News 09/07/05

From Thought-Leader to Be: "You had requested information on how to become a thought-leader. Your recent interview with Kevin Fickenscher should have provided you with all the evidence you need. A quick look at his resume reveals numerous committee memberships, government panels, publications and presentations. Little experience in delivering actual results, profits or other 'business' measures but plenty of exposure is key to being a thought-leader (and a great job title like EVP of Healthcare Transformation)." I'll agree with the "plenty of exposure" part, although I think Kevin had some pretty major responsibilities and accomplishments before landing at Perot. You are right that you have to travel in the right circles, work at the right kind of company, and have the right kind of job to be on the A-list of the various committees, government panels, and nonprofits that do a lot of the decision-making (I'm thinking this anonymous blogging thing isn't going to do it for me.) I'm amazed that people (mostly academics, I'm not talking about Kevin now) can simultaneously hold a handful of university titles, plus run their own companies on the side, plus serve on boards, and be on all these committees, all in the same 24-hour day the rest of us rush through. Either they're a lot higher bandwidth than I am (very possible) or it doesn't take as much time as it sounds. All I know is that one job plus writing HIStalk takes all the time I've got and then some. But, I'm not all that motivated.

From Charles in Iowa: "Found this site today. Love it! Question: Does anyone know if/when CPSI (Mobile, AL) is rewriting their system from Cobol ? Just cuious, I heard that they might be." OK, intrepid sleuths and industry experts, please help me out since I don't know much about CPSI.

New postings on the Jobs Board. NewBold is looking for a regional sales executive and a sales rep. Medsphere's got some really juicy jobs as Marlene McCurdy and Frank Pecaitis build their teams ... Director of Education, Director of Support, and Regional Sales Director. If you pursue these, would you mind letting them know you heard about them on HIStalk? Not that it matters or that it gets me anything, but I like to know that someone is reading out there.

Interesting New Orleans speculation (non-provocative this time): was all the rioting, looting, and violence due to desperate drug addicts who were unable to get a fix in all the mayhem? I saw that quote from someone in New Orleans, although it wasn't featured prominently because of what I assume would be cries of racism. It makes sense, though. Would you want to be stuck in a room (even a big one) with hardcore dopers going into withdrawal?

Speaking of national disasters and disgraceful conditions, LA County will pony up $63 million to try to make MLK/Drew Medical Center less of a patient-endangering dump. "King-Drew, a county-run hospital built in the wake of the 1965 Watts riots, serves the mainly poor black and Hispanic areas of Watts and Willowbrook. In recent years it has endured severe problems, including mismanagement and patient deaths blamed on poor nursing. It has lost its national accreditation and has more than 50 vacant staff positions." Do what other hospitals do ... fix up the front entrance, improve the parking, and hang art in the lobby. Patients will automatically assume you know what you're doing. Or, even better, spend the money on buses that can transport patients to somewhere safe.

Odd hospital lawsuit of the week: LA County (them again) will pay $199,000 for delaying surgery (back in 1993) on a 20-year old women with head pain. She died from brain swelling caused by pork tapeworm infestation. I thought that was an old problem long since solved by hog farmers. I'll just put this pork carpaccio away for now (and give a knowing look to all you trend-following sushi eaters unaware of the disturbing parasites that live on the decomposing fish you're about to eat uncooked.)

I could never figure out why hospitals don't do background checks on employees (at least none of the ones I've worked for ever did.) Case in point: the new head of security at Florida's Health Central Hospital was found by the local TV station to be a twice-convicted felon. "Wednesday, Peters examined the paperwork that 9 Investigates uncovered, court records that showed his history of stealing over and over again. You're now in charge of making sure people don't steal from this area, and you've twice been in trouble for stealing," 9 Investigates reporter Josh Wilson said to Peters."I've been cleared of all of that. I've done all that I need to do," Peters replied. "You weren't cleared. You were convicted," Wilson said. "Yeah," Peters replied." Smoove.

Big QuadraMed news today (thanks for the anonymous reader tip.) Larry English is out as CEO on 12/31, former CompuCare CTO Keith Hagen will assume the President and CEO titles, and Robert Pevenstein will become Non-Executive Chairman of the Board. Hagen's only 42, having risen through the ranks from CompuCare programmer, spending time along the way at Sunquest/Misys and their M. Transaction Services subsidiary. Larry will stay on the board as a director.

