Monday Morning Update 01/08/07

From Goose: "Re: Misys. Payerpath has control of the only viable product of Misys. They need to be making plans to stand alone in the not-too-distant future."

From Anonymous: "I was surprised at what Misys is reporting as new business. ProMedica Health System has been a Misys client for at least six years and Premier Medical Group is implementing a competitor's system now." Link.

From Anonymous: "I LOVE your blog. It's the highlight to my day and I love that someone is calling HIT like it really is. Kudos to Mrs. HISTalk for letting you spend time on it - gotta give props to the women who really run the show. :)" Sometimes I wonder if Mrs. HIStalk's tolerance of my extended computer sessions is a good thing. Can she stand me only in limited doses? Certainly we can't watch TV together - there's no way I can sit through the drama of watching Brits selling crap from their attic or waiting breathlessly to find out which anorexic airhead will be America's next top model. That's the curse of 500 channels spewing froth 24x7: it gives even more idiots a chance to turn America's collective brain into mush. I'm doing far more important work, like playing games or reading Howard Stern transcripts.

Speaking of Web stuff, I took one of those online personality tests. Maybe my results will help explain why HIStalk is whatever it is: "secretive, organized, clean, rarely worries, solitary, high self control, dislikes large parties, prefers organized to unpredictable, prudent, observer, tough, self reliant, very good at saving money, introverted, perfectionist, mind over heart, not controlling of others, hard working, confident, resolute, solitary, does not make friends easily, finisher, does not like to stand out, very practical, intellectual, unsympathetic at times, honest, respects authority, follows the rules, cautious." Pretty accurate, I think, good or bad. Wonder what my ideal job is? Serial killer?

From Anonymous: "Re: Meditech. When will Meditech finally get a real sales team to actually try to WIN the business? The number of poor demos I have suffered through presented by 23-year-old kids who have just learned what HIS stands for, barely knowing their product, much less what it interacts with or how the users work, is amazing to me. They seem to think that just showing up is good enough. Of course, I don't want them to attain the level of McKesson sales stalking that goes on either. Maybe it's just me." It's probably not just you and probably not just Meditech. Savvy old grayhairs like us don't want to travel, especially to do demos. That leaves the kids. The best demo I ever attended (other than the stellar ones I did myself, if I may modestly suggest) was an IDX one, with a practicing doc remoting in and speakerphoning. I'm sure he was a shill, but the possibility that a real, live doc was demoing made a big impression on our own white coats in the room.

From Scot Silverstein: "Re: Tom Tinstman. I speculate that Tinstman's problem is that he's stuck in the vendor-commercial thought mode about clinical IT with all its trappings - loads of consultants, lots of process (not realizing that one expert who actually knows what they're doing can outperform a hundred generic consultants following the finest of process), plenty of management mumbo jumbo, meetings, focus groups, and consensus (as observed by Michael Crichton, consensus often being the refuge of scoundrels.) In this case, his Cerner background hindered him, not helped." As usual, consultants thrive when insecure executives are given budgets.

Picis has once again graciously volunteered to make the "I Am Mr. HIStalk" buttons available at HIMSS. Thanks, Picis! Now if everyone will pick one up and wear it, we'll be set. Should I do anything else for the conference? I thought about making signs for the booths of sponsors, but I figured their booth designers would go crazy hearing that their objets d'art were defiled by crude, homebrew HIStalk posters.

Winchester Hospital (MA) will use Medicity's Clinical Integration Platform to distribute clinical data from their systems to physicians. CIP includes Data Staging Infrastructure, Community Master Patient Index, Physician Portal and EMR GatewayData Staging Infrastructure, Community Master Patient Index, Physician Portal and EMR Gateway. Docs can choose portal viewing, electronic feeds to their EMR, or fax or printer printing of new results.

Meditech will show its client/server Release 5.6 at HIMSS. They say it's a major advance in design.

