The most news I’ve ever gotten out of Meditech
If you think Epic Systems, which doesn’t issue press releases and infrequently shares much with the press, is tough for the media, you should try Meditech. I’ve never gotten a response from anyone there and never written any actual news about the company. Until now.
Today, this tweet appeared:
Our @MEDITECH team is representing at the #HISI14 Conference at the Dublin Castle in Ireland! pic.twitter.com/rdJP1FNBON
— Christina Noel (@Christina_Noel) November 19, 2014
So there you have it: Meditech is at a conference in Ireland today. That’s the most news I’ve ever had on that EHR vendor.
Rel...
Source: Neil Versel's Healthcare IT Blog - November 19, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: Neil Versel Tags: EMR/EHR health IT Healthcare IT international vendors Ireland MEDITECH Source Type: blogs
Glaser to focus on interoperability as Cerner SVP
A big question surrounding Cerner’s $1.3 billion acquisition of Siemens Health Services has been answered: John Glaser, head of the health IT division of Siemens AG, will join Cerner as a senior vice president, concentrating on “driving technology and product strategies, interoperability and government policy development,” according to a post on the Cerner blog.
Glaser wrote about his experience at the recent Cerner Health Conference in Kansas City, Mo. “For me, the conference, its energy and vision of patient-centered care and health, cemented my decision to become part of the Cerner organizati...
Source: Neil Versel's Healthcare IT Blog - November 18, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: Neil Versel Tags: EMR/EHR health IT Healthcare IT mergers and acquisitions vendors ARRA Cerner HITECH Act John Glaser Siemens Source Type: blogs
EHRs and patient safety
If you wonder where I’ve been, I’ve, for one thing, been blogging a bit for (very little) pay over at Forbes.com and writing a lengthy cover story for the September issue of Healthcare IT News.
The Healthcare IT News piece actually breaks down into a fairly short lead story and several sidebars, which aren’t all that evident from the traditional Web version. (The digital edition has everything.) For the sake of convenience, here are links to all elements of the cover package:
Main story: “Patient safety in the balance: Questions mount about EHRs and a wide range of patient safety concerns”
Sid...
Source: Neil Versel's Healthcare IT Blog - August 29, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: Neil Versel Tags: ARRA blogging EMR/EHR health IT health reform Healthcare IT HHS hospitals meaningful use mobile ONC patient safety personal notes EHR errors error reporting Forbes.com Healthcare IT News Mark Versel pediatrics Scot Si Source Type: blogs
Cerner to buy Siemens health IT business for $1.3B
The next round of health IT consolidation is on. Today, Cerner confirmed the rumor that had been swirling for a couple of weeks, that it will acquire Siemens Health Services, the health IT business of Siemens AG, for $1.3 billion in cash.
Cerner and Siemens also announced a strategic alliance to, according to the press release, ” jointly invest in innovative projects that integrate health IT with medical technologies for the purpose of enhancing workflows and improving clinical outcomes.” Each company will commit as much as $50 million to the alliance over the next three years, with an initial focus on integrat...
Source: Neil Versel's Healthcare IT Blog - August 5, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: Neil Versel Tags: certification EMR/EHR health IT Healthcare IT meaningful use mergers and acquisitions vendors Allscripts athenahealth Cerner CommonWell Health Alliance CPSI GE Healthcare Greenway Health McKesson Medical devices MEDITECH Source Type: blogs
Colbert pokes fun at Fitbit and other digital trackers
“We live in a golden era of digital toys,” noted comedian Stephen Colbert on “The Colbert Report” last Monday.
Indeed, some of the digital health and fitness products out there are rather ridiculous, even the popular ones, and we’re hearing just that at some actual health IT events. At last month’s WTN Media Digital Healthcare Conference in Madison, Wis., Adam Pellegrini, vice president of digital health at Walgreens, poked fun at programs that reward people for allegedly exercising. “You could put a pedometer on your dog and get 10,000 steps while watching TV,” Pellegrini jo...
