News 3/10/11

Grace Community Health Center (KY) secures $150,000 as part of Kentucky’s Medicaid EHR Program. Grace CHC has yet to implement EHR, but at this stage, providers only need to demonstrate the selection of an EHR to qualify for the Medicaid incentive programs. Grace CHC is implementing NextGen’s ambulatory EHR and PM products. If I were selling an ambulatory EHR, I would find every willing provider who qualifies for the Medicaid EHR incentive program and share with them just how easy it is to buy my EHR and have the government to cut them a check for $21,500. It’s a great country.

HIT benefits both small and large practices, according to a review of 154 peer-reviewed articles published from 2007 to 2010. Outgoing ONC leader David Blumenthal co-authored the analysis, which noted that 92% of the studies found the use of HIT produced overall positive effects.

Patient check-in provider Phreesia hires former Allscripts director Will Rideout as VP of sales. He was previously with Misys before its merger with Allscripts and also worked with MDeverywhere, PriCare, and Wellpath Community Health Plans.

The total first-year cost of an EMR implementation for a five-physician practice is $233,927, according to a researcher at the Institute for Healthcare Research and Improvement at Baylor HealthCare System (TX). That figure is based on the actual costs to implement GE Centricity EMR at 26 primary care practices affiliated with Baylor. The $233,927 figure averages to $46,659 per physician and includes maintenance expenses, implementation and training, and hardware. On average, end users required 134 hours per physician to prepare for the use of the system. In other words, the $44,000 maximum EHR incentive per provider from Medicare doesn’t even cover the first year of costs.

Vermont Information Technology Leaders (VITL), the REC for Vermont, adds Sage and McKesson to its list of preferred EHR partners. Other vendors include Allscripts, Fletcher Allen, athenahealth, and Greenway.

The Alabama REC picks SuccessEHS as a preferred EHR provider. In checking out the REC’s website, I don’t see mention of other vendors at this point.

The four-physician Muskogee Bone and Joint Sports Medicine Clinic (OK) selects ChartLogic’s EHR suite.

Space City Pain Specialists (TX) picks SRS EHR for its six-provider, two-location practice.

If you read HIStalk, you may have noticed we are experimenting with a new format. We are not as bleeding edge here on HIStalk Practice, so the “classic” format will remain until Mr. H completes the QA process.

St. Louis-based Curas is named the top reseller for eClinicalWorks. Curas posted 2010 revenues of $2.3 million, which represents a  55% increase over 2009.

Emdeon announces its Q4 numbers: earnings of $9.7 million on revenue of $275.7 million, compared to 2009 earnings of $3.1 million on revenue of $238.6 million. Analysts predicted revenue of $273.6 million for the quarter. Emdeon  expects 2011 adjusted net income of $1.00 to $1.06/share and revenue between $1.1 billion and $1.3 billion. Despite a strong performance, the stock slipped 2.5% Wednesday to $15.62.

Physician offices added 1,500 new jobs in February, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The healthcare sector as a whole added a total of 34,000 workers.

Health Affairs reports on findings from the National Demonstration Project on patient-centered medical homes. The report is generally optimistic about the new model, but my impression is that smaller practices will have a difficult time making the migration. Some of the key findings:

• Two years isn’t long enough to implement the entire model and transfer work processes, even in highly motivated practices.
• To succeed as medical homes, practices need to be nimble; capable of continuous learning; and adept at self-assessment, reflection, and improvisation.
• Implementing new technology, even for practices that have adopted EHR components, is not “plug and play” and can be challenging because of a lack integrated and interoperable systems in primary care practices.

Meanwhile, the AAFP, American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Physicians, and the American Osteopathic Association release 13 new guidelines for PCMH recognition and accreditation. It’s all about establishing standards.

A  GfK Roper phone survey indicates that 78% of patients whose doctors use an EHR believe they get better care as a result. Over 1,000 people participated in the survey, leading me to ponder if I am the only person who never answers her home phone when I suspect surveys or telemarketers.  I mean, who exactly does participate in phone surveys?

