HIStalk Quotes
News 05/25/07
posted 05/24/2007
From The Shelton Shadow: "Re: demos. While it appears to be a black or white decision about physician participation in the demo, it's more gray than either of the other two choices. Some physicians choose to partner with vendors to gain access to the newest solutions. Because of this partnership, each physician has knowledge of the system and they and the vendor have to decide whether or not to reveal their relationship. At the least, the visiting team should ask about any physician relationship to the product being viewed so they can decide for themselves. Site visits should enlighten the team as to how the solution works in a real use scenario and comments by the hosting institution members should be judged as each one sees fit." I agree: ask everyone at site visits, in demos, or at conferences purporting to be a happy customer: are you being compensated in any way for being here? They could lie, of course, but most people wouldn't. Or, make the vendor sign a pledge that they aren't compensating anyone and add that to your contract with a penalty clause just in case you find out later. That might keep the ringers at home.
From Julian 'Jimmy' Dell: "Re: HIMSS. I've noticed changes in HIMSS since John Page left that I'm not too fond of. The organization used to be neutral, now it has a much more active political agenda. I perceive more endorsement of vendors, unlike under John Page when HIMSS would never allow a vendor to use the HIMSS name in any manner. I also get constant e-mails about products, conferences, events, etc. These things could all be in my imagination, but I am curious if anyone else has similar thoughts." I admit that I don't mind (and actually kind of enjoy) the e-mail stuff. But, HIMSS has dove deeply into what it sees as its role as an industry advocate. What that means: strong-arming taxpayers (via their elected representatives) into paying for the wares sold by its big-dues corporate members (no, sorry, your $140 a year doesn't make you a HIMSS playa, so your lack of interest in that area doesn't matter.) From their site, pitching corporate membership: "... more senior and executive-level decision makers belong to HIMSS than any other healthcare information technology association. As a corporate member, you don’t just ride the wave of change – you are the wave of change." Well, gee, what about us $140 peons in the HIT trenches trying to get all their systems up and running? I'd like to see HIMSS split up into two groups: a vendor trade association (which it very nearly already is) and a provider group (which is what it was under John Page.) If that means fewer geegaws and excesses at the annual conference, then all the better. For me, HIMSS Analytics was the straw that broke the camel's back. I intensely dislike HIMSS owning an organization that gathers information from its provider members so its vendor members can try to sell them stuff, which isn't far from what the real purpose of the annual conference seems to have become: to put prospects in front of the big-money members. Maybe that's why I feel like an attractive lady speed-walking eyes-down through a gauntlet of leering construction workers when I'm in the exhibit hall. Here's what vendors have to do to earn points that entitle them to spend large fortunes on exhibit space, including buying HIMSS Analytics reports. And congrats to Cerner for being #1 in the HIMSS points race (warning: PDF).
Late Neal Patterson caption entries:
- I think he is about to figure out that the audience is to his right on the floor below rather than in front of him on the deck as he had planned.
- Neal looks like he's about to
have someone light the wick sticking out of his head of his life-sized
wax replica.
Speaking of interviews, Kim Pederson's was well received. One comment urged more interesting non-CEO folks to come forward for an interview. Agreed. I'm alway interested in chatting with people about what they do, so e-mail me if you're witty, insightful, and have a job that would be interesting to HIStalk's readers. CIOs are especially encouraged.
Just tooling around sponsor sites, which I hadn't done in awhile: I noticed Healthia Consulting has a good-looking new website and has posted some open positions. EnovateIT put their original ad back up to your left, featuring that cool cart I fondled at HIMSS (CIOs sometimes don't understand that a mobile cart is like a car, a house, or a soulmate: specs aside, you'll know when you finally meet the right one.) And, I watched the overview movie at SCI Solutions since I hadn't seen it. I interviewed CEO John Holton a couple of years ago and he was definitely a straight shooter: "We agree that everyone has a mediocre schedule system. Core vendors like Siemens, McKesson, and Cerner have scheduling products, although we don't think they're in our league.We do so much more than scheduling. Our focus is on self-service and on the front end of the revenue cycle. We work with any scheduling product. We've got sites that dump all their surgery schedules into ours. We don't think we have to be monolothic in terms of scheduling. We're way beyond that."
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HIMSS said around 2,000 people attended Virtual HIMSS. I could have sworn that Buddy Hickman or maybe somebody else in New Orleans said then that 3,500 people had signed up even then. The turnout was good, but I'm guessing not what they hoped.
Inga's got some stuff on TEPR below. I have to admit that I don't follow it at all. Went once, hated it, left after one day. The awards stopped meaning anything (if they ever did) after some big vendors (like Epic) bailed out and you must be present to win (why?) On the other hand, they're like the HIMSS of old, so maybe I should warm up to them. Personally, I always say I'll hook up with AMIA, but I never get around to it because I'm not much of a joiner.
Speaking of HIMSS: Edward Gerner, Jr., a founder and its first president, died a a couple of weeks ago. He started HIMSS with colleagues back in 1961 as the Hospital Management Systems Society, a professional management engineering organization housed at Georgia Tech. I'm sure he was proud of how large and influential HIMSS became, although its focus on management systems is nearly extinct. Donations in his memory: Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.
