News 10/18/05

From Gartner and Pissed: "8:30 update. I'm sitting here listening to the Gartner keynote kickoff and have almost fallen asleep due to all the buzzwords. They must have said the words BLOGS twenty times in the last 20 minutes. I'm increasingly bothered that Healthcare NEVER gets play in any keynote and in my quick glance in the sessions there is only 1 specific healthcare session. Not that Gartner Conf is useless but I wonder if these analysts realize that almost every issue they say retail and banking are going to look out for Healthcare has already dealt with or is currently dealing with??? More later." I guess that means they didn't mention HIStalk specifically in all that blog name-dropping.

From HIT Pundit: "I am sick of HIMSS too! Not only the HIMSS cost, but the crooks that run the show - GES Expo or something like that. I think we can have our own show, LOST@HIMSS, and use some of the mega booths as obstacle courses and clues for the real answer to our challenges. How many booth babes, jugglers, card players, guitarists, and presentations can one absorb in 3 days. I think everyone goes to HIMSS because we are like walking zombies, just looking for life in the HIT world. Just because you are at HIMSS does not make you a player in the HIT world, but if you are not there, you are not a player!! Sign me, just sailing in San Diego."

I'm thinking about writing an article or two on how sales works from the vendor side (tactics, how to judge prospects, what you don't respect about certain customer behaviors, etc.) If you're a sales guy who's been around and are willing to share a few practices anonymously, let me know. Thanks.

Anonymous Reader sent over a Modern Physician article on the role of the Chief Medical Officer in hospitals. At Tucson Medical Center, the CIO reports to the CMO, who oversees clinical IT projects and strategic planning. Says the CMO, Richard Rodriguez: "In southern Arizona, it's hard to attract and retain physicians. We wine them and dine them, help pay for moving, help them set up their practices and market their services. If I weren't here, they'd go to Colorado or California." The article says CMOs are getting bigger raises and more responsibility than CIOs.

Anonymous Reader II asks about KLAS: "I am trying to understand the logic of the KLAS company and I am confused. Given the appearance of importance my upper management is placing on this, they skim through and say 'here are the top vendors'" according to KLAS. I know what their site says, but can YOUR readers provide direct insight BOTH from the vendor side and from the Facility IT side. How are their test scores computed? Are products tested? Do vendors pay or advertise? How does this ranking come to be? I am also seeing companies ranked top one year and not the next. Products in my previous industry took years to change... I assume this is not the case in HIS?" KLAS is a survey company, basically, paid mostly by vendors who buy reports at full price and pay to use the results in advertising (or so I assume, anyway.) A few hospitals subscribe, but only because they get heavy discounts for answering KLAS surveys. KLAS does not perform product testing. They do not release information on which hospitals they survey, how many surveys were completed, who they talked to, or what statistical manipulation they used to leap to a particular conclusion. They talk to the users of software, but you can't find out what role those folks hold, how big their facility is, how long they've been live, what version of software they're on, how long ago they were surveyed, etc. KLAS tries to convince everyone that movement up or down the rankings is due to their keenly tuned detection of trends, but it's more a function of sloppy methodology and statistical stretching. On the other hand, they often arrive at conclusions that reflect the market in general, though I certainly wouldn't buy a product on that basis alone. Use KLAS to confirm what you suspect, to focus your evaluation process, to get contractual protection against apparent weaknesseses, and to read what other customers say about your vendors. Personally, I find little disagreement with the 1-2 products at the top and bottom of a category, but any attempt to compare the middle of the pack to one another is generally unsatisfying. Faults aside, I've found KLAS to be a heck of a lot better for healthcare IT evaluation than competitor MD-Buyline, which is a waste of money (in my personal experience.) If you have a comment on KLAS, send me an e-mail or use the Rumor Report form to your right.

From Analyze This: "No vendor, you are not alone in the desire to ditch HIMSS. The wannabe 'ITpalooza' has fallen sorely to the unproductive side. I think HIMSS is more valauble to the companies in that their legions of sales people can get together for sales meetings before and after the show than for actual payoff of new business. The niche shows are the way to go if your comapny is in departmental applications. As for overall HIMSS, the only people making money are the trade unions, the salary takers at HIMSS and the strip bars. I have heard from our marketing department that we are about to bail out for the coming years. Like Siemens, we will lose any monies put forth should we bail out for San Diego, but we are done with wasted marketing budgets on HIMSS. Our company has spent hundreds of thousands with next to nothing when it comes to ROI. HIMSS may put up a big fuss when it comes to vendors that try and do their own thing (proposal of renting something nearby), but they cannot stop you. The only problem is that your direct competitors will claim to potential customers that you are not 'financially viable enough to even attend the show' which will cause perception problems for your company, so best not to go at all or send our some massive awareness campaign for a tenth of the cost a week after the show. My suggestion is to use the money you would spend on HIMSS to hire another sales person that will hit the streets for 365 days instead of the 3-4 days of lottery chances for business that HIMSS delivers." I really don't understand why the non-competing smaller vendors (which is most of them) don't band together, rent space somewhere, stockpile drinks and food, and invite prospects (either before or during HIMSS) to ride over on a bus, have a good time, and check out product. You probably couldn't get attendees at night (too many big-ticket social events) but maybe one day at noon or something when people are starving and tired of overpriced concessionaire junk food eaten standing up due to lack of chairs. I'd hire those strippers, too. Yes, HIMSS would be steamed at drawing people away from the booths (primarily) and educational sessions (secondarily,) but they can't sequester attendees.

