News 03/30/06

From Anonymous: "Re: FCG. It appears all but a done deal, Steve Heck, FCG president, to be named CEO. It has been announced to a few internal FCG leaders. Expect the announcement in the next few weeks, perhaps coupled with the firms earnings reports. Heck decided to take it after the Board approved the dismissal of Mitch Morris."

From AnonVermont: "More layoffs at IDX for the Imagecast (IDXRad) product."

Reminders: please take the anonymous, 60-second HIStalk Reader Survey if you haven't already. Enter your name in the spam-proof Mailing List box to your right for instant e-mail updates when I write something new. Right below there is the Search function, covering the nearly three years and 500+ HIStalk articles. Check out HIStalk Discussion, including jobs offered and wanted.

I keep getting e-mails from vendors I've never heard of, claiming I stopped by their booths at HIMSS and they're following up. Obviously they are using the opportunity to spam the HIMSS e-mail list indiscriminately.

The Western North Carolina Health Network, a RHIO made up of 16 small hospitals, is live. Six of the members run MEDITECH, including the first four to connect.

The UK government is uninterested in renegotiating Accenture's NHS contract, problems with which just caused a surprise $450 million Q2 writedown and a projected loss of another $420 million or more over the next two years. Accenture blames subcontractor iSoft, whose shares are tanking on that news. Despite Accenture's pleas for special treatment given "changed circumstances," the Department of Health tells them to quit whining and get rid of some overhead. "Rather than the taxpayer covering the cost of failure to deliver - as has been the case in some previous government IT projects - Accenture are themselves having to cover that cost. This demonstrates the robust nature of the contractual arrangements we have put in place under the National Programme for IT to protect taxpayers' money." Accenture responds in consultantese: "We plan to realign the objectives and conditions of the contracts with our client to reflect the current realities and intend to conclude an acceptable agreement to move forward that creates value for taxpayers and Accenture shareholders." Allow me to translate: "As often happens with consultants billing massive amounts of money, we really had no idea what we were doing, so we decided to sub out the work to a company we chose. Now that things have gone sour, we want you to bail us out despite our self-proclaimed expertise in risk management, contracting, and risk mitigation, services for which we charge other clients handsomely."

Misys fails to attract a buyer for one of its financial businesses, sending shares sharply downward, but they do sell off an insurance subsidiary as they focus on stated priorities of "health and wealth." Meaning: acquisitions are coming.

Good Q4 and FY05 numbers for LanVision, but the stock drops 12% on the news.

Hospitals in Scotland are training staff with iPod audio.

A judge says a Texas hospital did not wrongfully terminate its CEO, with one justification being the CEO's undisclosed financial interest in BulldogIT, for which the CEO arranged to be a testing site without notifying the hospital's board. The hospital and BulldogIT settled after suing each other for breach of contract.

Sign of the times: the war in Iraq may be compromised by shortages of Black Hawk helicopters and aircraft parts brought on by an ongoing strike by Sikorsky workers over healthcare costs. Said a worker: "Healthcare is the most important issue of this campaign here. It is very important to me and my family because we will be totally destroyed by the outrageous prices they want for this healthcare."

We're #1! A consultant's study says the US will spend more on mediocre healthcare than on manufacturing by 2020, ensuring a steady exodus of jobs overseas."No industry has as many 'silos' as health care, Edwards said."

The Association of Black Cardiologists (isn't that racist?) names MedComSoft as its preferred EMR and practice management vendor.

Philadelphia's Thomas Jefferson University Hospital will equip patients with branded personal health software. They're also evaluating a USB storage device.