that lays out their vision.

From Ex IBM’er: "Re: Healthcare and Life Sciences. Several folks RIF’ed out today."

From The PACS Designer: "Re: Alfresco. Enterprise Content Management is becoming more in demand by healthcare professionals and one free software solution addressing ECM is called Alfresco. HIStalk sponsor Red Hat has some experience with being an Alfresco installer and can help those who are interested in this software solution." Link.

From Cloud Jumper: "Re: alternative to HIMSS. Maybe you could do something like the TED talks, where the coolest people could give their talks to cool savvy people in the audience and it’s all on video so we can watch it later if we were uncool enough not to be invited. You could get the vendors to do tasteful little ads in front of each video, as TED does, to pay for it." That would be fun, although healthcare is so profit-oriented and fiercely protective of turf even on the non-profit side that the cool factor is turned down several notches (kind of like being the heppest cat at HFMA). Still, it would definitely be different than the mainstream conferences, where the same old faces exaggerate their successes with the same old ideas prettied up to seem more daring and contemporary. But, the one article commenter was spot on: HIMSS can only put people on stage who volunteer to be there, so those who have never been a speaker or committee member have no excuse to gripe about the result (I have, so I can). That’s one of my HIStalk goals, though — to showcase the good ideas of people who don’t have the time, money, or ego needed to ride the PowerPoint Podium.

The Senate passes the economic stimulus package and Kaiser Family Foundation has a summary of it (the current version, until a compromise is reached with the House). The Senate’s bill calls for $19 billion for HIT vs. $20 billion in the House bill. Both sides want to give Rob Kolodner’s previously shoestring-funded office incomprehensible amounts of "discretionary" funds, $3 billion vs. $2 billion (is anyone a little scared of that?) Surely up for heated debate: the Senate’s bill punts on privacy, while the House calls for strict privacy protections. Wall Street wasn’t exactly overjoyed with the grim reality of this financial Hail Mary or the worse-by-the-day bank bailout; the major indices all dropped nearly 5% on Tuesday.

Speaking of that, the former lieutenant governor of New York weighs in with Ruin Your Health With The Obama Stimulus Plan. She says senators should vote against what she calls "the handiwork of Tom Daschle": ONCHIT as a big new bureaucracy, government interference with physician decisions, and intentionally slowed development of new drugs and technologies because they’re expensive. Daschle, she says, thought seniors should deal with conditions that come with old age instead of being treated for them, moving dollars to younger people (as cold as that sounds, I’d have to agree at least in general). Here’s the big finish: "The health-care industry is the largest employer in the U.S. It produces almost 17 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. Yet the bill treats health care the way European governments do: as a cost problem instead of a growth industry. Imagine limiting growth and innovation in the electronics or auto industry during this downturn. This stimulus is dangerous to your health and the economy."

Add Rush Limbaugh to the list of HITECH haters. From his Monday show: "Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Now there are arguments back and forth about whether or not this is a good thing. The opportunity for the loss of privacy is huge here … by digitizing and making everybody’s healthcare records computerized … especially having a major federal database where everybody’s health records are." I’m conservative and even I can’t stand that pompous gasbag, so I can’t imagine who’s still listening to him.

The New York Times just published a piece on HITECH, citing a letter that urges not just throwing EHR money at doctors, but also distributing lessons learned via "Regional Health IT Extension Centers" to help out with projects in small medical practices, which sounds like a great idea. You will note that the letter (warning: PDF) has few vendor signatories, unsurprisingly.

Cerner’s Q4 numbers, announced after the market close: revenue up 18%, EPS $0.86 vs. $0.49, thrashing expectations of $0.59. Say what you want about good old Republican boot-strapper and plain-speaking Neal, but the man knows how to run a company better than those big, fancy foreign conglomerates choking on healthcare IT and everything else they toe-dip into. Thank goodness for MEDITECH, Cerner, and Epic, run by the founders instead of hired gun Wall Streeters and sticking to their healthcare IT knitting instead of selling nuclear weapons, theme parks, and jet engines (not to mention toxic assets to taxpayers in one huGE example).

I got a couple of e-mails suggesting that Medical Records Institute, the folks who run TEPR, have laid everyone off and closed down. I’m sure that’s somehow tied in with their new focus and conference, but perhaps the change was more severe than was hinted. I’m sure updates will follow.

Listening: Seether, South African metallish grunge.

IBA/iSoft gets two contract extensions with Netherlands hospitals.

A surgeon in Australia develops a USB emergency button that, when pressed, sends a message to all PCs on the network along with the location of the sender. He created it after noting that several doctors had been killed by patients.

Allscripts announces that it will sell its Medication Services business (I asked Glen Tullman about it almost three years ago). The company also approved a $150 million stock repurchase plan.

Hospital layoffs: Columbia St. Mary’s (WI), 54; Cascade Healthcare Community (OR), 74.

Jobs: FCP-MS4 Patient Accounting Expert, McKesson Horizon Lab Consultant, IT Director.

Healthcare Growth Partners publishes its Q4 2008 Healthcare IT Transaction Summary & 2008 Year in Review (warning: PDF).

IBM and UnitedHealth test the medical home model, in which a primary care physician (not a gatekeeper) coordinates care among other medical professionals, often by using information technology. I’ll defer to Scott Shreeve, who provides a better synopsis than I can.

Interesting: hospitals that hire doctors often write employment contracts that don’t allow the doctor to contact patients if he or she leaves and also prohibits them from opening a practice within a specified radius. Patient are also charged large amounts to have their paper records copied so they can seek care elsewhere. Noncompetes are standard in business, in case nobody noticed that even non-profit healthcare is one.

A third of Australian healthcare and IT professionals say they’ve experienced compromised patient safety due to IT downtime.

Idiotic lawsuit: an admitted alcoholic on a two-day bender (more like a "breaker" in this case) in a Marriott falls more than 100 feet off a stairway while drunk, causing what he says is permanent brain damage. He’s suing the hotel for serving alcohol to an addict (him) and thereby causing his injury. He’s claiming injury, pain and suffering, anguish, disfigurement, medical expenses, loss of earnings, loss of the enjoyment of life, and aggravation of a previous condition.

A laptop stolen from Parkland Hospital (TX) last week may contain information on over 9,000 employees.

Availity announces the availability of real-time Florida Medicaid eligibility and claims status at no charge.

E-mail me.

HERtalk by Inga

From Ronald Miller: ”Re: Henry Schein. Former MED3OOO VP Keith Slater is now the GM at Henry Schein Medical Systems. Good move for Henry Schein. It was only a matter of time until they figured out they had NO CLUE how to deal with a PM/EMR product after spending all that money on it. Maybe now the button ups at Schein will do a better job than Pfizer did with Amicore.”

From Jerry McGuire: “Re: Great piece today with Allscripts CEO on stimulus. From your piece, it seems the curious angle is identifying when IT does and doesn’t serve as a stimulate function. Maybe a virtual roundtable?” We’d love to hear readers’ opinions on what IT functions could stimulate the economy.

The Washington Post posts a graphic that breaks down the $819 billion stimulus package. It doesn’t say where the $20.2 billion for HIT is going, much less what part of IT is stimulating, but it is a pretty impressive graphic.

Caritas Healthcare (NY) files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and its two hospitals are projected to close this month. Caritas had a net loss of $64 million for 2008, prompting the board to vote to close Mary Immaculate and St. John’s Queens hospitals.

QuadraMed announces that revenue for FY08 will be slightly ahead of the $146-149 million guidance previously provided. The company also expects EBITDA to significantly exceed the previous $15.8 million target. Reading between the lines in the press release, Keith Hagen sounds a bit cautious when discussing 2009 and the company’s potential for new business: “Approximately two-thirds of our revenues are produced by recurring maintenance and term license contracts, and a large percentage of our 2009 revenue is expected to be generated by this recurring base, our project backlog, and our broad set of products and services."

The 25-bed Hiawatha Community Hospital (KS) becomes the 55th hospital to go live on IntelliDOT’s BMA system.

Catholic Health Initiatives names Michael O’Rourke its permanent CIO and senior VP. He’s been interim CIO since August 2008 for the 77-hospital organization.

Capsule announces that 10 new healthcare organizations selected its device connectivity solution during the last quarter of 2008.

Marshfield Clinic (WI) adopts a new BI solution to make better use of its vast amount of patient data. Marshfield will utilize SAP’s Business Objects XI intelligence system to improve patient care and analyze internal business operations.

Eclipsys announces that Greenwood Pediatrics (CO) has selected Eclipsys PeakPractice (the former Medinotes PM/EHR solution). The 10-physician group apparently chose Eclipsys over Epic, which their hospital offered to subsidize.

A former Queen’s Medical Center (HI) administrator pleads guilty in federal court for defrauding her former employer out of $594,000. Patricia Syling is accused of creating bogus contracts between a company she owned and Queen’s, and charging the hospital for services that were not performed. Syling was hired by Queen’s in September 2001 as the corporate compliance administrator and director of revenue cycle. In an unrelated charge, Syling is also accused of defrauding another former employer, Citrus Health Care of Florida, of more than $1 million and using $320,000 of the proceeds to buy a luxury sky box at Tampa Bay Buccaneer football games.

The McKesson Foundation awards $60,000 in grants to nine Minneapolis-St. Paul-area non-profits. The funds will be used to support health and wellness programs benefiting children and families.

A Texas Medical Association survey finds that doctors worry their financial hardships threaten quality of care and access. Declining payments, claim denials, incorrect or late payments, and administrative burdens are taking time away from patients.

The University of Chicago Medical Center (the First Lady’s old haunt) plans to cut 450 jobs in order to cut 7% off its annual budget. This is in addition to the elimination of 15 senior executive posts, including the one vacated by Michelle Obama (we’ll try not to be cynical about the huge raise UC gave her just before Obama won using the rationale that she was essential and therefore worth every penny).

MRO expands its services to include remote release-of-information processing and remote and staffed services.

HIMSS Analytics releases a list of the top vendors of acute care EHR systems based on total number of installations. For 2008, MEDITECH topped the list at 26.6%, followed by McKesson (14.1%) and Cerner (12.6%). I wonder how the rankings would end up if the list were based on number of total beds?

The octuplet story just gets crazier and crazier. Apparently the mom’s fertility doctor is not as successful as most doctors around the country, with his patients having much lower than average rates of pregnancies and births. Also, at least two former employees have sued him, including an office administrator who accused Kamrava of tax and insurance fraud. The office manager claims the office kept two sets of books, one for cash and the other for insurance, and some cash was never entered into the computer or deposited in the bank. Meanwhile the Kaiser Permanente hospital where the children are receiving medical care is requesting Medi-Cal funding to help pay for the octuplets’ medical care since Mom is unemployed, living on food stamps, and mostly letting her mother raise her first six children.

Compuware’s Covisint subsidiary collaborates with the VIP Health Initiative to provide a secure single point of access to share clinical data. The VIP Health Initiative was formed by Scripps Mercy Physician Partners, SMPP Services and Physician Partners Management Services.

Despite massive financial losses as a result of Hurricane Ike, UTMB Galveston intended to pay $3 million in bonuses until a faculty group discovered the plan. According to the Texas Faculty Association, once the bonus plan was uncovered, UTMB canceled the payments. The largest bonus recipient would have been the school’s executive VP, provost, and dean of medicine, who was scheduled to receive over $122,000 – on top of his $700,000 annual salary. The school claims it was planning to cancel the bonuses anyway.

E-mail Inga.

