News 09/27/06

From Anonymous: "Henry Schein acquires MicroMD? I haven't seen a press release, but the website now reflects Henry Schein Medical Systems." Link. I couldn't find a thing anywhere about an acquisition, which is odd for a publicly traded company like Schein. They used to have a UK-based practice management division, but sold that off a long time ago. They're a big drug and supply distributor with a lot of acquisitions over the years. They also have quite a few dentist's office software applications.

From Anonymous: "Re: University of Iowa. A couple of Cerner execs attended U. of Iowa and one of them's father is a bigwig there. Someone I know there said they supposedly they tried to go around the process and appeal directly to the board, not unusual for Cerner, and offered them the software for free. Supposedly Neal Patterson did a terrible executive presentation and all the docs hated him. Judy Faulkner from Epic won them over the next day, the person told me. I'm not sure the deal has been signed, though." I'll disclaim as usual that I haven't verified this information. If you can, I'm listening. I've seen no announcements, but heard more than once that Epic is in.

From Anonymous: "Re: FCG's Meditech helpdesk. I was part of the exodus Recruiter Boy mentions. FCG management is determined to force the square peg into the round hole and send as much of their outsourced clients' work as possible to India. The 'training' of Indian employees has been going on for almost 18 months now, with very limited success."

From Anonymous: "Attendance may suffer at the New Orleans venue, but have you looked at the floor plan for the exhibitor’s hall on the HIMSS07 website? All the booth space worth having is taken, so the exhibitors will be there in force!" Maybe that means those opting out are the minority of attendees, i.e. provider-siders and the occasional (rare) decisionmaker. I'll be there with daily updates, of course.

From Po Boy: "Re: General Atlantic Partners figuring out a way to combine Misys Healthcare and Eclipsys. They tried to do this with both iSoft and Eclipsys as well as Healthvision and Eclipsys and failed. Why would Misys and Eclipsys be any different?" You may be right, although Misys would have more in common with ECLP than the other two.

Idiotic lawsuit: a 16-year-old boy jaywalking in the dark, wearing dark clothes, and using headphones is struck by a schoolbus going 28 mph,well under under the legal limit. He's fine now, competing in biking marathons and teaching swimming, but his family has filed suits against the county and the school for $25 million each. Their attorney says he is "gravely injured," but makes it clear that the real objective is to settle out of court.

Fiserv makes it official: like SunGard, it doesn't want to buy Misys. The potential buyers are dropping like flies as the company tries to wait them out for a higher price. No one wants the healthcare division. If they were smart (big if) they would work a deal with John McConnell and Allscripts to take Misys Healthcare off their hands and thereby make what's left more attractive.

Picis announces eight new contracts for its perioperative suite, including some big-name ones such as Tampa General, Alta Bates, University Medical Center (Tucson,) and Novant Health. That last one was announced as the largest in Picis history.

Microsoft is gearing up to sell Azyxxi licenses and maybe develop more healthcare offerings. They hint at a medically oriented version of Office and personal health record software.

Doctors at University of Rochester Eye Institute develop new software for LASIK vision correction lasers that reduces the need for additional tune-up surgery from 8% of cases to 3%. It customizes the laser's path based on imperfections that weren't even identifiable until recently. Ever the dedicated researcher, one of the docs even did his own eyes with it.

Bring the beer and chips! They've got Meditech on the 50" plasma screen at Virginia's Culpeper Regional Hospital, where they're running a Meditech ED patient tracking application. Looks cool.

Healthphone, a 25-employee New Zealand company, signs a partnership deal with Microsoft to market its mobile data access system, which runs Office, Exchange, SharePoint, and BizTalk under the covers.

Two hospitals in Cleveland's University Hospitals go live on Soarian financials. You may recall that they just signed a big deal for Sunrise Clinical Manager, so Soarian Clinicals must not have impressed them much.

Companion Technologies announces new e-prescribing and EMR appplications for physician practices.

Interesting words from Intel Chairman Craig Barrett: "The current healthcare system is economically unsustainable and negatively impacting our nation's ability to compete globally ... we have been distracted by the debate of who pays ... Every job that can be moved out of the United States will be moved out ... because of health care costs ... The (health care) system is out of control, it's unstable, it's basically bankrupt, it gets worse each year and all we do is tinker around the edges when what we need are major fixes ... Every other industry has adopted this technology and (the health care) industry continues to sit here and debate." He says companies should give business to hospitals who use EMRs, that follow best practices, and are paid to keep people healthy.

CCHIT wants to certify interoperability of ambulatory EMRs and is asking for help from anyone who knows how to do it. They'll also certify homegrown ambulatory EMRs for some reason.

Motley Fool likes QuadraMed's stock, one of four on its list of "Promising Stocks Wall Street Ignores."

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