News 10/14/10

From: Thoroughbred “Re: New KLAS report. Evan Steele must carry some clout with KLAS. They just released a report that rates ambulatory EMRs by specialty.” Last week Evan submitted a Readers’ Write piece calling on KLAS and other analysts to provide ratings by specialty. Turns out that KLAS agrees with Evan, saying they’ve been working on this report for several months because they recognize that different specialties have different functional needs. SRS, by the way, scored quite well, taking top honors for cardiology, ophthalmology, and orthopedics. Greenway was the highest rated product for ENT and OB/Gyn. Praxis earned the top scores for family practice, Amazing Charts for family practice, and athenaclinicals for pediatrics. EpicCare Ambulatory was the highest rated product for multi-specialty groups. Providers can download the full report for free.

While the US continues its struggles with healthcare automation, our neighbors to the north are having issues of their own. Officials are concerned that fewer than 40% of Canada’s primary care doctors have access to EHRs, prompting the Canadian Medical Association to ask the government to allocate more money to the cause. Though the government has already spent millions trying to build an electronic health record system, CMA officials say most of the funds have got to systems and IT architecture, rather than to doctors’ offices, hospitals, labs, and pharmacies. The CMA is calling for an additional $423 million over five years in order to boost the number of doctors using EMRs.

Speaking of Canada, I’d love to connect with someone who is familiar with both the US and Canadian EMR markets. I’ve reached out to a couple of folks over the last year but no luck connecting with anyone so far. If you or someone you know is well-versed on this topic, drop me a note.

The Rhode Island Quality Institute (RIQI) awards REC pre-qualified EHR status to Allscripts, NextGen partner Blackstone Valley Community Health Care, Inc., Ingenix,  NextGen, and Polaris Medical Management. In addition, RIQI is in final contract negotiations with: GE Healthcare, eClinicalWorks, and athenahealth. The REC also names 12 vendors pre-qualified technical service consultants.

Sage Healthcare’s SVP Tony Ryzinski authors this piece outlining 14 points for successful EHR implementations. The vendor-neutral tips emphasize putting the right leaders in place, minimizing distractions during the transition, and focusing on successes.

Sales reps take note: nearly half of physicians require or prefer an appointment with medical industry sales reps before meeting one-on-one, according to this SK&A survey. Twenty-three percent of doctors refuse to see reps at any time at any of their locations. When a practice is owned by a hospital or health system, physicians are less likely to allow access without an appointment.

Centice Corporation introduces the PINPOINT Rx system, designed to help physicians and pharmacists identify medications. The device captures the spectral signature of a drug and checks it against a known database.

The 200-provider Community Care Physicians implements mycareDOT patient portal, developed by RelayHealth.

North Texas Children’s Anesthesia commits to a three-year service agreement with billing service provider Zotec Partners.

Skyscape partners with the Massachusetts Medical Society to offer a mobile version of Journal Watch. Journal Watch provides summaries and commentaries on recently published medical information across 13 different specialties.

E-mail Inga.