MD Leader 2/10/09

The Stimulus Bill Will Change How IT Data is Used in Healthcare

At this writing, the Stimulus Bill has not been passed, but it will change how we use IT. The funding and implementation incentives will get all the press, but it is the fine print that has the potential to change how IT healthcare information is used.

The Stimulus Bill will restrict use of healthcare data. To date, the biggest areas of concern have been:

• The use of patient consent for internal healthcare operations;
• Revised definitions of healthcare operations limiting use of patient information (potentially including use of patient information for quality reporting);
• Accounting for of all disclosures, even for treatment;
• Patient consent for information use by a healthcare exchange;
• Extending privacy and security rules to business associates.

None of these issues may appear in the final bill and additional elements can be added at the last minute. The legislation is moving fast and there will be unintended consequences. How government chooses to enforce the provisions and how our own organizations choose to interpret will determine the impact on our operations.

When the final bill is signed, evaluate the direct economic impact. Also be sure to look for additional provisions that will change how healthcare uses data.

Peter Sanderson, MD, MBA is a family physician and Director of Medical Informatics and Operations and Executive Sponsor, EHR Program, at Ministry Health Care. He can be reached at pete.sanderson@ministryhealth.org. He also blogs at MD Leader.

CNN: Compromise Stimulus Bill Eliminates All $2 Billion of HIT Grants

CNN reports that the slimmed-down economic stimulus bill being debated by Congress has had the $2 billion line item earmarked for healthcare IT grants removed as part of a cost-cutting compromise.

The original House plan called for $2 billion in HIT grants plus another $18 billion to be managed by CMS in the form of pay-for-performance incentives. Details of the current plan being debated have not been released.

UPDATE: a reader sent over a worksheet provided by his Senator. The House had originally proposed $2 billion for ONCHIT, while the Senate had proposed $5 billion. The proposed compromise calls for a $2 billion reduction from the Senate’s proposal, leaving $3 billion, which is still $1 billion more than the House had suggested. Those aren’t final numbers.

UPDATE 2: Here’s a link to the current version of the bill as of Monday morning (warning: PDF). The HIT grant part is on page 139, but here is the full text:

OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY
OFFICE OF THE NATIONAL COORDINATOR FOR HEALTH
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (INCLUDING TRANSFER OF FUNDS)

For an additional amount for ‘‘Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology’’,  $3,000,000,000, to carry out title XIII of this Act which shall be available until expended: Provided, That of this amount, the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall transfer $20,000,000 to the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the Department of Commerce for continued work on advancing health care information enterprise integration through activities such as technical standards analysis and establishment of conformance testing infrastructure so long as such activities are coordinated with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology: Provided further, That funds available under this heading shall become available for obligation only upon submission of an annual operating plan by the Secretary to the Committees on Appropriations of the House of Representatives and the Senate: Provided further, That the Secretary shall provide to the Committees on Appropriations of the House of Representatives and the Senate a report on the actual obligations, expenditures, and unobligated balances for each major set of activities not later than November 1, 2009 and every 6 months thereafter as long as funding under this heading is available for obligation or expenditure.

Monday Morning Update 2/9/09

From Doug DeCinces: "Re: E&Y. E&Y is shutting down its Health Sciences Advisory Services practice. At least 100 employees at all levels (partners and down) are losing their jobs." Unverified.

From Skeptic: "Re: TEPR. They’re claiming 800 registrants, which is pathetic even if the number is accurate. They’re also claiming that a common comment was ‘best program in 25 years.’" The only positive comment I’ve heard is that the weather was good. Now that HIMSS is eating the universe, it’s like the NIT basketball tournament once the NCAA expanded to 64 teams. If someone really wanted to offer a HIMSS alternative, it would need to be a lot cooler and a lot brasher. I’m thinking I’ll start a BIL conference or an unconference whose whole agenda is like the interesting, less commercial hallway meetings that are usually the best part of any conference. Those could be held at cooler, smaller, cheaper locations than the tired old Orlando-Las Vegas-Chicago circuit of mile-long convention centers and $15 room service burgers, like an HIT Chautauqua that leaves you educated, rejuvenated, and not embarrassed that your employer’s time and money were wasted.

From Kate: "Re: medDispense. Emerson (NYSE: EMR) bought them last month for an undisclosed amount." I confess that I didn’t even know that automated drug dispensing vendor medDispense was still around. Trivia: they started as a division of HCS, the Montgomery, AL software vendor who sold McKesson what is now Horizon Meds Manager. Emerson makes heavy duty commercial stuff like power plants and air conditioners. Not too successfully of late, apparently, since the company announced late Friday that it will axe 14,000 employees, more than 10% of its workforce, by October. The sale went through on January 15.

From Tarhill: "Re: HHS secretary. Has anyone heard if Newt Gingrich might be a candidate?" Well, like Daschle, he’s written books and held high political office. The similarities end there. Maybe he would be a good choice, but he brings a lot of baggage, is on the wrong ideological side, and would never fully trusted at the level Daschle would have been. The problem is that all the plans were built around Daschle, so he’ll be tough to replace even if the job is split into two (advisor and HHS leader). I hesitate to say this, but I’m not convinced he wasn’t the best choice despite questionable industry ties. Sure, it’s iffy that he was paid millions as a non-lawyer working for a law firm in ways that sure seem to indicate off-the-books lobbying, but if Obama wants political experience, every closet has a surplus of skeletons.

From Vendor Guy: "Re: QuadraMed. Heard a rumor that QuadraMed is getting to pull the plug on the old Compucare/Affinity product." Half accurate, as I suspected and Inga confirmed with a company spokesperson. QuadraMed recently notified existing Affinity Clinical customers that Affinity Clinicals will not be supported after 1/1/12. This is hardly a surprise: they were very clear with the QCPR acquisition that Affinity Clinicals weren’t up to snuff and that QCPR was a far better solution that would be the go-forward offering. However, the far, far more widely installed and much better Affinity Registration/Access and Revenue Cycle products aren’t going anywhere. See also the interview I did with CTO Jim Klein in HIStech Report: "We had to be frank with ourselves. The Affinity clinical system, unlike the patient accounting system, had not kept up with functionality. Both ‘build’ and “buy” options were viable, but people’s expectations about how the team could turn things around just screamed ‘buy.’" They’re offering deals and extended Affinity Clinicals support to customers who move to QCPR.

HIMSS just won’t seem the same without MEDITECH and Cerner there, will it? Maybe that’s a good thing. Past excesses at all levels (individual, business, and government) make it appropriate to tone down the boat show (and that MEDITECH, as the always-frugal but huge vendor, lead the way after Cerner). Non-conspicuous consumption is "in" again, thank goodness. The big question: will other companies follow their lead? My pledge: I will not criticize or allow criticism here of any company that decides to refocus their resources on something other than the HIMSS conference. Each vendor has to decide for themselves whether it’s worth it. Even if there’s little money to be saved by pulling out at this late date, I think both providers and vendors are cautious about appearing extravagant. I’ll be there, but I’ve always been a complete cheapskate, like subsisting at last year’s HIMSS on Subway sandwiches and going for the cheapest hotel on the bus route. I did buy a can of soda one day, but griped constantly about the cost to anyone who would listen.

Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health System (KS) sues Lawson Software for retiring "critical" applications it bought in 2001 for $1.4 million. Lawson says it will end support in May 2010 for employee time off tracking and medical supply inventory management. Their contract says they can exchange their applications for other similar ones for a nominal fee, but Lawson wants another $155K in licensing fees plus increased maintenance because their only other similar applications have additional capabilities.

A Sacramento publication (I’m guessing it’s one of those free counterculture weeklies that features wildly liberal articles, ads for sex chat lines, and good restaurant and concert reviews) takes on EMRs, managing to make Britney Spears the focus. Here’s a fun snip: "It [Kaiser] developed two versions before settling on its current HealthConnect project using Epic Systems software (which is quickly becoming the national standard for EMRs)." Popular, but a national standard? It may be an obscure publication, but Deborah Peel of Patient Privacy Rights found the article and left the only comment it has received, calling EMRs "dinosaur technologies" and urging readers to contact Congress to vote no on HITECH unless privacy provisions are added.

Clarian Health (IN) shuts down a $475 million construction project as part of an urgent cost reduction project that includes 10% pay cuts for VPs and efforts to renegotiate vendor contracts. More than 400 construction workers were immediately put out of work, some of them finding out only when they arrived at the job site Friday morning.

The University of Virginia Health System gets approval for a new $59 million EMR project. The vendor isn’t named, but I’d have to guess Epic given (a) the price; (b) the line about access to records anywhere on Earth; and (c) the fact that nobody’s selling any big deals these days except Epic (the hippie weekly may be right). I believe UVa was IDX/CareCast, so I assume GE Healthcare will be losing another customer.

Kaiser Permanente announces that a recently arrested non-employee had a computer file containing KP employee information, source unknown. They offered the usual free year of credit monitoring.

I’ve closed the two polls on economic conditions. Results: EMR vendor people say they’ve seen slowdowns because of the economy (68%) and because prospects are waiting to see if the government will help them purchase (11%). Only 21% say it’s business as usual with no slowdowns (it would be interesting to know which companies those are!) On the provider side, 54% of those considering an EMR purchase say they’re moving forward without planned delays, 38% say they’ve delayed their project because of the economy, and 8% say they’re waiting on possible government help. Respondent counts were 47 vendors, 26 providers. It appears that the possibility of government handouts isn’t holding many prospects back, but the economy definitely is.

New poll: if you went to HIMSS last year, what are your plans this year and what’s your employer doing? It’s awkward to phrase the question in a poll, but I did it this way: indicate whether you’re going or not, and then whether your organization is sending fewer people or not. People keep asking me how I think attendance will be; I can’t imagine it won’t be down, but conventions are like sporting events: fan-flation uses the most flattering number — turnstiles or ticket sales. I care less about announced attendance than what vendors tell me they’re seeing in the exhibit hall since, let’s face it, that’s the metric that drives conferences.

The Virtual Practice Project at Mass General is working on a medical kiosk that walks patients through touch screen-answered questions and checks blood pressure. The doctor in charge explains: "The way we deliver traditional health care is a bit antiquated. It’s based on face-to-face interaction between the doctors and the patient." I found this report (warning: PDF) which mentions that RelayHealth is providing some of the online visit technology.

The unSummit for Bedside Barcoding will be in Tampa May 6-8. Good agenda, good hotel, and CEUs for nurses, pharmacist, and lab techs. You save money by signing up by February 28.

Here’s a TV show that I hope has met its much-deserved demise: "Flip This House." When Joe Sixpack starts thinking he’s an expert in day trading, commodities speculation, and real estate investing, it’s time to run for the hills.

I think it’s obvious, but for any newcomers, you will want to read the article comments because some thoughtful conversations are to be found there. If you’ve clicked the e-mail link, you’ll see them automatically, but readers will post comments after you’ve read it. To see those, click the Home link at the top of the page, then click the "show comments" link at the bottom of the article. I’m pleased that folks comment quickly, knowledgeably, and respectfully, offering a nice mix of opinions (I don’t claim to be right all of the time and readers sometimes change my mind).

Also for newbies: add your e-mail address in the Subscribe to Updates box at the upper right of the page and you’ll get instant e-mail updates when I write something new (surely you want to be among the first to know — you should see the server drag when hundreds or thousands of people all hit the site at once when an e-mail update has gone out). The Search box does a Google custom search on HIStalk and HIStalkPractice combined, all 5.5 years worth (I may have mentioned your company, your boss, or you in those millions of words). Also, click that "Email this to a friend" graphic to alert some e-mail pals about an HIStalk article or click the horrid green Rumor Report box to tell me a secret.

