News 12/08/05

Thanks to Shahid for creating an online HIStalk CIO Field Report form that works much better than my primitive Word document. As you saw recently in a reader's submission, the idea is to have CIOs and IT directors check in with what's going on in their organization: hot projects, trends, etc. Thanks for the submission this week -- I hope everyone enjoyed it. You can complete yours in a handful of minutes and I'll e-mail you a free HIStalk Yearbook for doing so (if you do a good job, anyway.) The link is to your left. As always, thanks for your support.

From Anonymous Reader: "Both vendors and clinicians say that executives don't understand the importance of user interfaces, nor do they appreciate that this truly is a life and death matter. The soon-to-be-published data from the HIMSS nursing informatics task force screams that usability is a HUGE problem. Would we design ATMs so that 90% of people couldn't or wouldn't use them or get money out?" You'll get no argument from me. Someone should administer a true competency exercise to recently trained doctors and nurses on a particular application. Can they enter orders without errors? Do they choose the wrong orderable item, frequency, or order set? Do they make mistakes because of a UI that only a programmer could love? Do they kill a few phony patients? I'm sure you know as well as I that even experienced vendor staff don't stray off script during a demo because they risk hitting an illogically designed  function that they won't be able to figure out while the audience starts checking their watches. Vendors will do anything to one-up their competition except the most important thing: design a system that users can understand without two days of training. Anyone care to start a healthcare usability group to create standards and issue a vendor report card?

Reminder: the HIStalk main page shows only the first five comments on an article. The Cerner piece drew more than that, so click the More Comments after the first set to see them all. Thanks to everyone who took the time to express an opinion. It's great to put news in context so quickly.

At least a few people are outraged that four deposed executives at taxpayer-supported Drake Center, a Cincinnati rehab hospital, are leaving with a big severance package. The former CEO gets two years' salary (over $800,000) plus an executive retirement plan. 

A nice piece on the turnaround of imaging software vendor Merge Technologies, recent acquirer of Cedara Software.

Speaking of Cerner, Bon Secours Health System is one of several organizations implementing the former Bridge Medical bedside barcoding system they acquired.

McKesson will buy back $250 million of its own stock, a pointless exercise financially, used only to send a positive signal to easily impressed shareholders.

Note the new poll to your right. Should HIMSS 2007 stick with New Orleans or move to a location that doesn't involve death, crime, garbage, and human misery? Well, I won't tip my hand.

Misys Healthcare Systems names Richard Atkin to replace Andrew Lawson as president. He was CEO for a short time of a couple of divisions of Instrumentariam, acquired by GE Medical Systems in 2003.

iSoft wins a big Irish software contract despite complaints of poor support from one of the country's biggest hospitals. The company also announces good half-year results today: revenue up 13.6%, profit up 11%.

Emageon gets a ten-year imaging deal from New Jersey's Meridian Health.

Allina's CEO says healthcare needs to change the way it does business, including moving to electronic medical records. "On 9/11, 3,000 people died tragically, but 45,000 died needlessly in hospitals last year and where's the call to action? Is this a failure in the imagination of health officials across the country? We have to stop repairing and start redesigning the system."

The Community Health Network of West Virginia will implement Medsphere's OpenVista Clinical ambulatory care EMR system.

Stock message board pronouncements:

Cerner
"...  Millenium GUI (and others) is an accident waiting to happen - likely responsible for many more errors not reported, or studied with such precision. By all objective standards, it's a mishmash of many colors, icons and toolbars - the more the merrier! - put together by junior (cheaper) and offshore (cheaper) engineers - with no concept of WF or standardization much less "human factors" and ergonimics of clinicians ... Any minimally discerning person knows this is true - Cerner basically admitted it when presenting the "web experience", new browser based GUI at HIMSS two years ago - with much fanfare. What happened to that? ... the problem is bigger than Cerner. Whatever the statisticians say, believe it that clinical systems - rushed to market, built by committees with little up front analysis and much turnover, driven by sales commitments (and penalties) and market / hopsital pressures (unrealistic expectations)- can harm, or kill indirectly, patients - babies are most vulnerable. Perhaps the industry needed a wake up call. Is anyone listening?"

"Hey Ace, you need to go back and read Cerner's AIDupont press release, not just the headline. The text does not specify any error reductions, only that their error rate is less than the national average. Now, if they actually reduced errors, don't you think the Cerner marketing machine would have found somewhere to slip that in up near the top? In light of yesterday's news, I wonder if their errors actually increased. Let's go back to Friday's press release on Seattle Children's - same deal. The headline claims 'patient safety' but the text cites only reduced order cycle times. While that is positive, there are no data provided on which to base a claim of improved safety or reduced errors. I think Cerner tried a pre-emptive PR strike since they probably knew the research paper was going to be published on Tuesday. So on Friday and Monday, we got carefully-worded but very weak press releases. They were hoping for headline hunters like you and you obliged."

"The Pittsburgh study shows what most of us have known for a very long time: The benefits of CPOE are waaaaaaaay over-hyped. CPOE can't replace good clinical judgment. It can make things worse if physicians believe that the computer is watching, and so they don't need to! No independent study (not vendor sponsored) has ever shown any patient care benefit from CPOE. CPOE is NOT worth the costs---The CPOE emperor has no clothes!"

"If the study had shown a reduction in mortality rates, I bet that you computer guys would have taken all of the credit!! When people die, it's the fault of the user. Here's the real issue. CPOE doesn't work. It costs money. It costs lives."