News 11/22/05

Thanksgiving is one of few holidays left where 10 intolerant troublemakers haven't spoiled it for the remaining 260 million of us (like "fall festival" instead of Halloween) so I think I'm safe from the ACLU in wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving.

You may have noticed that I've finished the HIStalk Yearbook 2004, 400 pages of articles, comments, and behind-the-scenes information about HIStalk. It joins its 2003 sibling, which is 200 pages long only because I didn't start writing HIStalk until June of 2003. You can download and read immediately by paying online with your credit card: $20 for the 2003 version or $40 for the 2004. Thanks for your support! The 2005 edition will be coming at the end of the year.

And speaking of support, welcome back to HIStalk sponsor eScription. Not only are they a valued sponsor, CEO Paul Egerman did an excellent interview with me in March. I've been meaning to ask Paul what he thinks about GE's acquisition of IDX, which he co-founded as one of those early Northeast healthcare IT pioneers.

There's some activity over in HIStalk Discussion, such as an excellent overview of the strengths and weaknesses of a couple of clinical systems and some job postings.

Idiotic Non-Hospital Lawsuit of the Week: a family sues Wesleyan University for their son's suicide, claiming that campus police should have done more than take him to the hospital on two different occasions when he was drunk or depressed. He killed himself right after the second hospital visit. The suit claims that campus police "failed to conduct a proper investigation" and should have detected "the potential for harm he posed to himself." That's expecting quite a bit from campus police. I bet the hospital is next up for litigation.

Cerner's Cliff Illig and Neal Patterson are in discussions to buy the Kansas City Wizards professional soccer team and keep it in KC.

Speaking of Cerner, employees often date each other since the company has no policy against it. Good thing, since NP married his secretary. And I keep hearing rumors about Cernerites not wanting to eat off the cafeteria tables ... well, you'll have ask them about those stories yourself.

Hospital CIO Salary of the Week: St. Peter's Hospital, Albany, NY: $201,596. HIStalk CIO Enrichment Index: 80.

Good idea: vendors in the UK's Connecting for Health program were slipping on their delivery dates, so Richard Granger names them on the project's website.

I can't keep track of all the seemingly overlapping healthcare systems from the military, but they're showing off a new one (actually a renamed old one): AHLTA, the $1.2 billion system formerly known as CHCS II. "Later, in a press conference, Winkenwerder acknowledged that the new system was CHCS II, only renamed. In fact, CHCS II has been under development since 1998 and has yet to be deployed to about 40 percent of DOD health care facilities worldwide. Winkenwerder said he did not like the CHCS II name because it suggested that the system was not No. 1." That kind of illogical babble gives me concern (even more than usual) about how they've spent your and my tax dollars.

Benefits provider TriZetto will acquire care management software vendor CareKey.
 
Oregon's Salem Hospital chooses Avega's decision support system.

Quest Diagnostics will offer its Care360 portal, developed by their subsidiary MedPlus, to Pennsylvania physicians via the Highmark eHealth Collaborative, an insurance company sponsored incentive program.

If you want to author a guest article like Shahid did, please send it my way and I'll take care of the details. I could use some contacts for when I'm in need of background information on a particular vendor, product, or technology, so I'd like to add you to the HIStalk Rolodex if you're willing. I promise not to be a pest.

News, rumors, pictures, etc.: e-mail me or use the Rumor Report form to your right.