HIStalk Quotes
Monday Morning Update 05/07/07
From Anomymous: "Re: Misys. Q: Does Misys Radiology have any staff left? A: No. The developers and support staff have been shaved down to nearly nothing."
From The Hatchet Guy: "Re: Cerner. Looks like dead man walking, former COO Paul Black, is taking his last steps around the building over the next 90 days while his stock vests. Pretty boy Mike Valentine, who was just promoted to EVP with COO coming in a few months, is taking over. He hunts with Neal, owns a farm, basically does everything Neal does. He and Neal have hatched a new strategy for executive client coverage. Have just dropped the 2nd shoe and cut MANY base salaries in the 'role to value' travels through all exec base salaries above 150K. I can't speak if Black should go, but he will once he gets his stock and will stay quiet forever." I don't know most of the Cerner executives these days. I did notice just now that their leaders have minimal educational qualifications, most of them sporting state school bachelor's. Must be a midwest thing. Usually it's just the sales VP.
From Old-Time Reader: "Re: blog comments. Some of the best information used to come from the responses of other readers in the comments that were posted. Now the comments are buried within an extra link is the site, which is hard to read. Can you go back to including comments in the main page (and occasionally adding your, or Inga's, witty response)?" The blog service removed the option to display comments on the main page, unfortunately, for reasons that still aren't clear to me. I pleaded again today and they're considering it. Optimally, comments would not only return to their previous state, but would improve since only five would display back then, followed by a "more" link. The design of HIStalk2 is nearly finished and it will most definitely have great comment capabilities, so look for that soon as an alternative to this format.
From Irwin M. Fletcher: "Re: corporate blogging. I couldn't agree more. The April 26th Dilbert was right on the money." For some reason, everybody thinks they can write blogs and children's books. I was interested in CB radio when I was a kid until I realized that most of the people on the other end were hopelessly dull dolts with nothing to say. Blogging is exactly the same. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. My much-beloved supply and demand curve will cure all, as usual ... 95% of blogs and bloggers will slip quietly into much-deserved oblivion. I can only hope I'm not one of them. Companies are all proud of themselves for starting a blog, like they couldn't be honest and open until Blogger was invented. Please.
From HearYaBrother: "Re: CareFx. Interesting perspective considering I just completed a system selection for Provisioning/SSO/Context Management. CareFx tried to be the lead player, but they were not calling the shots. When they couldn't get one of their 'partners' to show up, they through them under the proverbial bus and talked about the issues of this partner. When I questioned them on why they chose them in the first place, it kind of caught them off guard; this happened two more times. They appear to be trying to be all things to all organizations without mastering the basics. My concern was if they couldn't manage the relationships/partnerships in a test/Proof of Concept environment, how could I trust that in a production environment with my neck on the line? CareFx's marketing has gotten a lot better and your HBOC analogy is interesting, though I am wondering about a connection to Cerner's strategy given what one of their customers said on a recent webinar; 'we got it for free because of who we are'. Maybe they are trying to show some strong bookings in hopes of selling the company, which is kind of like HBOC."
From Anonymous: "Re: site visits. I have a fairly naïve question to pose the collective wisdom of this blog. My team is planning a couple of site visits to vendors of enterprise-level EMRs (both corporate and installation sites) in the near future, and we are developing a list of questions to ask the vendors. While I come from an informatics background, I am interested knowing what questions the readers of HIStalk have found to be most useful in their discussions with vendors." Are we talking inpatient or ambulatory EMRs? Here are the questions I'd ask not knowing which: (a) will you give me a complete list of every customer you've sold to? (b) how many sites have de-installed or sued? (c) who's the best customer you have that is just like us in size, complexity, and organizational type? (d) can I talk directly to your development teams without supervision to learn about code delivery and planned enhancements? (e) would you go at-risk with us for what you claim we'll do with your software, provided that we also agree to reward you if we succeed? (f) can I choose and lock in the resources involved in my implementation right now? (g) can I get all user and technical documentation now, including that distributed with the last product update? (h) can I attend your next user group meeting to see how current customers like your product and company? That's above and beyond questions about functionality, security, financial stability, etc. If it's inpatient EMRs, it really doesn't matter because each of the single-digit number of vendors all have their baggage, so your best hope is to connect with one whose major warts annoy you the least. But, you asked for reader input, so I'll step aside now to wait for it.
CalRHIO brings on HP as a participant, joining Medicity and Perot Systems.
Bankrupt Bayonne Medical Center (NJ) lists Cerner as its #1 creditor, owing the company nearly $4 million. Ironically, another big stiffee is a a revenue cycle consulting company owed $1 million by the hospital. Like a bankruptcy lawyer, maybe they should have required payment upfront knowing the challenges of their customer.
An iSoft guy claims that service oriented architecture requirements have made all NPfIT systems interchangeable, giving NHS the ability to seamlessly deploy any system to any cluster. Swap HL7 for SOA in the previous sentence and you'd be saying the same thing (and would likely be equally incorrect.)
I put a new poll up to your right for the usual reason: I was tired of looking at the old one.