One more update: someone asked for the "Print This Post" option that used to be here, so I’ve re-installed that function that I didn’t realize had gone astray. The link is at the bottom of each article.

Inga did a couple of cool interviews on HIStech Report. Our old friend John Holton of SCI Solutions provided his usual honest, experienced assessment of the industry ("PHRs are being developed by Microsoft and Google and others. It’s the way information will be stored and sent because no one really cares about your medical history except you.") She also talked to Bruce Cerullo of Vitalize Consulting Solutions, another friend of HIStalk who I had fun with at last year’s HIStalk HIMSS event ("Having really good people wanting to come under our umbrella is a win for them, a win for us, and a resulting win for our clients. I also think there will be a lot less job-hopping in general over the next 12 months. I believe we will see more stability among the consultant firms.")

Bizarre: Wuesthoff Health System (FL) is offering patients from competing hospitals $100 gas cards for a copy of their EOB. They want to see how they stack up on charges. Maybe they got the idea from Scott Shreeve’s Million EOB March.

Like it needed more bad news: Grady Hospital (GA) may be the source of four patients’ Legionnaires’ disease, which allows Legionella and attornii scumbaggia to thrive at the expense of normal species.

Four employees of Somerset Medical Center (NJ), one of them the hospital’s credit manager, are charged with altering patient bills to trigger $35,000 worth of refund checks made out to the four and sent to the same address. That doesn’t seem like a very smart plan coming from someone in management.

Idiotic lawsuit: a couple attacked and beaten in their home are treated at Stephens Memorial Hospital (ME). A security guard hears them talking about being attacked and calls police, who check out their house and find 95 pounds of marijuana, for which the couple pleads guilty. They’re suing the security guard and the hospital, claiming violations of HIPAA and state confidentiality laws, violation of privacy, and emotional distress.

E-mail me.

Report from the Field
Nick van Terheyden on TEPR

For those coming from the fully winterized East Coast and Midwest in February, any location that has a temperatures rising above 35° is going to be attractive, but Palm Springs would be hard to beat. Set in the shadow of the San Bernardino Mountains and weather that sat in the mid 70s and provided clear blue skies every day was a delight. The conference itself has clearly seen better days and estimates ranged from the “official” ~7-800, to my unofficial count at opening keynote of 4-500 to overheard “only 320 rooms sold." Whatever the number, it was small and often felt overrun with presenters and vendors.

AHIMA felt similar this year, with a distinct feeling that there were fewer attendees and several anecdotal stories of cancellations to save money. Even the RSNAathon was lighter than previous years, but with such large numbers to start with, the decrease has less impact. Fascinated to see how significant the effect will be on HIMSS.

The opening sessions were great, and like or not Adam Bosworth’s views on where to spend the $50 billion stimulus, he had a compelling story that was not about technology investment (surprising for an acknowledged pioneer of XML) but centered on incenting behavioral change in the US population to stop the epidemic increase in American waists. But it was the Illness in the Age of “e” hosted by Danny Sands from Cisco and his patient Dave deBronkart that stole the show.

In an emotional and graphic account, the pair detailed Dave’s experiences from the first incidental finding of an aggressive form of renal cell carcinoma through intense and “often severe and rarely fatal” side effects to the closest thing you can hope, for next to cured: No Evidence of Disease, or NED. Insisting on patient participation to help guide the process, even check for errors (he cited a recent case of wrong side surgery for someone with the same renal carcinoma where they removed the wrong kidney!) that would have easily been prevented with patient involvement. Nothing to bring home the relevance of what we all work for than hearing right from the patient’s mouth. Dave (@epatientdave) stayed the duration, shook up several other presentations, and joined the impromptu TweetUp by the side of the pool on Monday night with @alphabest @HealthITGirl and yours truly @DrNic1.

But no social networking presence from the Medical Record Institute, and as I pointed out in my Tweet, “It’s so Web 1.0…. no blog, no tweet, one month before presentations will be online." There was some activity as @Megan_maguire weighed in, but a little late. (unlike HIStalk and HIStalk Practice that have wrapped their arms around these media, use it effectively, and participate jacked in just like Neo from The Matrix – which is how I feel a lot of the time!)

The panel discussion with Google and Microsoft and MedCommons was a bust – and an education in panel techniques. Hearing three replies, all similar, to each question was uninformative and boring … sigh. The case is made — we need disruptive attacks to the current status quo and that needs to come from innovators who shake up the system and incumbents. PHI will play a role and the individual will become a key player. The recurring focus on the big cash supposedly heading for our industry was in many instances distracting and in some cases potentially detrimental since the likelihood that the cash will end up steered towards those with the best advocacy and influence in Washington places additional strain on the small upstart that is trying to disrupt the status quo.

The final panel discussions on Thursday were like many conferences — poorly attended, and at one point the panelists outnumbered the attendees. However — a gem from one of the discussions: "CCHIT certified EMR = unusable" … but you can *upgrade* to a non-CCHIT certified alternative.”

There was little traffic in the vendor area, which was located at the end of a long walk past all the educational sessions and had limited opening hours. The main topic of conversation was the likelihood of anyone returning to the show or if there would be a show to return to.

Sadly for this long time attendee, this year’s TEPR felt too much like an Irish wake without the alcohol. Much of the oxygen has been sucked out of the conference circuit by HIMSS, which is unfortunate since smaller conferences offer more opportunity to really meet colleagues and vendors and gather information in a practical learning environment.

MEDITECH Pulls Out of HIMSS 2009

MEDITECH announced today that it will not attend the HIMSS conference in April, citing the expenses involved for both the company and attendees.

The statement of President and COO Howard Messing is as follows:

Participating in the annual HIMSS conference has proven to be beneficial to MEDITECH and LSS through the years, as we have been able to renew acquaintances, attract new customers, and showcase new product offerings there. Nonetheless, the current economic climate mandates we pay particular attention to spending resources wisely this year. Just as we encourage customers to make HCIS selections based on value, we too must carefully evaluate our expenses and focus on priorities. For this reason, MEDITECH and LSS will not attend the HIMSS conference this year. Instead we will use communication channels such as our extensive program of regional events, annual workshops, Webex demonstrations, and meditech.com to share information. Using this approach, we will be able to continue sharing information on key topics, control our expenses, and minimize everyone’s costs.

HIStalk Interviews Glen Tullman, CEO of Allscripts, 2/5/09

The recent Allscripts survey basically asked physicians if they would accept free EHR money. Does the overwhelmingly positive answer really mean anything?

I think it does. What is interesting about the recent survey is how it breaks out. Physicians have said that they would like money – even a small amount of money would create a very substantial stimulus toward not only adoption, but utilization.

We have seen the success of utilization incentives with the recent Medicare CMS program for electronic prescribing. In fact, in our electronic prescribing unit, we are seeing increases in subscribers on the order of 30% a month, so it’s a dramatic pickup. But what the survey really said is that smaller physician groups are more in favor of an up-front stimulus and larger groups are more in favor of the longer term incentives for utilization. So, small groups want help getting over the hurdle to buy an electronic health record, and larger groups, who have in many cases already bought it, are looking forward to the incentives for utilization.

Why should the government pay for specific tools rather than results, like they pay road companies to improve highways rather than just buying them bulldozers?

Well Inga, I think you’ve captured what is the essential argument on Capitol Hill, where I was yesterday. That is, there is a lot of push-back on whether or not physician groups should be given direct incentives versus incentives on utilization.

The government and most people consider the e-Rx program — the 2% credit for utilization of electronic prescribing and then a 2% penalty, in other words, a carrot and a stick — as being very successful. That is what the bill that is currently sitting on the floor looks a lot like. That said, the current bill does give the Secretary about $5 billion to provide direct stimulus and potentially direct incentive to physicians.

So, there are two different versions: a $20 billion House bill and a $23 billion Senate bill. We’re not sure which bill will be pushed forward, but it looks like in either case, the Secretary will have immediate discretionary funds in the order of $5 billion to award to existing channels or in new programs. Those can be used for loans, for some of the existing grant programs underway in states, and lastly, direct incentives to physicians.

However, our view is that the direct physician incentives will be targeted most likely towards primary care, toward rural physicians, and toward physicians in under-served areas, as opposed to the general physician population for the reason you just suggested — that is, some people are asking why physicians need the government to buy them tools.

Allscripts offers a free e-prescribing tool, yet your own survey indicates that the majority of physicians don’t e-prescribe. What’s the guarantee they’ll use a taxpayer-subsidized EMR in ways that will benefit patients or reduce costs?

Again, what we have seen is that if you reduce the hurdle for adoption and then provide incentives for utilization, we do see an impact that’s coming. That is what we have seen with the successful CMS e-prescribing program.

I think the idea — and again, that is what gets to the debate — to the extent you can provide incentives for utilization, we believe that’s a very compelling reason why a physician would want to use an electronic health record. 

Our view is that a blended model of some incentives for adoption, especially for those groups that might otherwise have trouble paying for an electronic health record — that includes smaller groups, that may include primary care physicians or rural physicians — incentives will help that group of physicians, which comprises a very large number of physicians in this country, get on the electronic health highway. And ultimately that is a benefit to all of us in terms of quality and also in terms of cost reduction.

A recent Harvard survey showed that only 17% of Americans think more government money should be spent to increase the use of healthcare IT, ranking it last of all the spending options. With all of healthcare’s problems, why is IT the one to address first?

Our view is that you can’t address many of the problems in healthcare without information. So for example, you will hear people talk about comparative effectiveness — which treatments are more effective than others. The only way you can get to that decision is to have vibrant information that comes from electronic health records.

Similarly, we all know and we have all seen the statistics from the Institute of Medicine and other studies that there are billions of dollars wasted. Those dollars are wasted in terms of tests that shouldn’t be done, those dollars are wasted in terms of the 7,000 Americans who die each year from preventable medication errors, and the million and half Americans who are injured from medication errors. All those are enormous costs and those could be prevented by electronic health records and electronic prescribing.

I think it would be as if you were to say you want to improve the banking system and you want to reduce the lines at the old tellers windows we used to wait in, but you don’t want to use computers to do it. It’s inconceivable that you could improve the banking system without using computers that allow you to pull out money from your account when you are in a foreign country using an ATM. We have to get healthcare to the same standard that every other industry is up to in terms of information technology.

I think the public looks at the more immediate problem. It doesn’t look at the infrastructure problem. It says, “We have people without healthcare, how do we help them?” and they haven’t always made the connection between how technology can help.

How important is a national connectivity infrastructure for creating EMR demand by patients and doctors?

I think connectivity goes hand-in-hand with electronic health records. In fact, that is really why we call them electronic health records rather than electronic medical records. What we want to be careful of is replacing today’s paper silos in healthcare with electronic silos. What we need and what the current legislation requires is interoperable healthcare records. Allscripts has always been a leader in that area. That’s what we need. It’s very important.

You might recall that when computers first came out, people said that we would reduce the amount of paper that we used, and yet the amount of paper that we used actually grew. But once computers were connected through the Internet, all of a sudden we saw everything, from the number of letters sent by the US mail, to all kinds of transactions, even holiday cards and holiday gifts, starting to be sent electronically. Why? Because of that connectivity. A computer is a tool, just like an electronic health record is a tool.

The ultimate goal is getting our physicians in the US — who are the best physicians in the world — getting them the best information at the right time so they can make better decisions. EMR is simply a tool to make that happen. You got to get that tool connected to other tools to make it effective.

Stark provisions encouraged some hospitals to align with their physicians through technology purchases. How would the hospital-physician dynamic change if HITECH passes?