E-mail Inga.

News 3/8/11

From Grey Fox: “Re: Dr. Jan Lee. NextGen’s former VP of KBM and content has left to join the Delaware Health Information Network as executive director.” The DHIN website says it “unanimously approved” the hiring of Dr. Lee, as well as Mark Jacobs as DHIN’s first CIO. Jacobs is the former director of technology services for WellSpan. Both will start in mid-March.

REC HITArkansas names ABEL Medical Software and eClinicalWorks as preferred EHR vendors, offering a pre-negotiated, vetted contracts and a negotiated base price. HIT Arkansas is in final negotiations with 10 other vendors including Allscripts, e-MDs, Ingenix, McKesson, and Sage.

Aprima reseller Doctors Administrative Solutions appoints Jennifer Shimek as COO. She is the former director of clinical services and managed care at HealthPoint Medical Group and former COO of the Florida Orthopaedic Institute.

A hopeful sign of the times: Practice Velocity, a provider of EMR and PM software for urgent care and and occupational medicine, is hiring 30 new employees across multiple departments. The company is headquartered in Belvidere, IL.

Please join me in welcoming Healthwise as the newest HIStalk Practice Platinum sponsor. Healthwise is a 41-year-old company that develops health content and patient education solutions. Its products integrate with EMRs to provide patient education tools that relate to specific clinical encounters. The Healthwise solution can also be linked with PHRs and patient portals to provide patient education content. The Boise, ID-headquartered Healthwise is a non-profit, which I thought was pretty interesting. Show them how much you appreciate their support of HIStalk Practice by clicking on their ad and investigating their offerings. Mr. H and I thank Healthwise for their support!

I had a doctor’s appointment today and like I always do, I asked the staff what computer system they were using:

Me: What software do you run?

Girl at the front desk: e-MDs.

Me: Do you like it?

GATFD: It’s fine. It’s all I really know, actually.

Me: Do you have EMR, too?

GATFD: What’s that?

Me: Electronic medical records. Do the doctors put their charts into the computer?

GATFD: I don’t know.

Me: Do you have paper charts?

GATFD: No. Oh, I guess we do use electronic charts.

I was obviously amused that the EMR was so much of the practice’s workflow that GATFD didn’t even know what an EMR or “electronic medical records” were. She was fairly young ,so I bet she’s never even seen a mobile shelving cabinet.

Most Americans say they would use online tools to get lab results, request appointments, pay medical bills, and communicate with their doctor’s office. The same office I mention above did offer the ability to request appointments online. That choice sounded great to me until I read the disclaimer on their site that I might not get a response for 48 hours. I ended up picking up the phone and wading through the practice’s voicemail system until I talked to a live person. Moral of the story: patients will take advantage of all the cool technology that practices put in place, but only if it’s more efficient than the old fashioned way of doing things.

As physicians look for additional revenue opportunities, some practices are considering the sites such as Groupon, Living Social , or similar “one-day deal” programs to offer discounted prices for services that are normally not covered by insurance and are typically paid for in cash. An attorney cautions that the promos are not suitable for all services, particularly those covered by traditional or federally funded insurance. Attorney David Harlow warns that if a patient is covered by a federal payer and pays out of pocket for a service the payer might traditionally pay, the practice could be violating anti-kickback laws. In addition, private insurers always want to get the best possible deal and it’s possible that a physician’s agreement with an insurer requires that the doctor extend its “best price” to the carrier. In a worst-case scenario, the carrier could force the physician to accept the “deal” price for all the insurance company’s patients.

Doctors Express of Woodbridge (VA) partners with Healthagen to provide consumers the iTriage smartphone app to search for medical information and local healthcare services. In looking at the Healthagen website, it appears that providers like Doctor Express pay to have their practice listed in the local healthcare services section. It’s the new yellow pages, I suppose.