FCG's Q1 numbers: revenue flat, EPS $0.13 vs. $0.18. Larry Ferguson does what CEOs are paid to do: contradict the uninspiring results with a "things are going great despite the numbers" pep talk.
Allegedly non-profit Kaiser makes $698 million in the first quarter of this year alone, up 56% over the same quarter last year. They walk the usual non-profit line: we're happy to be financially strong and pleased to funnel some unstated percentage of our magnificent windfall back into the community because we're humble, underpaid servant leaders who are embarrassed to have accidentally taken in $9.4 billion in just three months despite our lack of interesting in doing anything that doesn't involve serving humankind.
Some hospitals of Universal Health Services will implement a laboratory information system I've never heard of: TD-Synergy from Canadian vendor MediSolution. The commpany just replaced its CEO and CFO and shares are trading at 20 cents on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
iSoft's CTO and co-founder quits. I expect an acquisition to come either very soon or not at all.
I strayed onto this by accident: a law firm specializes in suing California employers for working programmers more than 40 hours a week without paying them overtime.
Maybe we need him here: a Canadian judge dismisses the negligence lawsuit of a hospitalized patient who stubbed his toe while getting of the shower. The judge said (with some paraphrasing on my part): "You dumbass, shower floors are slick and you should have been more careful."
News, rumors, fun stuff: e-mail me.
Inga's Update
Thanks to Mr. HIStalk's pleas, the fan mail is now rolling in! Thanks to everyone who has sent in kind words. Oh, and as a newbie to this blogging thing, will someone please define "Cringester" for me?
E-mail Inga.
Paul Black can be very hard nosed but is a good guy. Sorry to hear he is
out but you know, he earned whatever he takes with him like anyone else in
that kind of role, so no problem there. If Neil wants to surround himself
with mini-me's than thats his choice. Good luck Paul!
Allegedly non-profit Kaiser makes $698 million in the first quarter of this
year alone...
Is this the first installment of Justen Deal's $7 Billion loss? Not
headed in the expected direction is it.
Re: Anonymous and the questions to ask an EMR vendor, if you can get any of
them to answer just 2 or 3 of the ones Mr HIStalk poses, you're in luck.
Just read this: Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals, the largest
not-for-profit healthcare provider in the country, on Friday reported first
quarter financial results that showed revenue surging 9% to $9.4 billion
from $8.6 billion one year ago, as membership growth plummeted over 60%.
Profit, on a net income basis, came in at $698 million, compared to $448
million in the year-ago quarter, largely the result of the organization
cutting $130 million from spending on medical equipment, hospitals
facilities, and other capital investments. HealthConnect, the controversial
computer project to try to digitize patient records being pushed by
Kaiser's CEO, continued to consume a large portion of the healthcare
provider's resources, as critics say the unreliable project is both a
threat to patient safety and a drain on the organization's resources.
: Just to be clear, the Kaiser quote was not from an official source; it's
Justen Deal's take on what the official earnings announcement would say if
Kaiser were, in his mind, being honest. For more, see
http://justen.blogspot.com/
Response to Anonymous: Though you accurately answered your own question,
you didn’t go nearly far enough. This is a much broader issue that’s also
hit Tucson, Plano, San Bernardino, and even Bangalore. The tenure of
Richard Atkin has been a disaster for all of us in Hospital Systems. After
18 months of Lean Six Sigma, 12 months of E2E, and 6 months of ACE we have
nothing to show except declining revenue, dissatisfied customers, and a
tired staff dying to be fired or transferred into Physician Systems.
I'm gonna take a shot at "Cringester" being a variation on Robert X.
Cringely (not his real name) who has been writing (is it blogging if you
did it before the term "blog" was invented?) on Infoworld and
http://www.pbs.org/cringely for many years. His PBS column is usually
insightful and often dead on accurate. Less often, it aint. It's *always*
interesting. Not sure about the Pammie :-) reference. Probably has
something to do with Pammy.
RE: Cerner Dead Man Walking... You are correct in this rumor as the
executives have been reshuffled and "new bloods" have taken their place.
They are also bringing everyone back "to the mothership" as some have
coined the term. That means that I am losing a lot of my Cerner staff near
me to be based in Kansas City. How this is saving money and being client
focused is beyond me! I am on the East Coast and I can never get a Cerner
employee based in Kansas City to my site in one day and I am sure this is
costing more for travel than Cerner is willing to pay. Very disappointing
to see a partner who is making so much money (look at the stock market)
being so penny pinching to hurt our relationship in the long run. I have
looked at every other vendor on the market and feel Cerner has the best and
most forward thinking solutions as well as best implementation scheme, but
how they are managing their company and constantly reorganizing it really
makes you wonder how much longer this company is either a) going to be a
Cerner company and b) have any more clients after running them all away
from a superior product!
re: PezMan - Neal is just clicking his heels three times and hoping magic
strikes. KC ain't Madison.
Ahh...too many of us forget about 5-6 years ago when Cerner was Epic today.
It all goes down hill it seems when you go public. It's just a matter of
time before Madison turns...the signs are already beginning to show.