Cerner's stock hit another 52-week high today after their cut of the NHS's Southern Cluster contract is estimated at just under $500 million. The value of Neal's stock today: just over $246 million, with Cliff's pile only slightly less altitudinous. I'm sure both appreciate the monumental screw-up by IDX that landed this business right in their laps after CERN missed out on the original bidding.

VISICU names former McKesson VP Vincent Estrada as SVP/CFO.

Agfa will supply PACS for the NHS as a subcontractor to Accenture, following an unsuccessful legal challenge by spurned bidder Fujitsu. Said no-nonsense chief Richard Granger, "I was disappointed that delay was inflicted on the NHS and our patients by the failed legal challenge. But I was delighted that the judge held that there had been a correct and high quality procurement process." You may recall that he earlier threatened to write his own PACS system if vendors didn't come down on price.

SKIPPPPERRRRRR ... Bob Denver tribute trivia question: what was Gilligan's first name, at least by some accounts since it was never mentioned on the air?

Guess whose medical records are probably gone forever? Everybody's in Hurricane Katrina's path other than Ochsner's and Kindred's patients, apparently, since few hospitals and physician offices in that part of the country (or any other, for that matter) were electronic. Of all the reasons for EMRs, this may be the best one yet. The headlines are prominently mentioning that fact, so the EMR vendors ought to be jumping up and down at the likely demand to follow. "Many health-care facilities in New Orleans have undoubtedly lost hundreds of thousands, or perhaps millions, of paper medical records in the hurricane and floods. Kindred stores E-medical records locally, but also duplicates them on a central server and backup systems off site. This has allowed Kindred to electronically send copies of evacuated patients' records to other Kindred facilities to which they were moved. In cases where patients were evacuated to a non-Kindred facility, Kindred was able to print out the records and ship them overnight, Chapman says." The paper-based facilities look like Luddite idiots, I think you'll agree. That sound you heard was the provider competitive bar being raised.

No backups, no copies, no way to reconstruct them. What do you suppose will happen to hospitals undergoing lawsuits when they can't produce any records of treatment? If I was an unscrupulous lawyer (pardon the redundancy) I'd be grabbing everyone ever treated by a hospital or doctor and urging them to litigate, knowing they might have to settle meekly and bow down before me.

CIO Salary of the Week: North Broward Hospital District, Fort Lauderdale, FL: $210,432. HIStalk CIO Enrichment Index: 20.

I thought the story on the Duke students who made their way to Morial Convention Center despite FEMA's inability to do so was interesting, so I used CNN's "news tip" form on Monday to tell them about it (with a link to the Durham, NC paper that ran the story.) I noticed that CNN.com's lead video was to an interview with the students, which was interesting. I don't know if my tip was how they found it, but I like to think it was.

Johns Hopkins says its monster SAP implementation, named HopkinsOne by them, will replace 37 systems and interface with 150 others by the middle of next year. Sounds like a mess either way. The press release points to the project's public web site, although the most prominent links don't work. Their project newsletter is darned good and refreshingly honest: "“Every project like this encounters resistance to change,” says HopkinsOne Executive Director Steve Golding, “but I have to admit that, at first, we were somewhat surprised by the intensity of that resistance. However, in the last couple of months, we’ve noticed a gradual shift to a more accepting attitude. There will always be process-related issues to work through, but overall, it’s like the logjam has broken loose.” If they pull this off, they'll be one of few companies in any industry to implement ERP (and SAP in particular) without nearly killing the business in the process (and they'll be a heck of an SAP site visit.)

News, rumors, ideas: e-mail me.

Stock message board posts:

Cerner
"yes, if you are kc based and not looking to move, and you could not get an offer from sprint or other big names, heck, go ahead. 3 of us from big name midwest schools took up the offer as we could not get other offers, 2 already left before 1st year was up and the me the 3rd, just waiting on greener pastures to show up. from what I hear, during the dip in the late 2002s they hired big from big name schools, and most of them left as soon as they found another job. pay and raise: I got a pretty decent offer salary, near close to market. raises are a different story, the good old bell curve is used an excuse. here is my algorithm for accepting a cerner offer. if this is your only offer, take it and keep applying for other jobs outside. oh yeah don't forget to cross out the "Non Complete Clause" before you sign and accept the offer. if you are in CA then don't worry about it."

"Short Squeeze it is Dude !!! 19 mil short in August will take a long time for them to buy it back 4-6K a day volume."