From Anonymous Reader III: "If you are speaking of the GE's of the world that are out acquiring and killing the best of breeds, that is exactly what they are doing. Hospitals are unlikely to kill existing contracts no matter how bad the service gets when these new parent companies chop up their new pieces of the puzzle. That is why there will always be a best of breed market. Fact is that hospitals are as slow to deinstall as they are to install. Acquiriers want the real estate. Upper management at these Acquiring companies know that, so first thing on the list is to chop chop chop and deliver to the back office proof that a particular acquisition was a good decision. There was recently on HIStalk commentary about IPath. Where is it today? I think you will be hearing similar things in the HIS market regarding IDX in the next year. GE does a great job at going after the #1 and #2 in every other industry they are in WITH THE EXCEPTION OF HEALTHCARE IT. They have the ability to grab Cerner, Eclipsys, even make a bid for the rumored Siemens spin off. But IDX??? SO I think many expect the same operations outcome as they have had in the past with GE HIS acquisitions. But then again, from the Wall Street side they are doing it right. The numbers are up (again)."

For those who have e-mailed asking: no, I don't know who the new Eclipsys CEO is. If you do, please tell me.

I almost forgot a suggestion from a reader a few weeks back. He asked that I consider collecting reader ideas in the "hospital software products we need most" category. If you're on the provider side, what software applications do you need, either because none exist or because the current ones aren't very good?

I added a link under the Articles by Category menu option to your left to CIO Salaries, which I've placed into a table. I'll try to keep this up to date as I add new ones. I starting running these a long time ago just because I found it entertaining, but you'd be surprised who e-mails questions or who is amused that I've just broadcast their pay to the world (no one's complained so far, anyway.)

Cerner stock hit a 52-week high today on news that it bagged a four-hospital deal in France, extending its global reach beyond recent UK successes.

Speaking of Cerner, Flagstaff Medical Center's board chair says their Millennium implementation was harder on nurses than they expected. "We knew it would be a stress on the nursing staff, and it still is a stress on them."

Matthew Holt makes an outstanding point about something you've no doubt observed but never thought much about: "Monday crack of dawn saw me heading of to San Diego to sit in a room with thousands of (almost all female) hospital coders at the American Health Information Management Association conference. You know the reality of "information" in health care when you figure out that this conference is not about the $25-30 billion spent on hospital IT systems, it's about the $25-40 billion spent on transcription and coding, and up coding, down-coding and paper records management. This ugly step-sister of the EMR hype is still there and not going no-place any time soon." That's my assessment of AHIMA: local women whose job is handling doctors and their paper emissions, trying to get them to sign their work, coaxing them to stop using banned abbreviations, and expertly transcribing their terse, accented medical dictation while being paid by the line.Some of them are plenty sharp enough to add value to EMR projects, but many that I've known are best left to jacketing, scanning, and shelving.

Drug maker Serono admits massive fraud ("trips for scripts") in the marketing of its AIDS drug Serostim. They'll pay a $704 million settlement, of which $75 million will be divvied up among five whistleblowers. Here's what I wrote about them in an earlier HIStalk: "Four drug company sales execs are indicted for offering kickbacks to doctors for prescribing the company's AIDS drug. Physicians and guests were offered a trip to a Cannes medical conference courtesy of Switzerland's Serono Labs, whose drug Serostim costs $7,000 a month. From their web site: 'Our innovative products are enhanced by comprehensive programs that address the emotional and financial needs of patients.' Give credit to the Florida docs who told them to stick their Serostim where the sun don't shine: 'The Indictment alleges ... that Dr. RL reacted negatively to the offer of the trip for scripts and told the sales representative that this program was 'unethical and the very thing that the FDA looks for.' ... VAUGHN told BRUENS, STEWART, SIROCKMAN, Stupak and others that 'we won't be doing this program in the South.'"  

LoJack is considering making a version of its stolen car tracking technology available for high-risk patients, such as those with Alzheimer's.

Anti-fraud algorithms should be built into the national health network, says an expert panel.

Talk to me.