Source: Neil Versel's Healthcare IT Blog - July 21, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: Neil Versel Tags: health IT Healthcare IT humor Innovation mobile video digital health Fitbit fitness quantified self Stephen Colbert Vessyl Walgreens Source Type: blogs
Health eVillages, Qualcomm ‘move the needle’ on global health
I’m back from an extended break, though hardly a vacation. I spent 11 days this month cycling from Chicago to Washington to raise awareness of multiple system atrophy, the rare neurodegenerative disease that killed my father in 2012. For my first post in more than two weeks, I’ll keep it simple but important, namely with an update on Health eVillages, the program I sit on the advisory board of, as well as some vaguely related news from Qualcomm.
First off, Health eVillages this week officially welcomed five new board members: Brad Fluegel, Spencer Warden, Mike Hamilton, Lorri L. Jean and Ulya Khan. Here’s...
Source: Neil Versel's Healthcare IT Blog - July 16, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: Neil VerselNeil Versel Tags: health IT Healthcare IT imaging international mobile patient safety rural health video Health eVillages iPad prenatal care Qualcomm Trice Imaging ultrasound Source Type: blogs
Adelphi U ad spreads health reform fallacy
The following ad has popped up several times on my mobile Facebook app recently:
That’s from Adelphi University in Garden City, N.Y., and the first sentence of that ad is absolutely false, not to mention poorly written. There is no government mandate for any healthcare facility to go paperless at all, much less by 2015.
As people in health IT and in healthcare management probably know, the federal Meaningful Use EHR incentive program calls for Medicare penalties starting next year for any provider that hasn’t achieved at least Stage 1 of Meaningful Use. But that’s not a mandate; hospitals and other provi...
Source: Neil Versel's Healthcare IT Blog - June 30, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: Neil Versel Tags: ARRA education EMR/EHR health IT Health IT workforce health reform Healthcare IT informatics meaningful use Adelphi University Source Type: blogs
Digital health should get in on Health Affairs innovation action
The policy journal Health Affairs puts out an e-mail update every Sunday, for those of us who can’t get enough of reading work e-mail during the week. Today’s contained the following solicitation:
Health Affairs is planning a theme issue on health care and medical innovation in early-2015. The issue will span the fields of medical technology and public policy as well as private sector innovations that promote improvements in the delivery of care, lower costs, increased efficiency, etc. We plan to publish 15-20 peer-reviewed articles including research, analyses, and commentaries from leading researchers and sc...
Source: Neil Versel's Healthcare IT Blog - June 23, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: Neil Versel Tags: health IT health reform Healthcare IT Innovation digital health entrepreneurs Health Affairs Source Type: blogs
Browning out at IntelliBlast, PwC’s Wasden gets academic appointment
I have some personnel news from the world of digital health for you today.
This morning, I learned that Matthew Browning, founder of IntelliBlast Health, a healthcare communications platform formerly known as YourNurseIsOn, has resigned as CEO, in an apparent dispute with investors. Alliance Healthcare Partners made an undisclosed investment in IntelliBlast parent Targeted Instant Communications one year ago tomorrow.
Browning’s wife, Phoebe, remains CFO of the New Haven, Conn.-based company for the time being, but probably not much longer.
Also, Chris Wasden, managing director of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ health...
Source: Neil Versel's Healthcare IT Blog - June 10, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: Neil Versel Tags: health IT Healthcare IT Innovation Alliance Healthcare Partners Chris Wasden digital health IntelliBlast Health Matthew Browning PricewaterhouseCoopers University of Utah venture capital Source Type: blogs
Video: StartUp Health co-founder talks Health Datapalooza on CNBC
Unity Stoakes, co-founder and president of entrepreneurship academy StartUp Health, was in Washington this week for Health Datapalooza. Tuesday morning, with the Capitol dome serving as a picturesque background, he appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” to talk innovation in digital health. Stoakes used more than a couple of buzzwords, such as “revolution” (see my commentary for Forbes on Apple’s just-announced HealthKit mocking the notion of a revolution) and “creative destruction,” and CNBC added a few more, like “disruptive” and “tectonic shift”
But he di...