ONC begins recruiting physician champions to help peers who might be struggling to implement EHR. Meaningful Use Vanguard participants work with their area RECs to assist fellow providers become meaningful EHR users. Delaware already has 221 MUV champions taking part in the initiative.

The Westborough (MA) Board of Selectmen vote to approve a tax increment financing plan that would reduce the real estate tax burden for eClinicalWorks. In 2009, eCW agreed to stay in Westborough and expand its operations rather than move out of the area. eCW spent $4.6 million on the purchase of a 100,000 square foot building that is being renovated. The tax exemptions will decrease eCW’s real estate taxes between 10 and 50% over the next five years for a projected savings of almost $200,000. The article in the local paper also notes that prior to committing to the new Westborough location, eCW was considering a move to Atlanta or Tampa.

ASC management company APAC Partners selects SourceMedical’s Vision Enterprise and Vision EHR products for its ASC and physician practice clients.

I’d like to welcome MED3OOO to HIStalk Practice as a Platinum sponsor. MED3OOO has been a longtime HIStalk sponsor, and I am thrilled they have decided to spread their love to HIStalk Practice. The company provides medical billing and EHR software for physician groups, provider networks, and EMS organizations. In addition to selling their own InteGreat EHR and a couple of Allscripts EHR solutions, MED3OOO offers billing and RCM services, ASP hosting, coding and compliance, data warehousing, decision support, and more. MED3OOO is one of a handful of companies that has already incorporated Medicomp’s new Quippe technology (into InteGreat) and I had a chance to ooh and ah over it at HIMSS (great technology.)Thanks, MED3OOO, for your support of HIStalk Practice!

CCHIT weighs in on proposed Stage 2 and 3 Meaningful Use objectives and measures and reports findings from a survey of stakeholders (36% providers, 29% EHR vendors, and 29% “others.”) One-third of respondents say the nine proposed measures for Stage Two are too aggressive. More than 50% of the providers and 40% of the rest express concern for the proposed requirement for electronic reporting of syndromic surveillance to public health agencies, since public health agencies lack sufficient infrastructure to analyze the data. Other areas of concern include drug formulary, HIE, and medication reconciliation. Despite objections, most of the respondents think the proposed Stage 2 objectives could be accomplished by 2012.

E-mail Inga.

News 3/3/11

e-MDs reports that 2010 was a record year in terms of revenue and employee growth. Employee count grew 31% to 275. I noted that the e-MDs booth at HIMSS was constantly busy, so I’m guessing they are getting their fair share of HITECH-related business.

Former PayPal exec Jason Portnoy joins Practice Fusion as CFO. He served as PayPal’s VP of financial planning and analysis and worked through PayPal’s IPO and acquisition by eBay. I’ll take that as a clue about Practice Fusion’s ownership strategy.

Advanced Pain Centers (MO) selects McKesson’s Practice Complete for physician billing, coding and reporting services.

Hattiesburg Clinic (MS) to will go live on Epic in September.

The Voice of America profiles the use of social networks in healthcare, focusing on Dr. Jeff Livingston of MacArthur OB/Gyn (TX). Dr. Livingston and his partners are social media savvy and actively use Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter to communicate with patients. The practice also relies on Sage Healthcare software for its patient portal.

The AMA and 37 medical societies send a letter to the ONC urging more flexibility on the proposed next stage of Meaningful Use in order for more physicians to successfully participate. The AMA urges the ONC to “take into account the current technological realities and the financial and administrative burdens placed on physicians.”  Proposed actions include:

• Conduct a CMS and ONC survey of physicians who are and are not participating in Stage 1 to identify barriers to and solutions for physician participation before moving to Stage 2
• Allow physicians to exclude measures for meeting Meaningful Use that do not apply to their routine practice
• Remove any measure that requires adherence from a party that is not a physician
• Eliminate the high reporting thresholds for objectives that cannot currently be met due to the lack of available tools or health information exchanges
• Assess each measure from Stage 1 before moving it to Stage 2 to ensure each is relevant and needed.

