HIStalk Quotes
News 02/14/07
posted 02/13/2007
From Anonymous: "Re: Misys. All customers hope that Mike Lawrie and Paul Lewis are closer to the ground than to allow the current management to continue avoiding engaging with customers, avoiding learning what they clearly do not know about the hospital environment, and avoiding the few remaining skilled and respected employees who originally convinced us of the excellence of Misys CPR. We cannot believe that we are being sent these ill-educated, ill-prepared, over-priced, often arrogant and defensive 'experts'. We are reviewing our ongoing commitment to the Misys CPR, not because it isn't a good system, not because we believe we made a mistake with our original decision, but because Misys no longer appears to know who we are or what we need."
From Red Shirt: "Re: VA data loss again. Stop me if you've heard this one before. Yet another hard drive containing personal information goes missing from a hospital. As a healthcare IT guy who has never lost a laptop, hard drive, thumb drive, or whatever, I have to ask: why is it so hard, guys? And as a soon-to-be retired 23-year Navy/Navy reserve veteran, I hope I'm not on the list." Link. An employee's external hard drive with information on 1.8 million veterans wanders in Alabama. Yawn. Like I said before: put your money into credit reporting company stock because that's the only feel-good step companies can think of afterward: offer free credit reports.
From TenaciousD: "Re: Eclipsys. Eclipsys announced Q4 earnings today, mentioning $3.6 million in severance costs related to the termination of employment of certain management personnel. I am not sure how the Eclipsys HR director can deny a rumor of the a layoff when the senior executives talk about it as the first part of their Q4 earnings call." She denied the "hundreds" rumor, anyway. I hate to say it, but when I saw "management," I lost interest since it's the worker bees that I worry about. Eclipsys announced earnings after the market's close: revenue up 10%, EPS $0.07 vs $0.10. As TD said, a chunk of the earnings shortfall was office closings and management terminations, the announcement said. Without that, the EPS of $0.26 would have beaten consensus estimates of $0.22. The company is also reviewing past stock option grants, which could be bad news if evidence of backdating is found. For the year, revenue was up 12%. EPS $0.04 vs. $0.01. They also announced a new president of Eclipsys India.
From anon_mrm: "Re: Project Health. Post the address for readers to send money to Project Health. Ask them to do it c/o HIStalk and let's see how much we can raise." Consider it done. You can donate here.
From Wishbone: "Re: CHIME. It's just as bad as HRDI, maybe worse, because the membership has no say in what goes on and gets no real benefit." I've known even CHIME members who rag on it. As an exclusive club that pads out a CIO's resume with no work required, though, it's apparently irresistible, with most of the griping coming from people who can't get in.
From Anonymous: "Re: PatientKeeper vs. Medicity. Saw some recent postings on PatientKeeper portal. Anyone know how it compares to other portals like HIStalk sponsor Medicity? Does PK have EMPI capabilities like Medicity? Thanks."
From Alias one: "Re: GE/Epic. Sad to say, Epic is also destroying IDX/GE. I know of three hospitals (one is mine!) replacing IDX. It's tough to admit it. I like the GE/IDX gang (really!) and the Epics have this strange air about them, like they sort of deserve it and all. Really weird." Interesting you should mention that. Bob Saccamano, an HIStalk reader (great phony name!) sent me a report from some stock guys (a little nod would have been nice, especially since they quoted HIStalk directly and didn't even send me a copy of the report.) Anyway, their conclusion is that Epic has run over budget and timeline enough times that CIOs might be beginning to look elsewhere. Maybe, I guess. If so, it's quite early in that trend and anecdotal at best.
