HIStalk Quotes
News 06/15/06
posted 06/15/2006
From IsItTrue: "Larry Ferguson named FCG CEO. Wasn't he the Saint guy?" I believe so, along with being on Daou's board, if I remember right. I don't recall having met him. What's your opinion? His deal: $463K base, $350K target bonus with some of it guaranteed, 500,000 shares, one year's guaranteed severance if not fired for cause, $3,000 a month housing allowance "to make it more convenient for him to spend time in FCG's corporate offices," and two years' salary as a lump sum on change of control. He'd better be a Saint to be worth that much money to a company unaccustomed to making any of it. On the other hand, if he can right that troubled ship before its tail goes underwater for good, he'll have earned it, I guess.
No surprise: Jim Crook didn't last long after GE bought IDX. Here's his parting e-mail to customers, sent Tuesday: "Dear Customer: Last September, I communicated the strategic value of the IDX/GE partnership and the importance of IDX and GE executing on our plan to integrate the two organizations. Providing a seamless transition for our customers was the critical component to calling our union a success. I am pleased to report that the integration work has progressed on schedule and is nearing completion. My role has been to remain engaged with IDX customers during this period and help out where appropriate. As the saying goes "my work here is done" and, at the end of the month, I will move on to other opportunities in the Burlington, VT area. I hope our paths cross again. It has been my privilege to work closely with so many of you during the last 25 years. Thank you for your support of IDX and now GE. You are in good hands! Jim."
From The Pacs Designer: "Philips Buys Intermagnetics General. Philips announced today that they will acquire their main MRI supplier for $1.3 billion. The advances to come in reduced size MRI systems will only further the spread of MRI to smaller diagnostic areas of the body." Link.
From Anonymous: "MISYS replaced Scott Sanner with by Kelley Schudy as VP of Sales for the physician market. Good move for MISYS, as rumor had it that they missed sales numbers big due to lack of EMR sales. how long will Skelton last as CEO? Will MISYS sell off Healthcare division, or at least the physician portion?"
From pokeMAR: "Re: Epic and UK. Judy has told the Accenture team that Epic will not work through them. Says if Epic goes for the UK, it will be directly with NHS. Though there was quite a flurry of phone calls by Accenture staff, they don't think NHS is willing to work with Judy directly." I'm guessing that's just one way of saying "pass," since Accenture has the contract that Epic would have to work under as a sub. For now, anyway, unless they or NHS decide to pull the plug due to Accenture's problems and massive losses on the project. Wouldn't surprise me.
From BaylorNites: "Correction to Post on Baylor's Kiosk Project (NCR/Galvanon.) The comment was incorrectly made that Phoenix is suggesting build, not buy. The opposite is true. They are on the vendor bandwagon."
From Anonymous: "Not sure you'll find this interesting, but I'll let you decide. I see a lot of talk about posting quality data on line. This might be an interesting example." Link. This is HESonline, which has downloadable data from NHS hospitals in the UK.
Some UK government officials want to block BT's rumored interest in replacing GE/IDX with Cerner over concerns that Cerner is having its own problems with on-time delivery there. "The evidence appears to be that they are about to, or at least appear to be about to, replace a supplier with a patchy track record with another with a patchy track record. Given the performance of Cerner so far in the South of England, it seems rather hasty to appoint the company as the main software subcontractor for the NHS IT programme in London.”
VisualMED will offer mTuitive's xPert for Pathology as part of its oncology application. Pathologists will interact with mTuitive's application, which will provide clinical decision support and deliver structured information to VisualMED's chemotherapy protocol manager.
HIStalk CIO Field Report
- Hospital type: Community, Multiple Hospital Group, <200 Beds, Midwest.
- IT Operating Budget: <$2 million.
- Most important IT projects underway: Full MEDITECH implementation, Fuji PACS, VISICU.
- Systems you’ll be buying within the next three years: MS Exchange, single sign-on.
- Best application vendors: MEDITECH, HTI, Stolas.
- Worst application vendors: SSI, Cerner, McKesson.