Meanwhile, AARP, AFL-CIO, Consumers Union and other organizations send their own letter to the ONC, applauding Stage 2 requirements and even identifying areas that could be strengthened. And the lines are drawn.

Those wacky guys at Nuesoft Technologies release a new video as part of its “Who’s Your Biller” series. Nuesoft was nominated for a HISsie in the most fun vendor category, by the way. They didn’t win (athenahealth took the honors) but they were definitely worthy contenders. Nuesoft also just added a couple new podcasts to its site. These short clips are not silly and fun like the “Who’s Your Biller” video, but informative and worthy of a peek, nonetheless: Regulatory Hurdles Confronting Telemedicine  and College Health Insurance Billing.

ADP’s Acquisition of AdvancedMD

Yesterday we posted a  news blast about ADP’s acquisition of PM/EMR vendor AdvancedMD. Here’s my take: over the years AdvancedMD has won a couple of Best in KLAS awards for their practice management product and just over a year ago purchased PracticeOne EHR, which has also performed well in KLAS. With 10,000 physician users in 4,100 practices, they are hardly a fly-by-night player. Despite being profitable and  being owned by private equity investor Francisco Partners, their relatively small size has likely kept them out of a few deals. As Morgan alludes to below, plenty of small EMR companies have sold to big vendors (or disappeared altogether) leaving users with an uncertain future or as EMR orphans. Buyers don’t like uncertainty.

Now that it’s part of ADP, AdvancedMD immediately joins the ranks of the “safer choices,” or at least as safe as any EMR product or company can be in the face of unknown Meaningful Use requirements and health reform. ADP does not have any competing products, so product sunsetting is not a concern. Meanwhile, ADP gets to dip its toe into one of the hottest markets: HIT.

Only time will tell if the two companies will be able to achieve the synergies they desire, but from my vantage point, it’s a great strategic move for both companies. ADP’s stock price closed Wednesday at $49.83 (up less than 1%)

I also had a chance to chat with AdvancedMD president and CEO Eric Morgan, who shared a few highlights of the deal.

Give me some background on the acquisition.

I wanted to let you know you were the first ones we thought of and wanted to get something out to you today. We wanted to help you break some additional details and have this conversation out on HIStalk and on HIStalk Practice or both.

Basically the headlines you saw in the press release: ADP, a company that most of us know, has done a lot of homework in looking at the marketplace and made a decision. They have had a strategy in place to look at adjacent opportunities to grow their business and this is one they have been looking at for well over a year – meaning the smaller to medium size physician space that AdvancedMD targets and serves. So, they have gotten on this for some time.

AdvancedMD, while we were not for sale, being owned by a private equity firm Francisco Partners … they engaged in a conversation with them some months ago, which has led up to this today. The matchup between the two companies is very strong. They are certainly focused on our cloud-based, SaaS-based offering; in fact, they narrowed the field of opportunities down pretty quickly by saying that was the way they wanted to go. They were not going to offer an on-premise approach, so this is very much compatible with what they do with the rest of their business. This was a big part of what they saw.

The key is they saw value in the business we built here in serving these smaller physician offices, which you know, what we do is not easy to do efficiently and effectively. Certainly a lot of vendors in this space have struggled in this. They saw tremendous value in that. This is a big statement for healthcare IT, that a company the likes of ADP has made a big commitment, investment into moving into the space from outside the traditional list of folks that you and I are used to talking about.

I am correct in saying this is ADP’s first entrance into the physician EMR and PM world?

Absolutely.

What are the plans for keeping the existing management team in place?

I am going to be here. My management team is going to be l be here. In fact, the management was one of the things they focused on that they felt was a critical part of the acquisition. So they are going to keep us in place running as a division and we are going to continue to operate and grow the business from Salt Lake City, UT

Any plans to leverage ADP’s existing sales force, for example, through ADP’s Small Business Services group?