Well, you are still going to see the passage of HITECH will frankly give hospitals more money to support programs like the Stark relaxation. Today our surveys tell us that somewhere between 10 and 15 percent of docs are getting Stark-funded electronic health records and similarly, 10-15 percent of hospitals are participating in Stark.

We think that number is going to continue to grow. Hospitals understand that they need to be connected to the physicians who in many cases give them the referrals that are its lifeblood; that is their business. So they want to be connected. We think relaxing the Stark regulations was a positive move by the government, and we think that is going to continue to grow, and it’s likely actually going to accelerate based on the funding that comes from HITECH.

We should all understand that a year ago, we had an industry that was nicely growing. It has a number of very solid companies that are growing and that are competing. The level of competition is increasing. That is good for healthcare, that’s good for physician buyers, and even good for each of us like Allscripts and its competitors. That was a year ago. Today we have exactly the same dynamic, with the addition of anywhere from $5 to $23 billion. So almost wherever you put that, wherever that goes into the healthcare IT arena , it going to be very helpful to all the companies in healthcare.

People always try to make a comparison. Will this help you more than another company? We are talking about an immediate $5 billion injection. Five billion dollars is more than the entire size of the ambulatory healthcare industry, so you are saying we are not just going to get the industry grow, we are going to give it a stimulus of $5 billion, almost 2-1-/2 times the size of this industry. So it almost doesn’t really matter. Everyone in the industry is going to benefit from the HITECH bill, and the fact that the initial Secretary will have $5 billion to spend almost immediately is going to be very helpful to existing EHR users and to new adopters as well.

How do you anticipate it will help existing EHR users?

Well, first of all, the provisions as they currently stand, and having been on the Hill yesterday, I can tell you literally hour by hour some of these are changing, and being debated, and being marked-up. But the existing provisions would allow existing users of an electronic health record to upgrade that health record as part of their investment and get credits for it. And depending on which version you’re looking at, some of the versions actually give preferential treatment to organizations that have already adopted an electronic health record.

Are CCHIT-certified products a requirement to get funds?

What the current legislation says — and first of all, CCHIT requirement and having a certified system is absolutely critical, absolutely key in funding that will come through this bill. What the government has said is they are not certain that CCHIT is comprehensive enough or covers everything the government wants. So the current bill recommends that over the next 12 months that the government build upon the good work that CCHIT is doing, but continue to study and come back with guidelines that can be government recommended guidelines on what should be included in electronic health records covered by this legislation.

That said, the government also said but that, in the interim, we don’t want things to stop, so we are going to give the Secretary discretion to spend additional dollars on CCHIT-certified systems. So CCHIT certification is critical.

Every physician who buys ought to be buying a CCHIT system. There are more than over 50 of them out there. That’s a minimum standard. I think the government is saying if we are going to spend taxpayer money, we want it to go further, especially in the area of interoperability. The government is worried that they might spend any money on systems that don’t connect. They want to make sure that if they are going to spend money that it’s smart use of the government’s money; that it is going to be on systems that will connect. That’s one of the places that, as you know, Allscripts excels.

Will there need to be a privacy compromise to get HITECH passed?

Right now there are some privacy provisions that are troubling to the industry in general. We are big supporters of the current HIPAA provisions and other provisions that protect patient privacy, because at the end of the day, we are all patients and that is important.

That said, the current bill extends those privacy provisions which would increase the costs, for example, for electronic health record vendors. At the same time, there are a few provisions in there that actually impose a stricter requirement on the user of an electronic health record in terms of verbal disclosures and the like, than people on paper. We are working with folks drafting the bill to say, “Privacy is important, the standards ought to be the same whether you’re using paper or electronics.” The net-net, once again, the overall benefit to the industry of the bill outweighs any of the potential downsides of this bill.

Assuming the government decides to subsidize EMRs and demand increases, where will vendors get the experienced staff needed to implement and support them?

I think it is incumbent on vendors to do two things. One, at Allscripts we are working very, very hard to make the implementation process, the conversion process, easier than it’s ever been before.

You mentioned our free electronic prescribing product, the National ePrescribing Patient Safety Initiative (NEPSI.) As you know, that requires no human intervention to implement, so if a physician goes onto our Web site, he or she authenticates, which is a very detailed process. Once they are authenticated and put in administrative information, within as little as 30 minutes they can be writing prescriptions. There is no separate training required. It’s completely intuitive; it’s just like Google. Everyone gets it. From that perspective you don’t need more staff.

Now electronic health records are not there yet. But we, along with some of our competitors, are working to make these more intuitive and require less training. However, as we talk about the electronic stimulus package, should this package go through and to the extent it accelerates electronic health records use, that will drive employment in the industry.

What impact will Tom Daschle’s withdrawal have on President Obama’s healthcare reform agenda?

I don’t think there is any question that Tom Daschle was respected on the Hill. With any government program, there are two things you need: you need a plan, and that plan can be well thought out or sometimes not. And then you need someone who knows how to get it done, get it passed, to get it accomplished and executed on Capitol Hill.

The Obama administration has been very clear on their plan, which makes substantial use of electronic health records. But, Daschle was seen as someone, given his experience, who could get it executed on the Hill. From that standpoint, I thought he was an experienced person; he was also a person that President Obama had a personal relationship with.

Replacing Tom Daschle is going to be a challenge, but they are there are qualified candidates and I am confident the Obama administration and the vetting team will find them. I also think President Obama has been very clear that he expects to sign this bill very quickly, based on the signing yesterday, for example. Some of these bills are getting signed in very short periods of time, with limited debates and limited amendment. I think we see the government working very quickly to execute on President Obama’s agenda and to demonstrate to the economy that things will get better.

Are you being vetted for the Secretary post and would you tell us if you were?

(Laughs.) I am not being vetted for the Secretary post. But if I was, I probably couldn’t tell you. But I am not. I am very focused on Allscripts and I think the best place I could spend my time is to help physicians in this country, the best physicians in the world, get the right tools to deliver high quality care and do that at an affordable cost.

What will the industry look like in five years if HITECH passes?

I think President Obama’s dream, his vision, and what would be best for all of us is to have physicians not just using electronic health records, but using electronic health records as part of an interconnected healthcare system that allowed them to get the right information at the right time for better care.

We talk at Allscripts not about healthcare, but about connecting to health. The real idea is to try to keep people healthy, to proactively treat them using these electronic tools, and to deliver better healthcare. In this country, we spend more than any other in the world, and yet today our healthcare isn’t number one. Almost without saying, if you assume that our physicians and nurses are the best in the world — and most people acknowledge that — then you have to start to look and ask why is we can’t deliver this. It is because of the inefficiencies in the system.

When we think about the next five years, we are excited about the prospect that physicians will be using tools that bring them into the current times. And we are excited to be a part of that.

The latest I heard is something will be signed in the next couple of weeks – is that your understanding?

Not only is that my understanding, having spent the day with staffers and the leadership of both the House and the Senate, President Obama has made it very clear that that is his expectation to sign by Presidents’ Day. Speaker Pelosi has said she would cancel that holiday if they needed the time to work on this bill. The expectation was very clear.

If you look at what happened with the bill passed yesterday, essentially there was some debate as there is now between the House and Senate version. The Senate said, “If you want this passed today, pass it with our version.” There was agreement and it was passed and signed. We expect that the healthcare bill, the HITECH bill, will go through with very little amendment and adjustment and that it will be signed very quickly.

Anything I left out that you want to share about the whole process?

I’d say two things. There is an almost surreal debate going on with some of the analysts in the industry who are saying will we get $23 billion or we might only get $20 billion. Other people are saying this may not help because you may only get $5 billion. I must remind people that 12 months ago, we weren’t getting any billions. A billion is still a lot of money in our book. This is going to be a very, very strong stimulus to this industry and that is number one. The clear message is that this is a strong stimulus to the industry.

The second message is to physicians is that being on one of these systems sooner is going to help you participate in this whole stimulus game.

And the last piece of that is that this is a very, very unique opportunity for us collectively to fix healthcare. We at Allscripts hope that the industry does take advantage of this opportunity to do just that, because we know the power of information technology. We’ve seen it in every other industry in terms of improving quality and reducing cost. Now it’s time to bring power and promise to healthcare.

The most important question here: favorite interviewer: Jim Cramer or Inga?

Actually, I think both of you are wonderful.

News 2/6/09

From The Watchman: "Re: Epic. I hear that Judy Faulkner is telling newly signed clients to not use consultants, sending her own instead. Word is she was out at Dartmouth and at NYU saying the same thing."

From Carpluv: "Re: HITECH. If my practice is on a Stark-sponsored hospital ASP, will we still get the stimulus that totals $41,000?"

Inga worked hard to interview Glen Tullman of Allscripts in the pre-dawn hours this morning, so look for that to follow. I’ve given her the night off as her Employee of the Month award, so I’m solo-posting this time.

TEPR non-attendance and this should be scaring the bejeebers out of HIMSS: GE Healthcare cancels its August User Summit, citing customer travel cutbacks.

Community Medical Center (PA) signs for SIS.

TPD mentioned IPv6, the solution to running out of IP addresses worldwide. Here’s an article about it, co-authored by a VP from Stratus Technologies, an HIStalk sponsor.

This is odd but probably a good idea: Cincinnati Children’s Hospital offers employees a class in minimizing their foreign accents to sound more American. A bit steep at $2,300 considering the hospital benefits as well as the employee, but it’s still cool.

Listening: brand new The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, melodic hard rock. Failure to air-drum is not an option. Also: A Cursive Memory.

Jobs: Epic Resolute Professional Billing Consultant; PMO Eclipsys, Cerner, or Epic; Team Lead, Load and Performance.

Rotherham NHS bails out of NPfIT to bid its own EMR contract, unwilling to wait for Lorenzo to be ready. They will issue their award shortly in a deal expected to exceed $50 million.

IBM announces software that will transfer medical device data into a PHR. IBM says it built the product following Continua’s guidelines. That’s kind of interesting, assuming doctors will find it convenient to get the information from the PHR. Since most of them wouldn’t have access to home monitoring data otherwise, maybe they’ll use it.

Terry Ragon, founder of InterSystems and co-founder of the former IDX, donates $100 million to Mass General with the goal of developing an AIDS vaccine within ten years. He’s also convinced several scientists to join up with the new institute bearing his name instead of working in their individual silos. All the money spent on Cache’ licenses and maintenance fees by users of MEDITECH, Epic, and a bunch more HIT vendors will at least go back to a worthy healthcare cause. That’s an amazing gift.

Inside Healthcare Computing has opened up its new Electronic Library, an archive of articles from that newsletter and its HIS Insider acquisition that’s available to everyone. Full articles are available from 2007 back, with more being added regularly. And while other publications and sites are awash in self-important policy analyses and spouting ivory tower eggheads, my guest contribution to the newsletter this week is My Lifelong Clock-Puncher’s Entrepreneurial Brainstorm: How the HIStalk Home Shopping Channel Will Make Me Rich. Don’t say I didn’t at least try to squelch the gloom and doom.

Sad: an elderly man injured in a traffic accident in Japan dies after being turned down by 14 EDs called by paramedics, reflecting lack of capacity in Japan’s hospital system. That’s not the record, though: one woman got shut out 49 times in Tokyo.

A UCLA photonics research group modifies a cheap cell phone with around $50 worth of parts to create a mobile lab for certain tests, such as CD4 or hematology. The device counts microparticles using a UCLA algorithm that’s 90% accurate. A biochemistry professor says, "What makes it quite valuable is that it is small and inexpensive. It’s also the scientific proof of a principle in its very early stages. Once the group puts more and more work into it there are going to be a huge number of applications that are going to come out."