The problem when you, like McKesson, go around calling yourself a Fortune 16 company is that you'll have to eat a little crow when you slip to become a Fortune 18 company. That's annoying, like crowing that your hospital is one of the "62 Most Wired." There is no such thing as the Fortune 16 or Fortune 18 or even the Fortune 100. There's only the Fortune 500, at least outside the fantasy world of spin-happy PR types.
Eclipsys files its overdue financial reports now that its option timing investigation is over.
A bunch of HIMSS-friendly politicians (all Democrats except one, in case you're counting after the reader comments above) moans publicly about the unwillingness of taxpayers to pay for private businesses (doctors and hospitals) to have computer stuff. They cited the great savings projected by a RAND study (that was paid for by Cerner.) Adding to the fun was the reporter's overwrought and obviously personally pleasing "wind" metaphor that had me hating everything following that first grating sentence.
I found this kind of interesting: Philips has a ProtocolWatch application that can warn clinicians of possible patient sepsis based on their monitoring equipment values.
HTP sells $2.8 million worth of revenue management software in Q1.
Siemens will pay $2.5 million to settle bid-rigging charges involving Chicago's Stroger Hospital. A Siemens official already pleaded guilty to lying to a judge in the case and will be sentenced later.
A hospital in India burns because they had turned off the fire hydrant. It also had no fire exits. A study in 2000 looked at high-rise commercial buildings in Ahmedabad and found that 266 of 268 had no fire safety measures whatsoever. You might want to take that city off your medical tourism short list.
The Methodist Hospital System (TX) will provide its 200-physician practice organization with a connectivity offering using Eclipsys Sunrise Ambulatory Care and athenahealth's athenaCollector.
MediNotes and MDeverywhere pair up to co-market their respective EMR and practice management systems.
Breaking news: "Several days after sensitive documents -- most of them medical records -- turned up in a Dumpster in Chula Vista, no one is stepping forward to take responsibility for the security breach." And our top story: Generalissimo Francisco Franco ... still dead tonight.
Catholic Healthcare West goes live with DirectConnect, a portal running on Carefx Fusion and IBM WebSphere Clinical Portal serving up data from MEDITECH, Emageon, and Logicare.
I hope you have a good Memorial Day. We've become a nation of unpatriotic slackers, but it's still not too late to buy a flag and hang it out like folks do (me) to show appreciation for American soldiers who died young so the rest of us could enjoy an enviable lifestyle, even on the day set aside to honor them. See my Memorial Day post from 2005.
Inga's Update
Rumor Guy is obviously an overachiever: "Re: HLTH. Do you just want the names of the parent or of all the companies they bought too? HLTH Corporation, Emdeon Corporation, WebMD Corporation, Healtheon/WebMD, Healtheon Corporation. If you include the acquisitions that they and their subsidiaries have made, you have the brilliant additions of (not necessarily an exhaustive list nor in chronological order): Porex, Medical Manager, ViPS, Medifax, Dakota Imaging, Care Insite, Kinetra, MedeAmerica, Envoy, ActaMed, OnHealth, Medscape, Physicians Online, Subimo, eMedicine, WellMed."
The following healthcare IT vendors and providers were named winners of the 2007 TEPR Award winners at the TEPR trade show in Dallas:
Continuity of Care Awards for Implementers
- New Orleans Health Department
- Pediatric Health Care at Newton-Wellesley, Newton, Mass.
- Northern Illinois Physicians for Connectivity, Glen Elyn,
Ill. and Yuil Medical Center, Lawrence, Mass. (tie)
- e-MDs and Medical Communication Systems (tie)
- Solventus
- Allscripts
- PatientKeeper
- Medical Communication Systems
- eMDs
- Purkinje
- Misys Healthcare Systems
- Allscripts
- CapMed
- Waiting Room Solutions
- Medical Communication Systems
- Medical Communication Systems
- BlueWare
- e-MedRec by Holt Systems
- Phytel
- Sage Software
comments (6)
1. Biff left...
05/24/2007 9:08 pm
Could not agree more on the HIMSS comments. Annual meeting all about
delivering to the vendors eyeballs, HIMSS Analytics about selling hospitals
information to vendors and making money. Leiber is a smart guy and I
assume he does what his board tells him to, they should tell him to stop!
2. RonMexico left...
05/25/2007 6:47 am
re: HLTH names - there is one more to add to the list - first version they
were Healthscape - came from Netscape and founder Jim Clark who was going
to use his millions to solve the healthcare problem
3. Bored Meeting left...
05/25/2007 9:43 am
Epic was at TEPR, their booth was just in the back. I was also in a booth
at TEPR and got more visits from other vendors try to sell me their stuff
than people actually interested in my product. It also seemed a lot smaller
than last year. Personally, I think TEPR's days are numbered.
4. Jeff Arnold left...
05/25/2007 10:14 am
And what about Medcast - that's where the "Medical News" organization came
from.
5. Wompa1 left...
05/25/2007 10:34 am
Those darned taxpayers! How dare they not willingly foot the bill for IT
initiatives in a private business.
6. Jay left...
05/25/2007 11:27 am
That's one great thing about living in a democracy: you don't have to feel
patriotic if you don't want to and not have to worry about getting locked
up.