Bob's conclusions on the report: "I'm working with several fairly large clients and this report began circulating yesterday afternoon. According to the report and murmurs beginning to crescendo, the market is becoming increasingly aware of Epic’s implementation problems, most notably the inability to complete a project on time and within budget. There is mention of the highly-publicized problems at Kaiser, along with implementation cost overruns and delays at UC Davis, Allina, and Rush University Downtown Hospital. Overall it seems that Epic could be beginning to lose its aura as the panacea for all things HIT. I don’t believe we will suddenly see them drop from their consistent head of KLAS ratings (partly due to the contractual incentives that help keep them there), nor will they abruptly become non-competitive, but I do believe we will see the tide begin to turn. Gone will be the days of Epic selecting who they will entertain as potential clients, and entry into Club Epic' will no longer be the hottest ticket in town. Don’t get me wrong, Epic will still win their share of deals, but I agree with the analyst in that there will be increased competition and we’ll begin to see more Epic competitive losses than we’re seeing today." The report's OK, but I would hope that CIOs would earn their generous pay by developing an opinion from something more in-depth and authoritative than a stock market analysis. The report even says that they're not comparing products, just perception. If an Epic competitor brought it around to try to get an edge, I'd give them the boot.
From MUMPS fan: "Re: MUMPS discussion at TheDailyWTF. This should be interesting to anyone looking for perspective the MUMPS platform in general. More interesting than the original article are the comments posted to it." Links: article, comments. Fun read, at least unless you're a MUMPS programmer. Readers speculate that the poor new grad who got stuck in MUMPS maintenance mode works in Madison, WI. There's enough detail about array handling and variables that a programmer could easily tell.
From Anonymous: "Re: Quality Systems. Quality Systems (NASDAQ: QSII) received written notification from the Securities and Exchange Commission stating that the Commission has initiated a formal investigation of trading activity in the Company's securities. The probe revolves around CFO Paul Holt. That news didn't sit well with investors, as the stock closed around 10% lower last week at the news of the investigation. QSII is the owner of NextGen, who has a strategic partnership with Siemens, which has its own SEC trading investigation underway. Sounds like a perfect marriage – let's hope their combined enterprise offering follows protocols better than the companies’ management." Link.
A reader who should know confirms that Dairyland is (or at least was) shopping itself for sale, their previous denials to the contrary.
I'll apologize again for my severe time crunch lately. I'm slow on returning e-mails, scheduling interviews, and answering sponsorship inquiries, but I'm pushing into the redline and still not keeping up. Maybe it will get back to normal after HIMSS. Or, maybe this IS normal going forward. I'm getting frazzled.
I got tired of looking at the HIStalk poll today, so I just put up the first thing that popped into my head: how many HIMSS attendees think they'll be having sex in New Orleans? I know it's juvenile, in poor taste, and unworthy of high journalistic standards, but at least it's original. So far, those with a zero percent chance (including me: married, faithful, and traveling solo) are leading the pack. Yes, boss, that $12.95 hotel movie charge was for Internet access.
The current bidding for some one-on-one time with Jonathan Bush, Chairman and CEO of athenahealth, at HIMSS is a $300 contribution to Project Health. Click the HIStalk logo to display the front page with the high bid. You're not buying an event, you're making a charitable donation for which JB would like to recognize you. This isn't the phony "be nice to the prospect in the booth" CEO treatment - it's real, and unless you're darn well connected, unavailable elsewhere.
I watched a little bit of TV late the other night and saw an outstanding, recent New York Dolls concert on PBS's Soundstage, of all things. They were just amazing. Most of them died young and the band didn't last long, yet they influenced everyone. The two surviving members, along with some new guys, are back and sounding better than I remember back in 1973 (well, it was on eight-track.) Highly literate and ironic punk/glam, with a singer who out-Jaggers Mick at age 56.
Kaiser Permanente signs a deal with Language & Computing to co-develop natural language processing-based E&M coding for their Epic EMR.
Pacer Health (FL) chooses HCS Interactant.
Fairmont General Hospital (WV) goes with MedHost for the ED and other systems hard to decipher from the reporter's description. Sounds like patient scheduling, but the article then wanders off talking about a company called Galactica, which I'm thinking may be referring to Galactica Document Imaging from The Shams Group for MEDITECH (but that's a guess.) There's a portal product mentioned, too.
