Monday Morning Update 02/20/06

From Anonymous: "I am wondering where you heard Epic was turning down business. Two folks who work for the company told me the company was seeing a slowdown in both RFP and sales, not that Epic was turning away sales. Either way, I think Epic is going to be using the time to improve quality." Actually, I didn't hear or say that -- you saw it as a HISsies nomination for best strategic move from an unknown nominator. I've heard nothing specific about that and not much more about their Kaiser project or how Philips is doing reselling Epic. But, as always, I'm interested in whatever you want to tell me.

From Greg: "RE: the gay comment - I found it fun. I'm the original anonymous you quoted. I was not mad or offended. Actually, I'm glad others can relate to the pain.'" I actually lost sleep worrying that I offended someone, believe it or not. The other element of the parallel that I forgot to mention is that HIStalk gives me a lot of pride, like a relationship, and yet I can't really talk about it unless I'm willing to go public. Can you imagine doing something that takes 15-20 hours of your week, that you've been doing for three years, and that you've never talked about to anyone, including your spouse? Or, that might get you fired if someone finds out? (not likely, but it's happened before, just not to me.)

From Scribe: "How come you interview CEOs, but no one ever interviews you?" Well, no one's asked, but if you want to send me some questions, I can do that and run it here.

From Anonymous: "I was at HIMSS also. I find it way too large, but a nice place to meet old friends and renew acquaintances. It's amazing that people still believe in and purchase vaporware. Guess the vendors count on the one third first-time attendees. I'm not sure that New Orleans will have the rooms and amenities to handle a crowd the size of HIMSS next year. Everyone says the French Quarter was largely unscathed, but there are not many hotel rooms in the French Quarter." I worry about New Orleans, too. This week's Mardi Gras stories are pretty depressing and the next HIMSS conference will be here before you know it. Much of the city still doesn't have electricity or habitable structures. Maybe we can stay in those $431 million worth of FEMA trailers -- those boneheads certainly wasted enough of our money to have them sitting unoccupied in Arkansas.

From Tom: "I have not seen much about the Internet 2 being used by hospitals. I do not understand why hospitals do not take advantage of it. Thought you might be interested in checking it out for your readers. Here are a few facts: Internet 2 has been around for about 7 years. 27,000 schools, museums, libraries use it. 110 times faster than a T1 – 155Mbits per second. Hospitals can join by applying to one of 200 universities that helped set it up."Looks like it costs $28,500 to join, some additional fees, and an estimated $500,000 a year in gigaPoP upgrade and maintenance costs. That might explain the limited interest by all but the largest (or university-affiliated) hospitals that are running bandwidth-intensive apps like video across the web.

From Wheelybop: "Can you or your blogger network describe to me what vendors have to do to make their legacy products CCOW compliant and why some refuse to do so, what are pros/cons, etc. Would love a CCOW primer or be pointed to such." I know I have some techie readers who can explain it better than me. If you can help out, send me something. Thanks.

Another request from Cageybee: "I agree with HIMSShangover that if you missed Dr. Kitzhaber's talk you missed something important. He introduced this (among other things). I still don't understand SOA, too dumb and SOL I guess, can anyone help (with the SOA part)?" The link is to the Archimedes Movement, recently launched by the former Oregon governor (who is also a physician.) He's decided not to run for that office again: "It was the clear eyed recognition of this reality that led me to my conclusion. At some point, each of us needs to ask “'here can I make the most difference?' And for me the answer is clear. I can make the most difference not by entering a campaign for governor but rather by launching a campaign to change the American health care system and by offering people a way to engage around an idea – not just a candidate-- and as members not of political parties or of various stakeholder groups, but as members of a community." Regarding SOA, Kipp Lassetter answered that question briefly and non-technically for me in my previous interview with him. If you can add more, fire away.

From DefDumnBlind: "My medical group is using a national billing company that's going to buy the new IDX Flowcast to run our billing. This billing concern has been encouraging us to consider using Allscripts for an EMR. Now since GE has bought IDX and will be promoting Logician in the future...what do you think will happen to Allscripts? Do you think it will go away and we'll have to buy a new EMR in 5 years? Or do you think GE will continue to support Allscripts for a good long time? Please look into your magic 8 ball and tell me what it says." I think GE will have limited interest in supporting Allscripts, but I'll leave that to HIStalk readers who follow the ambulatory side more than I do. What do you think?

From Mediware: "It is being rumored that Mediware, Lenexa, KS has reduced staff by more than 10%. It is a good thing. That company had too much overhead and not enough new sales to support it. I commend them for doing a tough thing." They're in a tough position: already public and paying those associated costs, selling a highly specialized niche product that competes with the core offering that most vendors have, and with limited marketplace recognition. The whole emphasis on medication safety and closed loop systems seems to have worked against them, ironically.

From Just Wondering: "What's your relationship with the newsletter that you've mentioned?" He (or she) is referring to Inside Healthcare Computing, now the primary (but not exclusive) sponsor of HIStalk. They like my work, I've always liked theirs, so they help bring HIStalk to you by advertising here. I also write an editorial once a week for their e-mail subscriber update, exclusive to them and not a rehash of what I've already covered for HIStalk (boy, I write a lot!) I'm always interested in relationships that can make what I do here more effective and that pairing was natural. If you have ideas, I'd appreciate hearing about them. What would you do with HIStalk if you were me?