Heart Imaging Technologies of Durham, NC, which makes the "100% client-free PACS" WebPAX system, announces a free Web site for patients to upload and share diagnostic-quality DICOM images. It allows anonymizing the images, has some PACS-like viewing tools, and provides discussion tools for each image in a kind of social networking wraparound to medical images. I’m not exactly sure how patients will use it, but it’s available for research and educational use as well.

Hospital layoffs: St. Clare (WI), 25; Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital (CA), 152; Petaluma Valley Hospital (CA), 30; Swedish Medical Center (WA), 200; Niagara Health System (ON), 90.

Speaking of St. Clare, notice the ironic juxtaposition of the layoff story right by their paid recruiting ad. 

A former employee of Bon Secours DePaul Medical Center (VA) is sentenced to a year in jail for using patient information from the hospital’s computer system to apply for loans in their names, then stealing the loan checks from the mail.

Red Hat announces a call for papers for its Red Hat Summit in Chicago, September 1-4. Papers are due March 9.

Idiotic lawsuit: a golfer’s ball ricochets off a yardage marker on the course, hitting his eye hard enough to cause a permanent loss of sight. He’s suing the golf course, saying the owners should have warned him about the markers. "It’s not a frivolous, run-it-up-the-flagpole-and-see-who-salutes kind of thing," his lawyer assures.

E-mail me.

Readers Write 2/5/09

Submit your article of up to 500 words in length, subject to editing for clarity and brevity. I’ll use a phony name for you unless you tell me otherwise. Thanks for sharing!

Recession Creates Opportunities for Niche Healthcare IT Vendors
By Alan Portela, COO, CliniComp Intl.

Admittedly, I’m typically a “glass half empty” person, but even I have to acknowledge that the economic recession has produced much-needed changes in the power balance between healthcare IT vendors and healthcare providers. With plummeting healthcare IT budgets, providers can now demand that vendors put some “skin in the game” to ensure that tangible performance goals and promised savings are obtained.

The evidence of scalped healthcare IT budgets is widespread. In a November 2008 survey from The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives, National Alliance for Health Information Technology and AHA Solutions, Inc., results indicated that 57 percent of the CFOs are delaying IT purchases. Even existing initiatives have been impacted, with 52 percent of CFOs deferring or extending those project implementation time frames.

Is there any light at the end of the economic doom and gloom tunnel? Yes, with niche technologies. Even as healthcare networks cancel their plans to replace EMRs, they are maintaining their original time frames for automating niche areas, such as high acuity, due to the immense impact that area has on IT budgets, patient safety, and quality care. The irony of our current situation is that we were at this exact point just prior to the Y2K disaster that set the industry back ten years when companies re-installed core systems that lacked strong clinical modules. It appears that the recession has kept us from making the same mistake all over again.

In reaction to the decreasing sales of EMRs, many large HIT vendors are evaluating partnerships with niche vendors rather than investing the time and financial resources to build the niche applications in-house. Thus, the traditional competition between the Samsons and Goliaths of healthcare IT is starting to morph into a mutually beneficial relationship. But the true winners in this battle are healthcare providers, who are now empowered to improve specific areas or functions within their existing infrastructure without having to replace (once again) their main HIT vendors. In essence, the HIT vendor solutions have become the platform that interoperates with new niche technologies in areas such as intensive care, labor and delivery, ED, etc.

Niche vendors will also have to adapt to these turbulent times by improving their ability to integrate seamlessly with HIT vendors, as well as changing their pricing models to reflect a risk-sharing, transaction-based model. This new model ties payment to performance on metrics such as decreased average length of stay, improved staff efficiency and retention, reduced costs, and other clinical improvements.

Aligning stakeholder objectives is a best practice throughout all major industries. It’s about time that healthcare got on the Machiavellian self-interest bandwagon.

Comments on the HIStalk Practice Interview with Garrison Bliss, MD
By RegularDoc

I can understand why Dr. Bliss is pleased with his practice model — he can see less patients and make more money. But please, let’s not sugarcoat this. He is doing a VIP/Concierge model of care that helps him and a few patients, but hurts the healthcare system as a whole.

You are not doing "the right thing." You are doing "the easy thing," and some would say "the greedy thing" — taking advantage of your loyal patients who are being told they can’t see you anymore unless they pay an extra fee. They still need their regular insurance for any test you order, any specialist they see, or if they go to the ER or get admitted. 

With that said, your costs for "easy access to your docs" are a bit less than other VIP services (you charge $600-1500 a year, where the national average is closer often $2000 a year), but it is not cheap for a lot of people. And indeed, part of your plan is to cut the patient volume you have, likely from around 2500 patients to 500 (which would net you almost $500K a year before you even saw a patient!) 

In other words, you will have more time for those 500 patients, but you have screwed those other 2000 patients, who now have to go find another doctor. And guess what — there are not that many around! 

So, in one fell swoop, you have both increased the demand for PCP care and cut the supply. How can you feel good about that? Also, when you start seeing a lot less patients, you will find that your skills are in decline, not exactly what your patients are paying you for.

With that said, I agree there is a reimbursement problem, but we docs have other options. You could have charged just $50 or $100 a year per patient. Even if only half your patients paid that, you still make a nice little profit that can help pay for EMRs and extra services like medical home. You can get an NP or similar to help with patient overload, etc.  But please, figure out a way to take care of ALL your patients, not a way to only take care of the wealthy ones (and don’t pretend that giving discounts to a few makes up for it).

And by the way, the more docs that do this, the more commoditized it will become and the prices will go down. So the VIP docs in your area are likely now nervous that you have already cut the price. The Seattle docs used to charge $2500 to $15,000. You cut price, someone else cuts price, and eventually you are going to be sitting there with 500 patients paying $200 a year and you will be begging your old patients to come back. But, they will have found someone who only charges $50 a year and you will have lost what it means to be a doctor — the trust and respect of your patients.

Sorry to be so tough on you, but I take a macro view of the healthcare system. These VIP practices are simply taking advantage of the system and indeed hurting it at a macro level, so at least be honest about that. No one has shown that they improve care, even for the small number of patients who can afford them. Even if they did, is it worth the cost and failure to the other patients you have abandoned? 

The 10th Anniversary of a Windows PACS
By The PACS Designer

TPD designed a PACS in the mid-90s with input from Hewlett Packard and learned a lot from that experience to move on to designing a next generation PACS. In the late 90s, the need arose for a high speed PACS that could handle 500MB or larger image files, so TPD decided to put some trust in Bill Gates’s Microsoft Windows NT and Michael Dell’s high power workstation offerings to meet this challenge. In 1999, the first Windows-based PACS was introduced to the marketplace.

It was a daunting task to confront the requirement to move 500MB files with minimal to no latency over long distances. First, we had to define the right network topology, and because Ethernet was the predominant network architecture, we decided to stay with that solution since it was deployed everywhere. Also, a major upgrade in the mid-nineties for Ethernet to 100Base-T from 10Base-T was making Ethernet more attractive for high speed communication.

Another widely used standard for external communications is Transport Control Protocol over Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) so we wanted to stick with that method of communications.

After reviewing the various storage solutions, we decided to use Fibre Channel. Two conflicting fiber communications methods had  been combined to remove uncertainty and the American National Standards Institute put out one standard called ANSI X3.230-1994. Fibre Channel could meet the need by the institution for one common communications method for high speed transmission of image files, data strings, and any other information from legacy systems. 

Using Fibre Channel with existing Ethernet networks also would present minimal problems provided that an upgrade to 100Base-T was installed prior to a high speed PACS was being deployed in the institution. The communications to outside facilities was left to the phone system’s SONET ring technology to enhance the ability to send image files the a central archive.

Also of concern to TPD was the different DICOM flavors that existed due to each vendor’s adding private attributes to their product offerings. Since it was going to be a PACS design that would be sold around the world, TPD decided to prevent the addition of private attributes to the new design, thus the design was setup to be "native DICOM" (no private attributes).

As of 2008, there are more than 3,000 of these high speed PACS installed around the world, and TPD is not aware of there ever being a system crash!

So today, if you are contemplating upgrading your current PACS, be aware that systems that make use of Fibre Channel and/or Gigabit Ethernet (1000Base-TX) or better will provide your institution with the most reliable PACS communications and also bring maximum efficiency to the care process.

In conclusion, the Windows PACS wouldn’t have been possible without the help of others, so TPD owes a debt of gratitude to a work colleague, Duke University for help with DICOM configurations, the Cleveland Clinic for supplying their expertise on a suitable storage solution, and Washington Hospital Center for their environmental design work for a PACS equipment room configuration without which TPD wouldn’t be commenting ten years later on a successful PACS design.

Comment on 1/23 Posting – Are Physician Portals Obsolete?
By Bud Leight

In response to the portals discussion, I believe many hospitals are overlooking a golden opportunity to improve operations and save labor costs. To date, most portal efforts have focused on access to hospital EMR data.  While this is a good first step, why not move forward and improve workflow and patient satisfaction by implementing more self-service tools found in every other service industry? 

By this, I mean provide a customer-based model that focuses on choice, improved workflow, and cost reduction. For example, physicians (one category of customer, the other obviously being the patient) should be provided convenient access (i.e. using the Internet) to self-schedule appointments, send orders, and take care of their tasks visa vie the revenue cycle for hospital based services. 

In doing so, portals offer the means to reduce labor costs and minimize office disruptions (i.e. make them more productive) on both sides (for the physician office and the hospital). For example, one 570-bed hospital serving the Virginia tidewater area, using centralized scheduling with a portal for physician offices, was able to double scheduling productivity from 5,000 to 10,000 appointments per FTE per year (since 2000). 

A large part of this success comes from the hospital offering their providers (whether owned or not) the choice to either call and schedule or bypass the phone and go online and book the appointment (which also fulfills the order requirements and completes medical necessity checking). This hospital portal provides EMR (data) access, but also a customer-centric approach that has driven 20% of their appointment bookings to come from the Internet. The patient benefits by avoiding telephone tag regarding appointment times, having the ability to review procedure directions (i.e.NPO) and not having any financial surprises if the procedure doesn’t pass medical necessity. 

Improving workflow through self-service is a big win financially for all concerned and goes a long way toward building brand loyalty with physicians and patients.

News 2/4/09

From At TEPR: "Re: I’m at TEPR. Attendance is way,way down. I feel sorry for the MRI, and that’s bad to feel sorry for a good organization. Might be best to pull the plug and go out with dignity, or else morph into something else."

From oneHITwonder: "Re: TEPR. Opening session — 3 hours and 15 minutes straight, four different speakers. Nothing earth-shattering in the first three, couldn’t sit there for the fourth speaker. Breakouts are organized strangely, with multiple speakers on a related topic grouped together, some talking for 20 minutes, some 25 minutes, some 30 minutes. Makes it very hard to session-hop. First two speakers in breakout were like an advertisement for particular vendors. Interesting to learn about new products, but geez. The best part of the day was the conference center fire alarm that got me out of one session that was a bit dull. Oh, and no refreshments other than water. Lunch was a brown bag with a chicken wrap and a cookie … the cookie was 631 calories…OMG! But for those of you buried under snow, it was 82 degrees here yesterday!"

From The PACS Designer: "Re: IPv6. The Internet is running out of available IP addresses and it is forecast that the 4 billion address maximum will be reached by 2011. To alleviate this problem, some of the countries outside the U.S. have already upgraded to the new Internet Protocol version 6 or IPv6. The IPv6 can handle 340 billion or more addresses, so upgrading your systems to be able to handle IPv4 and/or IPv6 will be necessary in the near future." Link. 

