News 10/13/10

HERtalk by Inga

From: Penny Chenery “Data Innovations.” Data Innovations is taking on a huge amount of capital from an unknown venture capitalist. It is either an outright sale, or a large infusion of cash.” Investment firm Battery Ventures announces it just purchased the maker of software for managing clinical lab data for an undisclosed sum. Data Innovations also appoints former Lawson VP Mike Epplen as the company’s new CEO.

From: WALL-E “Re: Most Wired. I heard AHA is discontinuing the Most Wired award. Maybe all the commentary on HIStalk made them see the light.” Unconfirmed but I am sure that just reading the rumor will make Mr. H smile for a second or two. WALL-E wasn’t clear if AHA is no longer going to be associated with Most Wired or if the Most Wired award as a whole is going away. Send a note if you know.

From: Bertha Lindau “Re: Moses Cone. In case you’re interested, here’s a PDF where the Moses Cone COO talks about replacing GE with Epic.” The internal newsletter includes details from a brown bag lunch with COO Terry Akin, who has a number of interesting things to say about the transition. He points out that the health systems was unable to develop a fully integrated health record after their “big investment with GE” five or six years ago.  Akin calls Epic the “one company that has emerged head and shoulders above the rest” and claims that 99% of their physicians were favorably impressed with the Epic demo.

As WisconsinBiker shared June 23rd, Aurora Health Care (WI) is replacing its 15-year old Cerner system with a $100 million Epic solution. Aurora CIO Philip Loftus says that one the biggest advantages of Epic over Cerner is Epic’s fully integrated solution for both hospitals and clinics. Epic, by the way, is expected to end the year with $780 million in revenue, compared to $650 million last year and has an estimated market value of $2.6 billion.

Cerner may not be feeling the love from Aurora, but I bet the Kansas City Convention & Visitors Associates are big fans. This week’s Cerner Health Conference will generate $4.5 million for hotels, food, fuel, and related expenses as 6,000 users descend upon the city. Cerner took advantage of the event to announce several new alliances:

• A reseller agreement with SearchAmerica that includes the integration of Cerner’s revenue cycle offering with SearchAmerica’s financial services
• An alliance with Ingenix to  integrate Ingenix’s medical coding and prospective payment system (PPS) solutions into Cerner’s Millennium product
• A reseller agreement with MedAssets to market MedAssets’ web-based revenue cycle services

Here was an odd observation from one of the local papers: Cerner closed many of the leadership forum sessions to the media. Of course now the whole HIT world wants to know what Cerner was hiding.

Also meeting this week: nearly 1,500 Sunrise Enterprise users in San Diego. Attendees had a chance to see the new Sunrise Mobile MD iPhone application, which enables physician to access the Sunrise system. Allscripts also introduced Allscripts Developer Program, which allows clients and third parties to natively integrate their applications with Allscripts’ solutions. In December, clients will be able to search the Allscripts Application Store & Exchange to select or share applications developed through the Developer Program.

QuadraMed’s former SVP of corporate development Steven V. Russell joins digital pathology vendor Aperio as VP of corporate development.

A longtime HIStalk reader asked us to mention the upcoming HIT Leadership Summit in Atlanta November 9th. Silicon Valley venture capitalist Bob Bozeman (of Google fame) is keynoting the event, which aims to highlight Georgia’s leadership in HIT, plus drive statewide HIT revenue and job growth. There’s a pretty impressive list of HIT companies, universities, and medical schools participating in the event hosted by the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG), the Georgia Department of Economic Development, and the Metro Atlanta Chamber. I am happy to make the mention for Marty Mercer, who is on the TAG advisory board and a faithful reader. Plus I have a soft spot for attractive bald men.

So, Mr. H is vacationing this week, leaving me solo. I’m sure I have left out some earth-shattering HIT news, so give me a break and shoot me an email if you have some juicy news to share.

The Camden HIE (PA) goes live this week, connecting Cooper University Hospital, Lourdes Health System, and Virtua Health. Each of the three health systems is contributing $50,000 a year, plus the Merck Company Foundation is donating $50,000.

Vincent Marin joins Huron Consulting Group as CIO following 16 years with McKinsey & Company. Marin most recently served as director of IT services for the Americas region.

Novella Clinical hires Charles Lambert as its new CFO. Lambert had previously served as CFO for RCM provider Capario and Misys Healthcare before that.

Sponsor Updates

• CynergisTek CEO Mac McMillan, who also serves as Chair of the HIMSS Privacy and Security Steering Committee, will be a presenter at the Midwest HIMSS 2010 Fall Technology Conference next week in Minneapolis.
• e-MDs is playing an integral role in the creation of the HIT Certification program at the University of Texas. e-MDs’ CEO Dr. Michael Stearns serves on the curriculum committee and the company has donated their Solution Series EHR/PM system. Of the 34 students eligible for employment from the first graduating class, 21 have secured HIT jobs and seven have been hired by e-MDs.
• Medical Hills Internal Medicine and Pediatrics (IL) selects SRS Hybrid EMR for its 14 provider practice.
• Healthcare Coalition of Texas awards EDCO Group a contract to give its 17 healthcare system members to EDCO’s document management solutions.
• Sunquest Information Systems expands its international operations with the hiring of Dr. David Rossitter as director of customer operations in Norwich, UK. Rossitter most recently served as Interim Head of Operations for Astron Clinica.
• Frisbie Memorial Hospital (NH) contracts with Voalte for its integrated communication solution for the iPhone.
• Lourdes Hospital (KY) is working with Informatics Corporation of America (ICA) and Ulrich Medical Concepts to provide a bi-directional CCR for providers. Lourdes providers currently have access to the ICAare Clinical Portal;  bi-directional capabilities are being introduced for practices utilizing the Ulrich Medical EMR.
• PatientKeeper reports that its customers are processing more than 10 million physician charges annually with its Charge Capture application. PatientKeeper also just added US Memorial Health System (IL) as a new client and expanded agreements with Alegent Health (NE), Boston Medical Center, and the Robert Wood Johnson Medical Group (NJ).
• University Health System (TX) signs an agreement with iSirona to use iSirona’s technology to automate the delivery of patient medical devices to to the hospital’s EMR.
• Memorial Hospital (IL) selects Access Intelligent Forms Suite to complement its MEDITECH 6.0 Advanced Clinical/EMR system.

How does this happen: a Pennsylvania paramedic is charged with multiple counts of felony theft for stealing and re-selling as many as 15 ultrasound machines. Over the past few years, Juan Torres worked for a private ambulance companies and several ERs where various ultrasounds equipment was  reported stolen. The units,  some valued at around $35,000 each, were being offered on eBay for under $7,000.

E-mail Inga.