- Hottest IT skills in the market: SQL database and SQL report writers.
- Hottest people in the HIT industry: Network Security Admin.
- Trends really heating up: Wireless anything.
My editorial in this week's Inside Healthcare Computing electronic update is "Vendors Seek to Diversify As the Hospital Systems Market Matures." Do you agree with my conclusions? If not, tell me yours.
Cerner will buy Galt Associates, with plans to connect that company's clinical trials surveillance and safety data to Cerner's Health Facts community data warehouse.
SoftMed will use Boston Software's scripting technology to enhance its single sign-on and context-sharing capabilities.
North Shore Medical Center of Massachusetts signs for QuadraMed's TempusOne enterprise scheduling system.
VPN vendor MedLink will acquire Anywhere MD, one of few remaining dinosaurs still making PDA-only software (but not any money, of course.) Search for them on Google and their page description comes up "SWISH movie - www.swishzone.com" for those fascinated by their gratuitous Flash intro made by the under-$200 Flash-alternative Swish whose name they forgot to remove from the page. While most of you were slobbering at the wonderfulness of those cute little PDA apps back in 2003, I said: "Does anyone still think they'll make a lot of money selling PDA software?" I was pretty caustic on the announcement of a "merger" of two such companies that were mostly just an expensive hobby for late-to-the-party dotcommers. By the way, the "acquiring" giant in that article has gone under, apparently, as their domain is up for sale (shocking, I know.) You laugh now, but I bet you spent time in all of their booths that one year at HIMSS when teenager-run PDA startups dominated before being mercifully vaporized in a massive fireball of reality.
I posted an article comment yesterday that iSoft Tim Whiston finally got the boot. They're toast. Fire sale time. Pungent commentary from across the pond: "Readers concerned that the abrupt defenestration of Tim Whiston, the iSoft chief executive, after last Friday’s profit warning might impinge too harshly on his lifestyle can take comfort from the news that his termination package means that he will continue to enjoy his existing benefits. Those benefits, piquantly, include private medical insurance. This means that he will not, for the next year at least, be thrown on the mercies of the NHS, nor yet on its catastrophic attempt to computerise patients’ health records, iSoft’s involvement in which is the reason for his departure." He and the founders managed to unload a ton of shares before the bad headlines started.
Businesses are falling all over themselves to strike deals with Arab countries that are now even richer due to that $3 a gallon gas you're buying. Among them: UPMC, which will pocket $100 million over 4 1/2 years for helping Qatar with its emergency medical system. They'll share their alleged expertise in electronic medical records, which would make Qatar a logical candidate since UPMC's way takes a lot of money.
I'm beginning to warm up slightly to Congressboy Pat Kennedy, who pleads guilty to DUI (drugs, not alcohol) and gets a year's probation. He almost seems genuinely troubled and trying to straighten out, kind of like those of us not born into America's tawdry version of royalty.
A $50,000 reward is offered for the VA's stolen HP laptop and external drive that were loaded with personal information on millions of veterans. I'd give it about a week and then add another zero or two.
CIO Will Weider left an interesting comment on announcements made by South Florida Baptist Hospital after a patient died there of a medication error. The hospital quickly announced responsibility, which is good, but them promptly hung the L&D nurse out to dry. They've put her on leave pending an investigation, announcing "We want our community assured this was a one-time incident." I guess all that "non-punitive culture" and "system failure" stuff doesn't hold water when you get a PR flack in front of hostile press - it was just that one bad-egg nurse trying to kill off patients with her stupidity, right? If I were a nurse there, I'd quit immediately since the idiots in charge will obviously say anything to save their own skins. I bet I could spend an hour there and find at least three other people and ten other processes that failed that patient, all merrily unchanged despite the impending exodus of the unfortunate nurse. Do they have smart pumps? Do they use CPOE in L&D? Were drug references available? Was the dose sent by pharmacy after the order was checked for appropriateness? Was the bag labeled correctly? What's the double-check process on dangerous drugs? If a 20-year OB-GYN nurse can make that mistake, so can anyone else working there.
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