Frost & Sullivan is some kind of marketing company that seems to primarily to survey the customers of their clients (who are vendors) and then give their client a phony award. (Google their name + "award" and you'll get 752,000 hits.)  I'm banning their press releases forever from HIStalk (unless I forget) after a reader called this one to my attention: they gave Misys a 2006 Product Line Strategy Leadership Award for their CPR product, claiming it "demonstrates Misys' exceptional commitment to its customers and its dedication to offering the best products at the price, performance and feature points required by the ever-changing healthcare market ... a reputation as easy-to-use, industry leading and innovative. Efforts to address customers' business critical information are fully in line with industry requirements and place Misys in a position to make strong competitive gains into the future." That's maybe the stupidest statement I've ever heard. I like CPR better than almost anyone, but seeing as how it hasn't sold squat since Misys bought it cheap, it's a little hard to believe how wonderfully it matches up with needs of prospects. The award was from November, right about the time the company was threatening to self-destruct and just before its new CEO bluntly declared that the healthcare division was underperforming, its  products were tired, and its sales were tanking with no "competitive gains" whatsoever. The marketing folks at Misys made up some blather to attribute to Tom Skelton: "Being recognized with the 2006 Product Line Strategy Leadership Award from Frost & Sullivan reaffirms Misys' mission of continually evolving our solutions to meet the needs of the industry." I'm thinking no, not so much, although my criticism is of F&S and not Misys.

Speaking of Misys, their recent layoff first reported here by an anonymous reader has been confirmed by the Triangle Business Journal (and thanks much to them for crediting HIStalk and that reader in their story.) Said Tom Skelton: "Certainly some people were impacted by some things we've done. I will not confirm numbers or functions." The paper also confirms something I've heard from a good source: CEO Mike Lawrie will announce decisions about the business in March, although he's unlikely to put the division on the block just yet.

Not that it's news given his monstrous salary, but John Hammergren pockets another $2 million in MCK stock options. Even as a free marketer, I agree that executive salaries and options are out of control. Home Depot's failed ex-president, who had already amassed $150 million from the company, gets another $210 million along with the ceremonial stripping of his orange apron as he's fired. What would he have been worth if the company's stock had actually gone up instead of down during his six years? The Pfizer guy gets $200 million with a boot up his butt, Exxon's walks with $400 million, and Morgan Stanley's slinks off after just four months on the job with a $32 million parting gift. Absurd. Dump their stock, I say, since you can't fire their idiot boards for wasting your money like that. 

Kudos to Dominican Hospital (CA): not a single case of ventilator-associated pneumonia since October 2004. VP Lee Vanderpool runs their quality team. He used to be CIO there, but I'm not sure if he still is.

I see the folks at South Eastern Massachusetts RHIO have a link to HIStalk on their site, so here's one to them in return. Thanks.

The most dangerous drive in America: being on the main road that leads to any hospital's employee parking lot or garage at 6:45 in the morning.

EnovateIT's new clinician-friendly Wall Mounted Workstation has a monitor shut-off when the keyboard tray is closed, has pushbutton height adjustment with 12 inches of travel, and has a glass monitor enclosure and medical grade input devices. I like all that, but I'm more impressed with the Scandinavian-style design. Rounded edges, too, vital for busy hallways. I may caress it at HIMSS. It looks like it would smell good.

A little extra recognition, if you'll indulge me, for those Platinum Sponsors who are extra-special. If you can help them feel they're getting good sponsorship value by clicking, e-mailing them your appreciation, or dropping by their booths at HIMSS, it would help me. Sponsors rool!

EnovateIT
Inside Healthcare Computing
Medicity
Picis
SCI Solutions

As always, if your company would like to sponsor, just e-mail me for information. It costs less than a rounding error in the budgets vendors set aside for toss-don't-read free magazines and at least I don't act like I'm entitled to it.

Pittsburgh's big insurer Highmark had plans to spend $27 million to jumpstart physician EMR use, but their project is stalled until the IRS blesses it. The paper says 12 similar programs are being scrutinized by the IRS, who's apparently concerned about nonprofit organizations giving money to for-profit doctors. The plan was to pay up to 75% of the EMR cost, up to $7,000 per doc.

Holly Miller leaves eCleveland Clinic to become CMIO of cross-town rival University Hospital and to lead their $88 million EMR project. UHHS paid First Consulting Group over $19 million in 2004, by the way.

Sounds like a done deal: Verisign will take a big position or to buy Healthvision outright, to be announced very shortly. Overall, I'd say the company has been kind of a bust compared to all the 1999 dot-com hopes that spawned it. Jon Phillips called that one right too, I might add, just about a year ago in my interview with him.

Speaking of interviews, I've gone through everyone suggested up to now (of those I thought sounded interesting who agreed to do it, anyway.) If you have any other suggestions, let me know. Many readers like those best about HIStalk and I enjoy doing them.

Visicu will imbed software in its eICU system to collect enhancement requests from users.

Since I'm a big fan of Terry Tate, Office Linebacker, I'll leave you with this parody made by Cerner interns.