Computerworld has an article on Baylor's EMPI efforts.
FCG Viet Nam gets quality certifications to go along with their CMM Level 5.
Agfa announces that it will distribute Medseek's portal products, naming three new clients.
When you have Hollywood in your name, expect cameras to be rolling. Hollywood Presbyterian in LA gets caught on tape trying to drop off a paraplegic man at a homeless shelter. Security guards turned them away after asking about his care. Witnesses say a van hired by the hospital later left him in a gutter. From the hospital's view, if he wasn't sick, is it their job to give him a place to sleep? It's too bad that lack of capacity is driving these questions. Back in the day, you'd bathe them with tincture of green soap, feed them, maybe give them meds for bowel problems or sores, and send them on their way in a couple of days, knowing you'd be seeing them again shortly. Maybe it would be cheapest for hospitals to start their own homeless shelters like they did non-emergency clinics and home health agencies.
Another Maryland hospital loses patient data. Stolen laptop. Nothing new to see, move along people, except the ironic statement: the laptops are now bolted down. Oh, and the hospital is paying a credit reporting company $425,000. Should have bought that stock.
News, rumors, my valentine: e-mail me.
comments (7)
1. Beaker left...
02/13/2007 10:52 pm
From Bob's posting: "I don’t believe we will suddenly see (Epic) drop from
their consistent head of KLAS ratings (partly due to the contractual
incentives that help keep them there)...". I don't follow. What contractual
incentives keep any vendor anywhere in KLAS? I'm looking for actual facts,
of course, not speculation. If you're suggesting that KLAS interviewees try
to make themselves look good by giving glowing reviews of the vendors
they've chosen, that should bump up all vendors equally, right?
2. Quincy left...
02/14/2007 7:04 am
Okay this Eclipsys negative nonsense from TenaciousD is getting silly. A
very senior executive with a well publicized package was let go. If you
want to know what made a substantial part of that $3.6m check out
http://www.secinfo.com/dsvRq.14K5.htm.
3. Tito Puentes left...
02/14/2007 7:15 am
From the MUMPS article: "I also worked there. Call it Ep*c Syst**s ...
Funny story: someone accidentally took down a major hospital by mistyping.
Everything is done on production servers; this person was typing k (carat)
varname to delete (k is short for kill = delete) over a remote connection.
Instead of completing the varname and the attributes to delete, this person
accidentally hit enter or the connection gremlin decided to screw him. What
was sent over the terminal was: k (carat) enter which deletes all data.
Everywhere. In the middle of a day in a hospital. There was a screamed "OH
SHIT" then he ran down the hall to the recovery team."
4. Egg Stork left...
02/14/2007 9:01 am
Re: Bob's report. <a report from some stock guys...Anyway, their
conclusion is that Epic has run over budget and timeline enough times that
CIOs might be beginning to look elsewhere.>
5. Lacey Underall left...
02/14/2007 9:09 am
Interesting poll. However, I think you need a baseline. What about those
of use who are staying home and holding down the fort for those who are
going to NO?
6. Country Dog HITman left...
02/14/2007 4:24 pm
Medicity vs. Patient Keeper; Medicity is known more as an integration
platform to support many applications that "hang" off the platform. They
are very strong in clinical integration and data aggregation. They have a
slew of applications that ride the platform including EMPI, physician
portal, EMR gateway, automated results distribution, and a RHIO utility
with CMPI/RLS functionality. In fact, I understand that Patient keeper is
riding a medicity platform at several of their accounts. Patient Keeper, on
the other hand is principally a mobility application. They market a desktop
portal, but they started as a mobility play and certainly are known in the
market as a mobility play. Not really a fair comparison and trust me I know
them both very well (think; currently doing selection process for large
enterprise).
7. M Coder left...
02/14/2007 11:12 pm
RE: What was sent over the terminal was: k (carat) enter which deletes all
data.
