HIStalk Quotes
News 09/08/06
posted 09/07/2006
From A Little Birdie: "Interesting you mentioned the future sale of Misys and McKesson's deep pockets on the same day. Rumor is that McKesson is the primary suitor for Misys Healthcare Systems. Not sure about the rest of Misys." Now that's interesting and a well-kept secret if true. If anyone knows more, I'm all ears. Certainly the displaced Misys siblings would be right at home with the gaggle of adopted children already living in the McKesson household. In other speculation, some folks are floating the idea that Merge Healthcare, now at least somewhat out of the woods, may have brought in Ken Rardin as CEO just to shop the company around, with one version of the story suggesting that perhaps Cerner would be interested. Pure speculation, at least until I hear more.
From Right to Work: "RE: Epic blacklisting Philips' employees. It is sad to see that after all of the posturing that Epic made about their culture and their support of their employees, that they are using unfair labor tactics to hurt people that are getting laid off. Shows true colors, if you ask me." I know I have some Epic readers, some of them all the way up if you know what I mean, so I invite them to e-mail me with their side of the story. We've heard only one.
From Anonymous: "I agree that Krebs and Newman are good as our some of the other key execs under Neal. Maybe you should run a contest to rate the top execs (other than the CEOs) of the major companies. You mentioned the #2 at Epic awhile back. It would be interesting to see who the industry thinks are the best and brightest." Another great idea! Excluding CEOs, what vendor executive do you think is best in the industry, i.e. would make great CEO now or in the very near future? E-mail me the name and company affiliation of your #1 person and we'll take a vote (or, use the Rumor Report form if you'd rather.) This would be another HIStalk first, and fun one at that. Maybe I can get the winner to write up an acceptance speech or something.
From Anonymous: "Your blog gets better and more relevant with age. What's amazing is that you seem to be very balanced re: the vendors, the competency of IT depts, etc. I don't see many agendas other than making lots of good information available. I see a lot of filtering too - there must be a ton of junk messages where there REALLY is an agenda from the sender. One suggestion: keep tabs on all the year-to-date wins of open bid deals by the major vendors in the major categories, like the baseball standings. This would make your blog extremely sticky - how many of us flash up our favorite browser page to check the latest stock prices, sports standings, etc.?" I really don't have an agenda, other than to keep people informed and entertained so they keep coming back for more. If I fail, I lose readers, so it's Darwinism at its best. I do filter out a fair amount of stuff that's either not newsworthy or not interesting to the typical HIStalk reader. I keep it short, focused, and easy to read. I have no incentive to pad stories or run junk just so I can get away with writing fewer of them, and my ultimate benchmark is to challenge readers: how many items that were personally valuable to you came from HIStalk (either exclusively or first) as opposed to some other source? I like the "vendor wins" scoreboard idea, but not being sales-oriented, I have a question: will I see press releases on all of them so I can keep track? Or is there another way to get this info? I'll definitely do it if I can get more than partial information. We like being sticky here at HIStalk.
Of course, I could specialize in "aren't we witty and wacky" puns like over at Health Data Management. I don't read it except to see how much earlier and better I get the same news out, but it's hard to miss this knee-slapper: "Affinity Has an Affinity for PACS." Are they aiming for the 14-year-old audience, or have they hired one to write headlines?
From Anonymous: "You said you were glad Cerner didn't sponsor since you'd need a new target. Does buying sponsorship immune one from slings and arrows, be they blunted or honed?" I have four kinds of information here: (a) news; (b) rumors; (c) reader comments; and (d) smart-ass comments and sophomoric humor. Sponsorship doesn't influence (a), (b), or (c), but I would probably tone it down on (d). Would I keep sniggering away publicly on the "tick tock" e-mail five years after it was written if Cerner sponsored? Maybe not. It wouldn't change the value (or values) of HIStalk. The good news is that they didn't sponsor and, even if they had, it's a target-rich environment out there for pithy asides. I think sponsors will always be self-selecting; i.e., those I annoy constantly surely won't plunk down money on the off chance I'll shut up because of it.
From Chris: "Interesting stuff regarding
the informatics/analyst naming debate. Wonder what Scot Silverstein
would call a clinician (non-nursing) working in his Nurse Analyst
position? I know of more than a few Respiratory Therapists, Lab Techs,
etc. doing just that and have no problems understanding the
nurse’s work-flow or mind-set and translating that to the IT
world. Perhaps the 'Analyst' or 'Informatics' positions out there are
really quite hybrid at this time. If the clinical individual is so
inclined, they can be taught any needed IT skills on the job (or obtain
formal education), while a non-clinician (IT background only) can be
taught (if so inclined) what they need to know regarding certain
clinical work-flows. It seems like it takes more than either skill set
(or a title, heaven forbid) to be good at that type of job."