I'd be interested in hearing from Blogger Boy how his company fared in the HIMSS exhibit hall, wouldn't you? He gave a great recap last year and also did a guest article on the surprisingly high cost, both very well received. I also wonder if I'll hear (hope so!) from the hilarious BB Babowsky, Sales Guy Who's Been Around, who was candid, cynical, and informative for provider-siders in his interview from November. And if you want to write a guest article on something interesting, jot it down and send it my way.

From West Coast Ron: "Re: Bob Pickton at Baylor. The cabinet includes some of his direct reports. Rumors center around consulting activities, irregularities in vendor billings and payments, and exhange of gifts for favors. Nothing is known for sure except by Mr. Pickton, and he isn't talking. Something in the Dallas water causing CIO's to go. Children's CIO Duncan announced his retirement a year ahead of time." Bob's salary: $409,289. Just thought I'd throw that in.

You saw Matthew Holt's mention of an investment banker who was amazed at the sources who feed me spot-on information before anyone else knows. That would be you! I appreciate every tip sent in via the Rumor Report or e-mail. Lately, West Coast Ron told me about Baylor, Old Salty broke the news of Medicity's acquisition of Park City Solutions several days early, and Anonymous scored big with the first firm news on SIS's sellout. That's just a few of the many folks who have helped me find interesting things to write about. I was thinking about making it a competition, awarding points to the timeliness and importance of the information provided (using the self-created nicknames to keep score, of course.) Would that be fun?

Ah, to be home again! I'd make a horrible roadie, considering that even the low-pressure HIMSS attendee role wears me out. Sleep with the wife, read the newspaper in bed, watch Time Tunnel to start the day, eat some barbeque for lunch, and semi-watch the first NASCAR races -- that's fine by me. Maybe that's why I'm not motivated to be particularly successful and high-earning like Bob Pickton - I set my sights low. On the other hand, I don't spend much money anyway and have no idea what I'd do with more of it. Plus, I don't like wearing suits and I'm usually a cynical pain in the ass to manage, hardly a sure-fire formula for career growth.

Speaking of suits, I jibed CIO Ed about his HIMSS comments last year, in which he suggested more formal dress when you're out representing your employer. I did see more suits this year, both in the booths and on the podia, but as an example of divergent individual standards, I also saw quite a few shorts and Hawaiian shirts. Someone said they saw a session moderator who introduced the speaker while wearing a tee shirt. I've moderated at the annual conference before (a thankless task, but it gets you advancement points) and even I wore a jacket.

That brings up a "the moderator was an idiot" example I saw personally at the annual conference a couple of years ago. She met the speakers for the first time five minutes before the session started, informed them that she'd reviewed their work and that whole sections would need to be skipped because she didn't think they were up to her standards, sat at the speaker's table and piped up on the table mike several times to express her thoughts about the content they were presenting, and then charged in front of the podium with a hand microphone to direct latecomers to open seats and to chat about other topics on her mind. You would know here if I mentioned her name. Her arrogance was anything but "moderated."

Perot Systems (or is that Pérot Systems?) has created a service with an oddball name: PÉRADIGM Healthcare Technologies. One of the Frequently Asked Questions they mentioned was not, "What the hell does that name mean, and what's with the oddball accented E affectation that requires using a special character instead of the keyboard?" It appears to be some sort of open source platform for their outsourcing customers. Hope whatever it is can handle grave and/or diacritical letters like their cute little é since those have been known to crash some databases and e-mail systems. 

McKesson pays $3 million to settle charges that it defrauded the Pentagon by overcharging.

Q: What do you call a lawyer shot by the Vice President in a hunting malfunction?
A: A good start.

New Jersey's governor recommends an interim president to UMDNJ, reeling after charges of Medicaid and a takeover by a federal administrator. One problem: the governor's candidate, in his former HFCA administrator role, was accused of dismissing the debt of a hospital on whose board he previously sat. New Jersey's reputation wasn't so hot to begin with (pollution, ugly manufacturing plants, crime, Sopranos) and this sorry episode isn't helping.

Kaiser's profit drops substantially for 2005 to a paltry $1 billion. Among other things, they blame the cost of their HealthConnect system. I'm sure it will pay for itself eventually. Or not.

Sean McDonald, who founded Pittsburgh-based robotic drug packager Automated Healthcare and sold it to McKesson for $65 million in 1996, gets big funding for his new company, which is commercializing a test that predicts patient response to cancer chemotherapy.

Does David Brailer really support the IT work of RHIOs? Some have speculated that he doesn't, preferring as a business-friendly guy to instead to turn the whole package over to a big-bucks vendor like IBM or Cisco and let RHIOs deal only with the politics and collaboration. An interesting quote that may reinforce that speculation, one I must have missed in his HIMSS speech: “I did not start out by believing the national solution will be a network of regional networks. Our goal with the national health information network is to allow those who do not want to participate in RHIOs to not have to do it." I'm not so sure that the work being done by various groups is operating under that same assumption.

HIMSS is exporting its conference expertise to a new European one, The World of Health IT.

News, rumors, ideas: e-mail me.