From RIS Guy: "Re: Agfa. As a follow-up to the report a few weeks ago about Agfa cutting sales positions, they laid off 80 people in their service and support groups. They were already threadbare."

From Tom DaschedHopes: "Re: printing HIStalk. Is it possible to have a printer-friendly button for articles?" That was apparently lost in the recent upgrade, which I hadn’t noticed. I will try re-installing it. I liked it myself.

Another Obama nanny tax washout: chief performance officer candidate Nancy Killefer, who withdrew her candidacy Tuesday for the same "distraction" reason that Daschle gave. The former Treasury Department CFO led the modernization of the IRS, but once she left office, had a tax lien placed on her home for $298 in unpaid taxes. Treasury Secretary Geithner somehow slipped by despite far more significant transgressions. 

Guess which regional healthcare therapeutic product business grosses $100 million a year, pays its CEO $500K, employs 1,000 people, and has people questioning why its board members are also its vendors? The non-profit Florida’s Blood Centers of Orlando. I suppose its tough not to make a fortune when your product cost is zero (courtesy of donors) yet sells for $300 a unit to other non-profits.

Philips creates the iPill programmable pill (technically, iCapsule) that can be directed to travel to specific parts of the body and to release its payload in specific ways. Mentioned here before, but apparently closer to reality.

An Allscripts survey finds that physician groups are overwhelmingly happy to take federal stimulus money to use toward EHR adoption. Less consensus was found in what form the payments should take — being paid to buy EHRs or being paid to use them. Two-third of doctors said they would participate in a pay-for-purchase program, and not surprisingly, practices that already have EHRs think Uncle Sam should reimburse them retroactively. Survey flaws: only 15% of the respondents were actual providers; the rest were administrative staff. EHR users made up 60% of those surveyed, far outpacing overall adoption. And, the response rate was less than four percent. That’s not a criticism of the survey, just the usual cautions about drawing conclusions from it.

London Health Sciences Centre gets a magazine mention for its Censitrac software system that tracks medical instruments in sterile processing right down to the tray and follows them through the cycle of use and preparation for re-use.

Epocrates enhances its iPhone drug reference application with a premium version that includes disease content and medical calculators.

SafeMed, the real-time analysis vendor that Google Health uses, changes its name to Anvita Health. It claims the new name (from some Sanskrit word that nobody’s ever heard of) is more reflective of the company’s expanding decision support capabilities beyond the original drug interaction checking. I’m suspecting an infringement lawsuit, but I’m reliably cynical.

Apple and Adobe are collaborating to create an acceptable version of Flash for the iPhone.

I did an HIStalk Practice interview with Garrison Bliss, MD of Qliance, a concierge-type medical practice in Seattle. I really like the concept: patients pay from $49 to $129 per month, depending on their age, whether they want family medicine vs. internal medicine coverage, and whether they prefer after-hours access to general coverage vs. a specific physician. There’s no contract required and no exclusions by health or insurance status. They use technology, although I see all the sign-up documents are PDFs that have to be mailed or faxed back. This blogger wrote a great piece summary of the model.

E-mail me.

HERtalk by Inga

From Tempid: “TEPR. Official attendance is supposedly over 700 people, but the opening session looked to have only about 200 people. A few years ago, this show drew about 2,500. But the weather is great.”

I’m feeling pretty 2.0-ish, using Twitter to follow the TEPR show. Nick van Terheyden provided some great impressions, including: “Interesting view shared @TEPR. It’s so Web 1.0…. no blog, no tweet, 1 month before presentations will be online; Google thinks PHR penetration is 2-3%; The panel format is difficult since we get 3 similar answers to each question.” Nick said he would try to give HIStalk readers a more expanded write-up. (Nick is my latest BFF because he took the time to check out my LinkedIn photo and tell me he loves it).

Speaking of Tweetering, is it appropriate to send Tweets while your wife is delivering your child? Or, while you are in the middle of getting a vasectomy? (Note to self: ask these questions before getting serious with next boyfriend).

UMass Memorial Health Care (MA) selects dbMotion to create a single, interoperable electronic patient record across various IT environments and care areas.

Yet again, Nuance Communications extends its cash offer to acquire Zi Corp. Nuance is giving the shareholders two more weeks to consider the merits of its $.40/share offer. I wonder if I’d like having a boyfriend as persistent as this?

The National Qualify Forum (NQF) names Memorial Hermann Healthcare Systems (TX) the 2009 NQF National Quality Healthcare Award winner.

Medical Records Institute announces the 2009 TEPR Award winners. The VA won first place with its MyHealtheVet PRH and the Private Access suite won in the “Hot Products" category.

HIMSS announces that registration for its annual conference is ahead of 2008 trends. Non-exhibitor attendance is up almost three percent from the same period last year.

Police take a prisoner to United Medical Center (DC) for unspecified medical treatment. The patient/prisoner is allowed to go the men’s room alone, wearing only a white shirt and boxers. Before anyone has time to miss him, he climbs through the restroom ceiling, reaches another hospital room, and escapes. The prisoner has not yet been found. The paper indicates that the police didn’t provide a description of the boxers.

Researchers develop a new application for RFID that evaluates walking patterns to detect early signs of dementia.

Quality Systems, the parent company of NextGen Healthcare, reports a 17% jump in net income in its fiscal third quarter, to $13.2 million. Revenue grew 36% to $65.5 million. The bulk of the earnings came from the NextGen division, which posted $61.5 million in revenue (up 40%) and operating income of $22.8 million (up 28%). About $7.5 million of NextGen’s revenues came from two separate practice management companies acquired last year.

Mediware Information Systems reports a Q2 profit of $303,000 ($.04/share) compared to a $337,000 loss the same period last year. Revenue was up from $8.7 million a year earlier to $10 million.

Aspen Valley Hospital (CO) signs a five-year extension to its business process outsource agreement with CSC. The original outsource agreement was with First Consulting Group in December 2005. CSC also announces a new subscription tool called HealthSpace Advisor, which enables hospitals to analyze how effectively they’re using space in key revenue-generating areas.

Logical Images names Andrea Pennington chief medical office. The company provides decision-support technology for diagnostic-imaging providers.

E-mail Inga.

Daschle Withdraws from Consideration for HHS Secretary

Tom Daschle has withdrawn from being considered as HHS secretary, citing his desire to avoid distractions over his failure to pay taxes previously owed. President Obama said, "I accept his decision with sadness and regret."

Daschle was quoted as telling a journalist this morning, "I read the New York Times this morning, and I realize that I can’t pass health care if I’m too much of a distraction."

Being John Glaser 2/3/09

An Alternative Plan for $20B

The congressional discussion around the $20B HIT investment is rapidly drawing to a close. However, there may still be time to discuss an alternative investment approach.

Rather than financial incentives for physicians and hospitals, education of HIT professionals, and other current ideas, I came up with the following.

For Healthcare Providers

There are something like 4,000,000 physicians, nurses, and other allied health professionals. For each of them, we would get:

• 3-D goggles. These goggles will improve EHR usability and hence we’re more like to see high levels of e-prescribing and other important EHR uses. I would suggest that we get high quality goggles; not the Super Bowl cheap kind. 4,000,000 providers x $30/quality goggle = $120,000,000.
• iPhone. Again, to improve ease of use and also provide some cool software (including a GPS so they know where they are in the hospital) I would get all providers an iPhone. 4,000,000 providers x $200/iPhone = $800,000,000.
• EHR baseball caps. So their patients know that they are all on the EHR team, we would get all providers an EHR baseball cap with a fancy EHR logo. 4,000,000 providers x $12/cap = $48,000,000.

For HIT Professionals

I think (without facts) that there are something like 200,000 professionals who will be involved in EHR implementation and support. For each of them, we would get:

• Oscilloscope. This will help troubleshoot EHR problems and configure the software. 200,000 professionals x $1,200/oscilloscope = $240,000,000.
• Soldering gun. They will also need a soldering gun to fix any problems they find. 200,000 professionals x $200/soldering gun = $40,000,000.
• Trinkets. All of these professionals will go to HIMSS to hear talks and see what’s what in the exhibit hall. Since we want them all to get high quality exhibit hall trinkets, I am proposing that each attendee get $1,000 worth of trinkets. 200,000 professionals x $1,000 worth of trinkets = $200,000,000.
• Infrastructure. To connect all of these EHRs, we will need an EHR satellite. 1 satellite x $1,000,000,000/satellite = $1,000,000,000.

Patients

We should do something for patients since this really is about them. I had initially thought that we’d get everyone in this country an electronic stethoscope that could be connected to the satellite, but with only $20B, we can’t afford it. 300,000,000 people in the US x $300/stethoscope = $90,000,000,000.

We have $17,552,000 left to spend. This is approximately $60/person.

Since it will take some time to launch the satellite and manufacture and distribute goggles, caps, trinkets, etc. and since we want everyone to take better care of themselves soon, I would get each person in this country:

• The AMA Family Medical Guide at $30 each
• A Deluxe Pilates Exercise CD at $30 each

And that’s the alternative plan. Some of the estimates of healthcare professionals and EHR staff may be low, but I am also sure that we could get a bulk deal on the items above and still stay within budget. We may not be able to get a deal on the satellite.

John Glaser is vice president and CIO at Partners HealthCare System. He describes himself as an "irregular regular contributor" to HIStalk.

An HIT Moment with … Andrew Kapit

An HIT Moment with ... is a quick interview with someone we find interesting. Andy Kapit is CEO of CodeRyte.

CodeRyte is successfully attracting investor interest and increasing staff, both unusual in this economic environment. What are you doing differently from those companies that are shrinking instead of growing?

CodeRyte first identified a real pain, chose the right technology to cure that pain, and then executed it in a scaleable way. Investors have learned a lot since the 1990s and the technical due diligence process during our most recent funding shows that. It wasn’t just that CodeRyte developed a powerful NLP-Computer-Assisted Coding engine — it was how we did it that has enabled us to create investor and market confidence.

CodeRyte then built a solid based of clients by working diligently to appropriately set expectations, exceed them, and then provide the highest possible level of client service. When bringing a disruptive and sticky technology to the market, it is of crucial importance to let your clients know that you will stand by it and be there for the long term.

CodeRyte developed a strategic platform that builds on itself. By automating medical coding, CodeRyte is really providing structure to the language of medicine. Every medical record that passes through the coding engine, as nearly one hundred million have, adds to the knowledge base and enables us to provide increasingly greater granularity to the structure of clinical information in the report.

We started off with radiology and pathology, the diagnostic specialties of choice. With that linguistic foundation the technology can now code across the full spectrum of medical specialties. This brings me to the final reason CodeRyte has been able to build a successful investor and customer base: the technology leverages the expertise of our users.

CodeRyte is built around several fundamental tenets, one of which is to empower the experts, to allow them to help create the intelligence of the engine and then to create the “explainability” so they can not only become comfortable with the output but also understand how the engine arrived at its answers.

The CodeRyte team combines technological brilliance with a deep and abiding understanding of the complexity of healthcare — at the macro and micro levels. Engineers working with medical coders, subject matter experts and physicians have all created something that is truly relevant to the current and future of healthcare, which is what investors look for — relevance and the ability to execute.

But that’s only the beginning. That’s what gets today’s investors to the table. Once you have satisfied the basic criteria (real market pain, strong management that can execute and a scaleable solution), then investors want a real and meaningful upside — which is where the company’s ability to describe its mission in a meaningful and value-generating way comes in.

CodeRyte fundamentally believes, along with many, that we need machine readable, interoperable, and structured output. It is only by creating that type of output healthcare can enjoy an industry architecture that successfully aligns the flow of information and money and reinforces efficient, quality care – over the long term.

