News 2/13/08

From The PACS Designer: "Re: PACS Pioneer. TPD was saddened to hear that PACS pioneer Samuel Dwyer, PhD passed away recently. Sam's early experimenting in creating a PACS and earning the title 'Father of PACS' eventually led to the creation of our DICOM standard as we know it today. He also influenced TPD's early 1990s experimenting with how to come up with a better method of connecting radiology image systems to PACS and also improve teleradiology. TPD sends sincere condolences to the Dwyer family."

Interested in my HIMSS party? I can't divulge all the surprises, but we may have a very special guest speaker (a big name). You will also be impressed with two lovely ladies (Inga and Miss HIStalk) who will be chatting up my guests and posing for pictures with those interested. Food, drinks, announcement of the HISsies winners, a prize drawing, and an impressive list of attendees to chat with - it's up to you, but I'd sign up now (I need to sign up myself, in fact, before Healthia tells me we're maxed out on attendees). Also, the Red Hat people tell me that they'll have their own Inga in their booth offering shoe shines (see Inga's shoe fetish below), so I'm checking that out. Information on goodies and HIStalk-recommended booth stops here (warning: PDF) so you can take it along to the show floor.

A Wisconsin investment guy likes Epic as a company, but since it's not publicly traded, he's touting Cerner.

Sad story: a man undergoing bypass surgery has a monitor placed into his heart for monitoring. A known programming error in the monitor causes its catheter tip to heat up to 500 degrees, cooking his heart from the inside and requiring a transplant. The company that makes the monitor knew about the problem, but didn't recall them. They admit the error. He's suing. Nobody wins.

Steve Liebel MD, a Stanford oncologist and Varian Medical Systems board member, died last week in Hawaii of a heart attack.

An upcoming medical journal article looks at diabetes self-management software from Colorado software company PHCC.

An Iowa newspaper's story on the local hospital's Visicu implementation has a pretty cool picture of the system.

WebMD's stock is struggling and its acquisition by major owner HLTH Corp. is in jeopardy.

Want to see what was going on with electronic medical records a few decades ago? See below.




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Sponsor Updates and Housekeeping

Welcome aboard to new HIStalk Gold sponsor Innovative Consulting Group of Evansville, IN. The company's been around since 2002 and has an impressive client roster. Led by CEO Wayne Kinney, the company offers consulting for products from Siemens, McKesson, and Cerner; deployment and project management; integration; and management. Thanks to Innovative Consulting Group for support HIStalk and its readers - we appreciate it.

EnovateIT announces its SmartCart, the intelligent medication cart: compact, supporting multiple computer form factors, smart power management, and individually lockable patient med drawers. They sent over a picture and its very cool: blue and white, rounded edges, big wheels, and a stylish design. I'm definitely giving it a test drive at HIMSS since their stuff is satisfying to the touch.

Ensemble from InterSystems is named the #1 interface engine in the year-end KLAS report.


Inga's Update

Red Hat announces that Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center continues to move from HP-UX to Red Hat open source solutions, including Enterprise Linux, Global File System, Cluster Suite, and Network. Beth Israel is the home base for “he seems like a nice guy” John Halamka, who was just appointed to the board of analytical software provider SafeMed.

Healthcare Management Systems apparently beat out some of the bigger players and is selected by 50-bed Homer Memorial Hospital (LA) to provide its clinical and financial software.

Willis-Knight Health System claims it has saved $500K as a result of eliminating dictation and utilizing MEDHOST’s EDIS system across their four hospitals.

eClinicalWorks is selected to provide EMR/PM to more than 160 affiliated providers across 10 locations in San Mateo county in California. This initiative is grant funded, with support coming from sources that include Kaiser, Avon Foundation, Blue Shield, Safety Net Institute, San Mateo Medical Center Foundation, and the Sequoia Healthcare District Foundation.

When at HIMSS, please make time to visit my new BFF Suzanne with Active Data Services (booth 3787). She provided me with some super tips on Successful Show Shoe Management. For example: “A black bag is crucial to success. Contained in the black bag are two replacement pair of shoes. Lower heeled shoes to walk into the building, especially if you’re walking in with men. It’s hard to stay in front (you never want to follow) if you’re worried about a heel getting stuck in a pavement crack. Duck into the ladies room and upgrade to medium heels for walking around. When you are ready to party, putting the 5” heels on is a treat and instantly transforms you from “working girl” to “party girl”! There’s no sexy in comfortable shoes.” Suzanne says she will be handing out “I’m not Inga” pins (for both men and women!) You working girls may also want to ask her for the complete Successful Shoe Management Guide if you, too, are faced with the Great Shoe Dilemma.

Without healthcare, it’s likely that fax machines would have been put completely to pasture years ago. So here’s a product that should help save a few trees. Sfax by SecureCare Technologies is being marketed as a “truly paperless electronic fax management system for health care providers.” The product includes digital signature. While many/most EMRs offer similar functions, this looks like a good alternative for the 70%+ physicians that have yet to go paperless.

ProHEALTH Care of Associates of NY is investing $4.4 million for a bunch of GE Healthcare products, including EMR, EDI, RIS, Billing IT, and PET/CT imaging modality. ProHEALTH has nine sites and 88 physicians.

The AAFP publishes the results of a user satisfaction survey from 422 family physicians. Similar to a study they did two years ago, the physicians were self-selected and the authors note that “it is probably most useful to consider this report as the kind of information you might get if you could ask a few hundred colleagues how they like their EHR systems.” That being said, the colleagues seemed to like e-MDs, Practice Partners, Amazing Charts, and Praxis best. The FPs were least high on Allscripts Touchworks, Misys, and Cerner PowerChart.

E-mail Inga.