Scot did have a little more to say on the subject: "The statement that informaticists are 'trying to straddle two separate worlds which don't require straddling" reflects a limited, fish-eye, extremist, counterproductive, my territory-or-death view common in unidisciplinary personnel (especially in a time of job instability and outsourcing), and is unfortunately at the root of health IT failure. Unidisciplinary IT personnel have scant expertise on which to base an opinion about the needs of clinical medicine and clinical computing. Indeed, as I have written, clinical IT development and implementation must be viewed as complex social-medical projects that happen to involve computers, not as IT projects that happen to involve clinicians in order for optimal success to be achieved. It is exactly the 'straddling of two worlds' that is an essential role for the clinical IT leadership. See my healthcare IT failure site for examples of what happens with - and without - such straddling." Link.
I already reported it here, but it's official: Sharp HealthCare has signed with Cerner to replace GE/IDX. More from HITman: "I just talked to my contacts at CliniComp. Currently, CliniComp is still in the mix. CliniComp recently implemented the latest release and installed at the Coronado location. Clinicians do not want to dump CliniComp charting." The other unknown is whether Allscripts will be affected by the change.
CIO Field Report
As rumored here two weeks before it happened, former IMNET founder Ken Rardin gets the CEO job at Merge Healthcare. The company got current and avoided delisting by filing its Q2 report this week. During that quarter, the company lost $216 million, most of it due to writing off goodwill from previous acquisitions related to their restatements. Merge also announced two new board members, adopted a poison pill provision, and initiated a stock buyback program to stave off any unsolicited takeover. Ken's deal: $425K a year, options for 450,000 shares, up to 70% annual bonus with 50% guaranteed the first year, commuting expenses, and change-of-control perks like immediate option vesting and 2x annual salary.
Galvanon will use Boston Software's scripting tool to interface its MediKiosk to the back-end ADT systems of customers.
Orion Health's Rhapsody integration engine plows through 1.36 million HL7 transactions per hour in benchmark tests.
Former Newton-Wellesley Hospital CIO Margaret Thomas joins Sentillion as VP of services.
Idiotic lawsuit of the week: a New York man who traveled to Thailand for cheap dental work is suing a dentist who dropped a screw and dental implant down his throat during a root canal. The man claimed he spent $6,600 to get the root canal finished stateside. He's suing for $267,000.
You may remember Dr. Philip Chen, an occasional HIMSS speaker who founded Orlando-based Cognoscenti Health Institute, a progressive lab company using technology to deliver evidence-based medicine along with lab results to office-based physicians. He's sold the company to Australia's Sonic Healthcare. He'll be VP and Chief Medical Informatics Officer for the company's Clinical Pathology Laboratories subsidiary.
Rich Grehalva is named VP at Medseek. His previous work: The Process of Connecting the Dots and Winning Customers for Life®, Unleashing the Power of Consultative Selling, and Take 2 Clicks and Call Me in the Morning -The Emergence of the Healthcare Knowledge Exchange in the 21st Century. He peddles his stuff here. Here's a pearl he gives away: "Attitudes, Beliefs, Communications: The ABC'S of Success. If you can see it, if you can believe it, you can achieve it." I'd be afraid to get too close too him because, as a life-long cynic, our union of matter and anti-matter might wipe out a good-sized city. I bet he works his free hand while shaking yours, either locking onto your wrist or squeezing your shoulder in that manner peculiar to glad-handing sales guys.
The General Accounting Office says HHS and ONCHIT have made progress in preparing the country for widespread electronic medical records by 2014, but need to develop more concrete plans and timelines.
I don't get this article from a Regenstrief guy: one patient got the wrong wristband and was almost given an inappropriate med, therefore bedside bar-coding is bad technology that requires extensive critical examination. "the available evidence contradicts the frothy hype for rushing to implement these systems today." I had a bag of Cheetos that didn't ring up the sale price at a Food Lion once, so I suggest we go back to manual cash registers while we convene academics to study the matter for a few years.
Mediware reports FY06 numbers: revenue up slightly, EPS was down.
Your comments and story ideas are always welcome. E-mail me, or use the anonymous Rumor Report to your right like all the Russian spammers, whose constant Rumor Report postings fill my inbox with offers for phentermine and ringtones.
Scot did have a little more to say on the subject: "The statement that informaticists are 'trying to straddle two separate worlds which don't require straddling" reflects a limited, fish-eye, extremist, counterproductive, my territory-or-death view common in unidisciplinary personnel (especially in a time of job instability and outsourcing), and is unfortunately at the root of health IT failure. Unidisciplinary IT personnel have scant expertise on which to base an opinion about the needs of clinical medicine and clinical computing. Indeed, as I have written, clinical IT development and implementation must be viewed as complex social-medical projects that happen to involve computers, not as IT projects that happen to involve clinicians in order for optimal success to be achieved. It is exactly the 'straddling of two worlds' that is an essential role for the clinical IT leadership. See my healthcare IT failure site for examples of what happens with - and without - such straddling." Link.