Source: Neil Versel's Healthcare IT Blog - June 6, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: Neil VerselNeil Versel Tags: accelerators consumerism health reform Healthcare IT Innovation mobile video Apple digital health Health Datapalooza HealthKit StartUp Health Source Type: blogs
Justin Barnes lands at Georgia Tech’s startup incubator
Here’s some more personnel news for you: Justin Barnes, who last month stepped down as chief of industry affairs and government affairs for EHR vendor Greenway Health, has been named entrepreneur-in-residence at Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center.
The startup incubator isn’t specific to healthcare, but it sounds like Barnes will be focusing a lot of his energy on the healthcare sector. Per his bio: “He mentors and provides strategic entrepreneurial advice as well as key business connections to help grow a wide range of organizations including healthcare and IT companies, industry...
Source: Neil Versel's Healthcare IT Blog - June 2, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: Neil Versel Tags: accelerators health IT Healthcare IT Innovation Georgia Tech Greenway Health Justin Barnes McKesson RelayHealth Source Type: blogs
Palomar Health innovation officer Portale stepping down June 30
Late word from the West Coast on Thursday is that Orlando Portale, chief innovation officer of Palomar Health in San Diego County, Calif., for the past seven years, is leaving at the end of June.
According to a quick e-mail from Portale, “I’m going to focus on advising health technology companies, private equity firms and healthcare organizations.” He already has dabbled in some of those areas, helping Palomar start up Glassomics, which he calls the world’s first incubator for healthcare applications and technology that run on wearable computers, including Google Glass.
Qualcomm Life provided an operating g...
Source: Neil Versel's Healthcare IT Blog - May 30, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: Neil Versel Tags: accelerators health IT Healthcare IT Innovation mobile Glassomics Google Glass Orlando Portale Palomar Health Qualcomm Life SAIC Sun Microsystems WellPoint Source Type: blogs
Check out my new MSA bike tour site and blog
As I hinted a couple of months ago, I’m planning a rather epic cycling tour this summer to raise awareness of and funds for multiple system atrophy, the disease that killed my dad. Since this is a health IT blog, I don’t want to keep going off-topic to promote that effort, so I’ve set up a tour site, blog and Facebook page just for that purpose. The Multiple System Atrophy Coalition also put out a press release on my behalf. Check those links out, like the Facebook page and please share freely.
I could still use some sponsors for the tour, particularly a hotel chain that has locations in places such as Va...
Source: Neil Versel's Healthcare IT Blog - May 29, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: Neil Versel Tags: mobile personal notes multiple system atrophy (MSA) quantified self Source Type: blogs
Video: Aneesh Chopra on ‘The Daily Show’ for a long interview
Everybody else has the news about CMS offering leniency with Stage 2 Meaningful Use, letting providers use EHRs with 2011 certification to meet Stage 2 standards because so few vendors have been certified to the 2014 standards previously required for Stage 2. I won’t rehash here.
I will, however, share the very extended interview Jon Stewart had last night with former White House CTO — and, before that, HHS CTO — Aneesh Chopra on “The Daily Show.” Stewart is a comedian with a known liberal bias, but he is not a bad interviewer when dealing with a serious subject.
Stewart has been hammering the VA over...
Source: Neil Versel's Healthcare IT Blog - May 21, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: Neil Versel Tags: EMR/EHR health information exchange health IT health reform Healthcare IT video Aneesh Chopra Barack Obama data liberation Department of Veterans Affairs healthcare.gov interoperability Jon Stewart Military Health System Source Type: blogs
Patient safety update
I’m passionate about patient safety. I’m happy to report a couple of things that aren’t exactly breaking news, but still worth bringing to your attention.
First off, there is a fairly new peer-reviewed journal called Diagnosis, and it’s about exactly what the title suggests. The first, quarterly issue, from German academic publisher De Gruyter (North American headquarters are in Boston), came out in January, so the second issue should be published soon. The online version is open access. That means it’s free. (A print subscription is $645 a year.)
A highlight of the premiere issue is a submiss...
Source: Neil Versel's Healthcare IT Blog - March 25, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: Neil Versel Tags: clinical decision support EMR/EHR health IT Healthcare IT medical errors medical informatics patient safety quality standards video Diagnosis (journal) clinical documentation diagnostic medicine error reporting evidence-based m Source Type: blogs