What we don’t believe, however, is that we should force physicians and other allied health professionals to create that structure. Not only will it reduce the quality of our source data for research and discovery but it also disrupts physicians’ intellectual workflow. CodeRyte’s technology can already, to a limited degree, automatically structure the output — without forcing physicians to change the way they provide and document their care.

You’ve worked in executive roles for providers, investment banks, and now vendors. What is your analysis of the healthcare IT market now and what changes do you predict over the next 1-3 years?

It is not just that healthcare is broken; more importantly it is that American healthcare is not scalable. I believe that every new patient coming into the system will be more expensive than the one before. To make the necessary changes we, as an industry and country will have to commit to doing the right thing — even at the expense of the some of the entrenched processes, technologies, and companies. This cannot be a self-serving, short-term thinking revolution as it has been in the past.

In short, predictions for the next few years of the HIT market depend largely on what questions are asked and addressed in the near term. If all we ask is "how do we get everyone covered" then we’ll end up bankrupting the system and ruining the quality of healthcare’s outcome. If, however, we ask "what architecture and infrastructure will allow us to best improve access and quality and what do we have to destroy and rebuild to get there?", then with hard work and true innovation, we can create a world-class healthcare system that will not only cost less but provide much better outcomes for the country — at the expense of some of the companies that have been winners at our expense over the last many years.

The government tries to fix what it can see, which is primarily CPT and ICD codes –- codes that have been polluted from clinical purity through the process of coding to get paid. The incentives for clinical improvement are through the filter of a system that financially rewards based on more procedures, not improved outcomes. The entrenched vendors support solutions that will benefit their bottom line — no doubt assuming that they will help in the process. Now, however, we have to be willing to look at the actual architecture of the system in order to make enduring progress. My fear is that with the crisis at hand a new and energized government will try to tackle the most visible problems — which will make the situation worse. Without fundamental change, we will only be piling on more expensive process, as we historically have done, without creating an ending.

What makes today different from the past is that there are new and truly disruptive technology companies and people running them who are not committed to the status quo. If the new administration is willing to ask the right questions, involve new people with innovative ideas, and is willing to create a new industry architecture, then and only then will we be able to enjoy the healthcare system we deserve. If, however, we stay with this basic model, then we will get the system and outcomes deserved by the incumbents to the system — and that would be a true shame.

Outside the possibilities of a new administration, the impact of primary care reform efforts cannot be understated. The legislation that recently passed in Massachusetts, aiming to make primary care more attractive, is another example, from a completely different angle, of how we can affect the actual architecture of the healthcare system. By legislating for loan forgiveness, home purchase help, improved reimbursement, and more, we can make primary care attractive again and quell many of the healthcare systems endemic problems — proper disease management, reliance on emergency rooms and more — earlier and more effectively.

Are providers doing everything they can to maximize the payment they’re entitled to through accurate coding?

No. And it is even worse than the question suggests.

In our travels around the country, we meet providers who intentionally down-code out of fear. They down-code because they are afraid to get audited, afraid that the system will not be reasonable. They are afraid to stand out and afraid that the fact that their patients are ‘sicker’ means that their higher codes will make them stand out. They are afraid — period. The truly ironic shame is that this adversarial culture not only reduces the morale of the physicians, it forces the data to be more flawed than it needs to be. The current flow of healthcare’s information and money do not support the gathering of life-saving data and high-quality outcomes. The data is systemically and systematically flawed.

Think about it — the most complex series of events most people endure in their lifetimes are reduced to three-, four- or five-digit codes – whatever follows the path of least resistance. These codes determine what’s likely to get paid and most easily treated, but never account for the actual patient. What’s best for them, what diagnosis is most accurate, what treatment they should pursue, what options they should consider — the list is endless. What is truly important in today’s system is what those codes are being used for — reimbursement. Not treatment. Not the most appropriate care. Not the patient at the heart of it all.

Physicians have these well-trained powers of observation and, with the full color of their narrative, describe what is wrong with us and what they are going to do about it. In that language are rich and complex concepts — some of which are negated, historical, related to a family member, or are equivocal because more information is needed. Does all of that valuable information get captured in the medical coding process?  Not even a fraction of it. The information captured in the record accurately reflects the actual health of the patients. The information healthcare uses to evaluate the quality of care and outcomes is inaccurate — out of fear and is both measuring and rewarding the wrong things.

Without truly capturing what is going on during a patient’s full episode of care, physicians are not only short-changing themselves, but the system is being hurt at the same time. There is no true discovery without having access to and being able to analyze all of the information. The people who can and truly want to make a difference are crippled by the inaccurate and limited information available to them.

What are your thoughts on ICD-10?

ICD-10 is an important and overdue advancement for the United States. It’s necessary to meet the needs of an increasingly complex, diverse, and electronic medical environment. By implementing ICD-10, the industry will advance from the use of a classification system in need of modern information to one that accurately reflects advances in diagnosis and care.

That said, it’s amazing that our great and competitive country is almost 20 years behind other parts of the world in this regard. Countries that are already using ICD-10 have access to important information about diseases that are being missed in the U.S. And why? It goes back to what I stated previously — there are some entities within the system that are so heavily invested in, and exert so much control over healthcare that without their "approval" the system is frozen. Big changes that would mean improving the system are put off in favor of the established status quo. If we let those few players control our destiny, then we are destined to get the healthcare system they deserve.

Furthermore, the pushback ICD-10 is receiving is not based on its utility or value, but rather the technical cost of the change. This is yet another example of how unscalable U.S. healthcare has become. If we continue to as we have, the problem will only get worse, and then at what cost?

Stepping off my soapbox, we need information. Good, granular, and specific information. The current coding system prevents that. ICD-10 will help, though it is not the complete answer. ICD-10 will give the healthcare industry a better chance to improve the way it handles documentation and coding operations and, at the same time, elevate the power of biosurveillance and pharmacovigilance.

The overwhelming scope of the disruption stemming from ICD-10 cannot be understated. The switch represents a change from 17,000 codes to more than 155,000. Given the diversity in size, specialty, and payer mix within the healthcare industry, the complications of the change are nearly impossible to properly measure. But so, too, are the new codes’ possibilities in terms of technology adoption, research, and discovery.

What makes you happy about running CodeRyte and what gives you satisfaction away from work?

There are so many things that I love about CodeRyte and being its CEO that it’s hard to list.  But, I’ll try …

The more than 100 people at CodeRyte are incredible. Given what we do, we have extremely talented people from myriad backgrounds — talented engineers, nationally recognized NLP experts, certified professional coders, driven sales executives, dedicated account managers, and others who have gravitated to CodeRyte out of a strong desire to revolutionize healthcare. Their passion, attitude, and intelligence are inspiring and exhilarating to work with.

What binds us is that we are all aligned around a common vision — CodeRyte and its technology can truly help revolutionize healthcare. Now we just need a seat at the adults’ table in order to show the industry that there are ways to achieve what they all believe to be impossible. I’ve said for years that we’ve been seated at the kids’ table while we’ve built and imagined the future possibilities for this company, its technology, and other HCIT vendors. The frustration of getting the ear of the change-agents is truly like tilting at windmills. We have the answer; it is just that the windmills don’t always want to listen.

You know that look when you give a child the present they have been waiting for? Well, that’s one of my favorite things about running CodeRyte — the look on our clients’ faces when we deliver on our promises. Increased productivity. A lowered cost to collect. Faster turnaround times. Appropriate revenue capture.

I also love the challenge of doing that which people say can’t be done. In the beginning, for example, we were told physicians know how to code, so why would they use an NLP coding application? Physicians should not have to assign codes — it takes away from their patient-facing time and should not be their area of expertise. Our application helps the physicians by allowing them to focus on delivering quality care and gives them back their day.

Away from CodeRyte, my priority is my wife and children. The importance of a work-life balance cannot be underestimated by the CEO of a company that aims to revolutionize an industry as important as healthcare. The time I give to one always takes away from the time I can give to the other. This means that for now my passion is balancing — giving the most I can to building CodeRyte and loving my family.

CIO Unplugged – 2/1/09

The views and opinions expressed in this blog are mine personally, and are not necessarily representative of Texas Health Resources or its subsidiaries.

No Pain, No Gain
By Ed Marx

Sounds trite, I know. Some will accuse me of simplemindedness. Others will say this high school football-coach philosophy is dangerous. I agree, but still embrace.

In my thirties, I got back into playing tennis and started thrashing on the courts with some friends from work. As we verged on competitive levels, I realized we needed to pick up the intensity. A consistent first serve was the performance key. Reliance on the second serve would allow your opponent to take the offensive. Although a high, first serve percentage alone would not make you a Wimbledon champion, you’d at least guarantee yourself a quarter final match. We practiced at 6 am thrice weekly, but I showed up at 5 am to serve buckets and buckets of balls. I’d chase them down and start over again. No pain, no gain.

Now in my forties, I’m taking on the challenge of perfecting the Argentine Tango with my wife. In addition to a weekly two-hour lesson and a monthly milonga, we practice. Even if for only twenty minutes, we practice every evening. We have to, because the Argentine Tango happens to be the most artistic, intellectual, and difficult dance ever created by man. If I catch my partner’s foot too late, we miss our sweep. If we’re too far apart, one of us loses balance. I figure if we aim for expert, we might reach proficient by the time I’m eighty.

Like our dancing, my relationship with my bride of twenty-four years has been full of ups and downs. The overall trend slopes upwards to the right, but it’s interrupted with numerous peaks and valleys. Some downturns take years to correct, yet we keep at it. Annual strategic planning vacations, numerous marriage conferences, lots of books, prayer, and counsel. We’ve fought hard to reach the point we’re at today, and there is more pain to endure, I’m sure. Had we chosen not to push through the pain during any of the valleys, who knows where our marriage would be? Certainly not growing, not gaining.

And what about a career? Can you ascend the leadership ranks by good luck or good looks? Not in my case. It took pain—blood, sweat, and tears. Which meant not taking shortcuts. Not submitting C-level work. Not shaving time here and there to start the weekend early. But it’s so tempting!

I hear you. But do you want to reach the fulfillment of your calling? Then sacrifice. Love the pain.

A few years back, I had to spend a significant amount of time on the road. The librarian at Parkview Episcopal Medical Center (CO) supplied me with endless materials, from business books on tape to vocabulary building materials. While driving, I’d listen to these resources over and over until they became part of my intellectual fabric. Would have I preferred to listen to U2 or another favorite band? Of course. But to grow, I needed to take advantage of every morsel of time. I also volunteered for everything in my path; some related to IT, others benefited the hospital or another department. Would I have preferred to go home early or have a smaller to-do list? Certainly. But to maximize my potential and opportunity, I needed to self-sacrifice—so far as it didn’t harm my family. Plus, it was only for a season. Every season brings different opportunities, which require fitting sacrifices.

Today, I’ve made sure we have a library of materials available for our staff to checkout. Hundreds of books and cds on tape. We have subscriptions for “book of the month,” a concept I leveraged from the Parkview librarian. Just as serving thousands of balls to ghosts at the break of dawn paved the way to winning several tournaments; or investing the time and money to improving my tango to keep me on the dance floor, pain brings gain.

Don’t expect to just show up on the dance floor and look like a pro. If you want someone to ask you to dance, practice.

No pain, no gain.

Ed Marx is senior vice president and CIO at Texas Health Resources in Dallas-Fort Worth, TX. Ed encourages your interaction through this blog. (Use the “add a comment” function at the bottom of each post.) You can also connect with him directly through his profile pages on social networking sites LinkedIn and Facebook, and you can follow him via Twitter – User Name “marxists.”