I already reported it here, but it's official: Sharp HealthCare has signed with Cerner to replace GE/IDX. More from HITman: "I just talked to my contacts at CliniComp. Currently, CliniComp is still in the mix. CliniComp recently implemented the latest release and installed at the Coronado location. Clinicians do not want to dump CliniComp charting." The other unknown is whether Allscripts will be affected by the change.
CIO Field Report
- Hospital type: Community, Multiple Hospital Group, <200 Beds, Midwest.
- IT Operating Budget: $2-5 million.
- Most important IT projects now underway: Document imaging, building a new inpatient facility, progress toward an EMR, physician education on ambulatory EMR, wireless.
- Systems you'll buy within the next three years: Cardiology PACs, single sign on, best practice order sets, physician portal, CPOE, interfaces for integration of clinical modalities.
- Best application vendors: MedHost, Amicas, Meditech.
- Worst application vendors: I'm not sure we have anyone that bad. They all have their issues from time to time.
- Hottest IT skills in the market: Database analyst.
- Hottest people in the HIT industry: Folks working on LEAN and process change.
- Trends really heating up: Position of CMIO, RFID asset tracking.
As rumored here two weeks before it happened, former IMNET founder Ken Rardin gets the CEO job at Merge Healthcare. The company got current and avoided delisting by filing its Q2 report this week. During that quarter, the company lost $216 million, most of it due to writing off goodwill from previous acquisitions related to their restatements. Merge also announced two new board members, adopted a poison pill provision, and initiated a stock buyback program to stave off any unsolicited takeover. Ken's deal: $425K a year, options for 450,000 shares, up to 70% annual bonus with 50% guaranteed the first year, commuting expenses, and change-of-control perks like immediate option vesting and 2x annual salary.
Galvanon will use Boston Software's scripting tool to interface its MediKiosk to the back-end ADT systems of customers.
Orion Health's Rhapsody integration engine plows through 1.36 million HL7 transactions per hour in benchmark tests.
Former Newton-Wellesley Hospital CIO Margaret Thomas joins Sentillion as VP of services.
Idiotic lawsuit of the week: a New York man who traveled to Thailand for cheap dental work is suing a dentist who dropped a screw and dental implant down his throat during a root canal. The man claimed he spent $6,600 to get the root canal finished stateside. He's suing for $267,000.
You may remember Dr. Philip Chen, an occasional HIMSS speaker who founded Orlando-based Cognoscenti Health Institute, a progressive lab company using technology to deliver evidence-based medicine along with lab results to office-based physicians. He's sold the company to Australia's Sonic Healthcare. He'll be VP and Chief Medical Informatics Officer for the company's Clinical Pathology Laboratories subsidiary.
Rich Grehalva is named VP at Medseek. His previous work: The Process of Connecting the Dots and Winning Customers for Life®, Unleashing the Power of Consultative Selling, and Take 2 Clicks and Call Me in the Morning -The Emergence of the Healthcare Knowledge Exchange in the 21st Century. He peddles his stuff here. Here's a pearl he gives away: "Attitudes, Beliefs, Communications: The ABC'S of Success. If you can see it, if you can believe it, you can achieve it." I'd be afraid to get too close too him because, as a life-long cynic, our union of matter and anti-matter might wipe out a good-sized city. I bet he works his free hand while shaking yours, either locking onto your wrist or squeezing your shoulder in that manner peculiar to glad-handing sales guys.
The General Accounting Office says HHS and ONCHIT have made progress in preparing the country for widespread electronic medical records by 2014, but need to develop more concrete plans and timelines.
I don't get this article from a Regenstrief guy: one patient got the wrong wristband and was almost given an inappropriate med, therefore bedside bar-coding is bad technology that requires extensive critical examination. "the available evidence contradicts the frothy hype for rushing to implement these systems today." I had a bag of Cheetos that didn't ring up the sale price at a Food Lion once, so I suggest we go back to manual cash registers while we convene academics to study the matter for a few years.
Mediware reports FY06 numbers: revenue up slightly, EPS was down.
Your comments and story ideas are always welcome. E-mail me, or use the anonymous Rumor Report to your right like all the Russian spammers, whose constant Rumor Report postings fill my inbox with offers for phentermine and ringtones.
comments (2)
1. Misicu left...
09/08/2006 8:09 am
This was bound to happen - expect more.
2. Rich Grehalva left...
09/09/2006 3:55 pm
I read your comments about me and since we have not met. It appears you are
fairly bold about what I do.
In my book, trainings and my web site I stress that "Sales people do not
sell" I believe "What is the point of selling solutions , if you do not
know what the problem is or the results a cusotmer wants?"
I volutnteer my services for free to a number of groups as a speaker or
retreat leader in helping people to increase their personal and
professional effectiveness.
Perhaps we should meet or talk before you judge me.
