News 04/08/05

From ForTheRecord: "Interesting thread of discussion re healthcare information technology (or the absence of it) from a popular blogger who is getting some first-hand patient experience. Scoble is a technology evangelist who is also 'one of Microsoft's most prolific webloggers'. Make sure to follow the first couple of links on this page, they provide necessary (and brief) background on the origin of the thread."  

From Kay: "I heard the CIO of Christus lives next door to the CEO of Healthlink." The CIO must be doing OK to live in what I expect is a tony 'hood.

MEDITECH posts their response to the "CPOE causes errors" article in JAMA, citing a lack of integration as a possible cause of the errors cited. I agree. TDS doesn't integrate with anything in most cases, often called a "form filler that prints" since it also doesn't store data in any sort of easily retrieved or accessed form (both the blessing and the curse of those user-defined "matrix" systems of yesteryear.)

I'm updating the Jobs Page in a minute, so give it a look.

Medicity has a link to my Kipp Lassetter CEO interview from their news page (with a nicely rendered HIStalk logo) and also has the full text posted. I had to read it all over again, of course, since I find the interviews enjoyable once the work is behind me.

I found CIO Insight's interview with Thomas Friedman fascinating. His book, The World is Flat, looks at globalization and offshoring from an unusual but entirely reasonable angle. In a nutshell: globalization will provide a huge new customer base of customers for knowledge workers' services, thereby increasing the value of US knowledge workers. The key is to move our 20% of non-knowledge workers up the food chain. "If you're one of those knowledge workers, you're going to do fine in this world. Why? Because the market for knowledge products has just expanded from 100 to 1,100. And, remember, knowledge people sell ideas and idea-based products, so they can be sold to everybody. When you make a copy of Microsoft Word, all 1,100 people can potentially buy it. If you're working on a factory line, there's only one factory that can buy your labor, and you're now competing for that one factory job, not with 20 people anymore, but with 940 people." But, he cautions that we'd better not let our technical innovation slip, or "tending to the secret sauce" as he calls it, else we'll be among those competing globally for low-level jobs.

HIPAA transaction compliance cost more than expected and with less benefit to both providers and payors. Is anyone surprised? Everyone seems to be satisfied with just being compliant instead of really taking advantage of the benefits of electronic transactions.

I mentioned problems with the Big Three drug distributors (McKesson, AmerisourceBergen, and Cardinal Health.) Add another: all three were subpoenaed today by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer regarding the secondary drug market, which is where problems such as counterfeit drugs, stockpiling, and financial shenanigans often occur. I seriously doubt that they're guilty or even accused of anything, but it does make headlines for the AG, a development to which he is not averse.

Information systems and electronic dispensing machines are being used to overcome the shortage of hospital pharmacists, particularly in rural areas where small hospitals rarely offer 24-hour pharmacist coverage. I told you about that potential capability quite awhile ago, but this time federal grant money is involved.

Phony JCAHO surveyors are on the loose!

Pennsylvania's Lancaster General Hospital uses RFID tags to track patients in its orthopedic center, improving OR utilization from 50% to 85% and eliminating the patient holding room.

You wouldn't expect a wonderful quarterly earnings report from NDCHealth, so this isn't a surprise: EPS is down almost 50% compared to the same quarter last year, the dividend is discontinued, and the forecast is gloomy. Still, the CEO is "encouraged by this quarter's financial and operating performance."

SIS signs the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

WebMD fires and sues two brothers who ran an imaging company bought by WebMD a year ago. Former Dakota Imaging president and COO Sandeep and Pradeep Goel, respectively, are accused of failing to disclose key information before the acquisition, instructing employees to delete financial information from their PCs, taking source code, terminating data backups, and criticizing WebMD.

VISICU is hinting at an IPO, not exactly a shocking announcement.