What Usability Is and How to Recognize It

By Jim Bradford, Ph.D.
The Bradford Report

From time to time when I use a new application, I seem to develop a kind of Tourette’s Syndrome characterized by teeth grinding, fist clenching, and dark mutterings. As I struggle through yet another badly designed, user-unfriendly system, I find myself wishing fervently that Bill Gates had finished college.

Technically, the user friendliness of a system is known as “usability.” There is an entire academic discipline (variously called “Human Factors” or “Ergonomics”) that is devoted to the study of usability. But if you don’t happen to have a Ph.D. in Ergonomics, how do you recognize a well designed, highly usable system?

Mental Models and the Psychology of Geeks

The human brain constantly monitors the environment and creates models about it. This allows us to think about our environment and make predictions about what will happen next. We carry over this natural tendency to model things into our interaction with computers.

Not all models are created equal, however. I have a friend who believes that if you set a thermostat as high as it will go, it will warm up the house faster. It is not an unreasonable model — it just doesn’t happen to be right.

The best system designers work hard to give you many clues about how a system works. This allows your brain to make a good model that produces accurate predictions about system behavior. When you encounter such a system, you begin to feel that the system is natural, intuitive, and easy to use.

Unfortunately, geek psychology doesn’t often lead to this kind of design process. In 1971, Gerald Weinberg published his (now classic) book, The Psychology of Computer Programming. To boil a long tome down to its essence, the kind of person attracted to computer programming is frequently the type of person the media would characterize as a “troubled loner.” Unfortunately, the design of usable systems requires a well-developed ability to understand how people think, feel, and react when confronted with a complex system. As a rule, troubled loners are not good at this.

As a consequence, human factors experts are often drawn from the “touchy feely” disciplines (i.e., anything other than engineering or computer science). They are often brought in to fix computer systems that are so horribly hard to use that almost no one can make them work. This strategy is akin to bringing in a doctor only after the patient has died. The usability specialist does what he or she can, but the result is usually a system that has evolved from being impossible to use to the point where it is merely frustrating to use.

The traditional approach to developing computer software (design-code-fix) is pretty well entrenched. Thirty years of preaching from academia has not noticeably improved the usability of computer systems. The key to usability, I believe, is an informed and demanding consumer. This is rooted in a fundamental property of a free market economy — if people stop buying poorly designed products, companies will eventually stop making them.

The Informed Consumer—How to Recognize Usability

Affordance

This design principle dictates that the appearance of things should provide a strong hint about how they are used. A hammer looks like it would be good for driving nails. A screwdriver suggests how screws should be managed. An espresso machine … well, not so much. Hammers and screwdrivers have good affordance and espresso machines have poor affordance. When you look at the user interface of a new piece of software, do the commands, buttons, menus, and other gizmos give you a good idea of how to use the system? If they don’t, it’s Strike One against the designer.

Prescriptive Feedback

When using complex systems, people will make mistakes. This provides the acid test for usability. Have you ever encountered an error message that says something like, “Illegal command or filename”? Good grief! Which is it, the command I just used or the file I just named? What law did I break? What makes a command illegal? Why can’t I call a file anything I want?

Can you imagine if other products were designed like software? Can you imagine a dashboard trouble indicator saying, “Illegal battery voltage or engine temperature”? If software doesn’t help you fix mistakes, then it is Strike Two against the designer.

Task Fit

Software is a tool. Some software is a tool for creating documents, other software helps manage your finances and still other software exists purely to entertain you. Well designed software should focus on doing a small number of distinct tasks (a half dozen at most) and it should be obvious how the controls of the user interface help you do each task.

Unfortunately many software companies prefer a “one size fits all” approach to development and end up creating a “one size fits nobody” product. If it’s not obvious how a software application’s capabilities relate to the task you have in mind, then it is Strike Three against the designer.

The Bottom Line

In recent years, the nature of our daily lives has changed to such an extent that many of us spend the majority of our working and private lives sitting at a keyboard. Usability has become an important determiner of the quality of life for citizens of the twenty-first century. If the software you use is not intuitive, if it is not helpful, and if it doesn’t fit the tasks you want to do, then walk away … just walk away.

Jim Bradford is a scientist, professor, and consultant dedicated to the art of making technology easier to use. He wrote this article specifically for the readers of HIStalk after we exchanged e-mails about the problem of usability in healthcare applications.

Monday Morning Update 2/2/09

From Sam Axe: "Re: Scott & White. I am reasonably certain that GE/IDX is supporting the physician revenue cycle – not the hospital, which remains Siemens Invision. The GE article referenced in the response agrees with that and I believe they are probably accurate in their claims around the physician revenue cycle in academic medical centers." Thanks. I wish the press release had been more clear since both the customer and vendor in this case have separate offerings for inpatients and outpatients.

From Blago: "Re: Big shake-up at GE HCIT. Vishal Wanchoo out as CEO." Not according to Jennifer, a GE spokesperson and Inga’s new BFF, who said, "absolutely not." Inga was tickled, though, that Jennifer knew who she was when she called, even though she had thought Inga was someone I just made up. Now I’m inspired to invent up a huge staff of imaginary people, a seeming force to be reckoned with instead of some guy hunched over a PC for immoderate hours each day. Jade and Mariposa, massage my shoulders as I type, yes?

From Spanky: "Re: stimulus. How are pediatric providers going to get reimbursed for EHR use when they don’t bill Medicare?"

 

January’s HIStalk traffic set a new record, up about 40% from a year ago. Thanks for reading.

Listening: The Connells, jangle pop from Raleigh, NC since 1984.

Two Utah hospitals buck the trend and open up new expansions.

I heard from a CIO reader whose hospital, a big place, is 100% CPOE. I said I’d never heard of one doing all oncology and neonatal orders on a general CPOE system, but there’s at least that one. I agreed not to provide specifics, but I’ve asked for more information since I know many of us would like to know how they did it.

Who knew? The owner of ambulatory EMR vendor Purkinje, according to their site, is the famous VC billionaire John Doerr, backer of Compaq, Netscape, Sun, Amazon, Google, and others. His brother is the CMO and chairman of the executive board. John Doerr put $10 million into the company in 2007. The logo on the site now says GenesysMD even though the Purkinje name is used otherwise, so the company name appears to be changing (just confirmed with Margalit, the company’s product management director, who’s like me and working on the computer at 11:30 at night). Their deal: $399 per provider per month for software, unlimited support, hosting, interfaces, all clinical content (CPT, ICD9, First DataBank, etc.) and free training and implementation for users who sign up in February.

Over on HIStech Report, Inga interviewed John Shagoury of Nuance Communications.

DrM made a year-by-year table of payments and penalties for the House’s stimulus bill that just passed. I inserted it as a graphic above, so click to enlarge.

Hospital and employee information in Japan is exposed on the Internet when an employee copies data from a damaged flash drive to his PC, forgets the file is still there, then fires up his file sharing software at home. That’s happened before in Japan, I seem to vaguely remember. They love that Winny P2P client over there.

Speaking of which, a Computerworld article mentions on the danger of data exposure from peer-to-peer file sharing, citing a study in which a researcher found a document with full data on 9,000 lab patients, 350 mb of data from an anesthesia group, and an 82-field worksheet on 20,000 hospital patients. The last sentence is a little shot: "The range of health care information floating on P2P networks and the variety of sources from which it is being leaked highlight the disorganized and decentralized manner in which health care data is being collected, stored, used and shared, he said."

Here I go and run an interview with Peter Waegemann and he fails to tell me that they’re renaming TEPR to M-Health Conference. HITgeek has an idea: "If TEPR is changing its name, perhaps you could hold a contest or survey for what it should be."

A University of Chicago study finds that 90% of hospitalized patients couldn’t correctly name even one of the doctors taking care of them. Three quarters had no idea and 60% of the rest were wrong. Academic medical centers have a gaggle of people rounding in teams, of course, popping in for a few minutes once or twice a day, so maybe that’s not surprising.

Here’s an example of how insurance has corrupted the whole idea of patient responsibility: an LA Times article marvels that practices using real-time adjudication "can, and sometimes do, ask patients to pay those costs at the time of service." Shocking! Why can’t medical practices be like restaurants, gas stations, and mall stores in just letting people take what they want, walk out, and be billed sometime later to pay whatever amount is convenient? That should be the #1 step in healthcare reform — get patients to understand that healthcare isn’t free just because you have (or once had) an insurance card. The insurance companies escape consumer wrath because it’s the doctor’s office who has to come collecting what they didn’t pay.

The IT department was at fault in the recent PC virus infection in England, incorrectly configuring antivirus software on some PCs and failing to get AV updates to some of them, an outside IT auditor finds.

If you want to know how the HIT industry is doing, forget all those publicly traded companies with a mishmash of products and businesses and look at the software-only company that has the most hospital customers: MEDITECH, which 2,200 hospitals are running today. For FY08: revenue was up just under 6%, but net income dropped 60%, mostly on investments (I hear that). Interesting: CEO Neil Pappalardo and CFO Barbara Manzolillo asked that the Board give them only the same bonuses other employees get and not the special Director bonuses since the company didn’t do very well, reducing their paychecks by 64% and 52%, respectively, over their 2007 comp. Neil’s shares are worth over $500 million even at the internally set share price that the militant shareholders always complain is artificially low.

A WV doctor and former town mayor is ordered to repay an insurance company $180,000 for blood tests and injections that patients never received. The doctor blames his billing staff and software, says he has nothing to do with billing, and that judges discriminated against him. He was nailed in 2007 for underreporting income from 2000-2002, when he also worked as a day trader.

GE Healthcare is following its Burlington layoffs with mandatory unpaid employee furloughs.

Hospital layoffs: Clearfield Hospital (PA), 33; Saint Joseph Medical Center (PA), 40.

Sure to fuel the healthcare debate: is it a good use of healthcare resources to provide expensive fertility treatments and preemie care to an unmarried, apparently unemployed, and bankrupt woman in her 30s and her new octuplets that bring her up to 14 children, all of them conceived through in vitro fertilization? She’s trying to be self-sufficient, though: she wants $2 million and a career as a TV child expert from either Oprah or Good Morning America in return for her story.

I don’t get how magazines think. An article mentions that Philips sold CPACS to a hospital in Saudi Arabia, but the headline in SmartBrief says "Philips strikes a partnership with Saudi Arabian hospital." If that’s the case, I struck a partnership with the local sports bar at lunch today when I bought a very good burger there. Just because salespeople murmur the P word to make prospects comfortable doesn’t mean there’s a legal agreement to share expenses and profits. Anything else is called "a sale." Funny thing is, the article it referenced called it that — SmartBrief added the "partnership" line.

CPSI announces Q4 numbers: revenue up 14%, EPS $0.45 vs. $0.36, falling short of earnings expectations but raising guidance and declaring a dividend.

MEDSEEK announces a 47% increase in contracts and a 33% increase in licenses for 2008, referencing its KLAS 2008 Category Leader status in clinical portals.

California is out of money, so it plans to stop paying bills Sunday. The controller whines that withholding money from Californians will delay economic recovery, blaming everybody except the state itself. CA is $25 billion short for 2009, unemployment is 9.3%, and median home prices are down 50% in less than two years. Like Florida, they weren’t complaining during the boom that benefited them, but can’t accept the idea that the good times have already rolled.

Amanda Adkins, a 34-year-old Cerner executive, is named chairwoman of the Kansas Republican Party. It probably wasn’t a total shock since she was the only candidate.

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