Yes, absolutely. If you look at their Small Business Services division, that group has across all industries nearly half a million businesses that use ADP products. They have 14,000 physician practices that use ADP products, representing over 45,000 physicians. As you can imagine, that opportunity of cross selling offerings and services is a significant part of this.

We will look at how we can work together and integrate products. All that is part of the plans and we are going to be rolling that out over time. Certainly for an ADP client who is interested in practice management or EMR, this makes a very good opportunity for the client to connect very quickly.

One of the key things I would say, which I think is really relevant, is this is a time when physicians – healthcare – is being asked to make major investments into HIT. We all know that, right? We just came from HIMSS we have Meaningful Use up to our eyeballs. The reality is that these are going to be fun and interesting and challenging times ahead of us. But, it is our belief that as times goes on, physicians, much like on the hospital side, more and more will be looking to a trusted leader and a trusted brand. And that scaling of an organization is going to matter more and more.

There are literally hundreds of players in this space today. I don’t know any informed person in the industry who would expect the same 100 to be around in the next few years. We believe this puts us in a very strong position to be able to give our customers the confidence that they are going with a very, very strong reputable organization like ADP and know that they have a long term commitment and relationship and investment in the marketplace.

And the other important thing is I think is that for our customers and prospective customers, it takes the question out of the market place: what will happen next for AdvancedMd, which is kind of the case with a lot of the players in this market. Knowing that the possibility that this day would come, the question would depend on who the acquiring company would be; that would dictate a lot of the impact on the customer. One of the most significant things – I can’t emphasize this enough – this gives clarity to the answer and it also gives the clarity that this is the product and organization that is going to be committed to going forward.

If we were inside a larger healthcare IT company, there would still be all the questions of survival of products and integration of product and which product is going to end up being the one to go with. For us, all the questions and anxieties are alleviated now. Some of the biggest competitors in the marketplace still have big question marks around this issue, but our path forward could not be clearer.

Anything else you would like to add?

I would say again the key theme here is this is an opportunity for growth and an opportunity for our employees and for our customers. We have been growing at approximately 30% compounded over the last several years. It’s kind of fun to think about growing at an even faster rate over the next five years as a result of this.

The intent is to make significant investment into our products, come out with more products, integrate them to existing products, and really do more and more. And that includes not only our physician practices, but also our billing partners. We have over 300 billing service companies that use our products to serve their customers. Those are a very important part of our strategy going forward and a big part of the value that ADP placed on the organization in terms of what we have done here.

What everyone should expect is more of the same, but even taking it to new levels in terms of our offerings and our scale. As I told my employees, we are going to be hiring and expanding and we are going to be growing, so there is opportunity across the board. We think that just having the ADP brand attached to our brand is very powerful in and of itself. The vast majority of our business comes in through the web and web marketing. By having such a big strong name behind us we believe that is going to get even better.

As I look at AdvancedMD and I think about all the possible outcomes we could have had, I really cannot think of a better outcome than this. If you had asked me two years do I think that ADP is a likely suitor, I would have said, “No.” It wasn’t on my list. But the more I know and the more I understand, the more I see our businesses are compatible; I would probably say the more sense this really makes and I really can’t think of a better outcome for our employees, for the future of the company, and most importantly for our clients and future clients, for all the reasons I have described.

What has been the reaction of employees and customers?

The reaction from the employees has been really good. A lot of excitement and buzz here. We feel like the timing couldn’t be better for this as we look to capitalize on what is ahead of us for the next few years in this marketplace and as we establish ourselves.

When you think about it, I count maybe six or seven or eight vendors, depending on who you put on the list, that are bigger than AdvancedMD, and certainly there are certainly many very large ones out there compared to us. We are of a size now that there are only a handful or two of folks that are actually bigger than us, yet there are hundreds and hundreds that are smaller than us.

I think this puts us in a position to stake a claim amongst the leaders and larger and most well known companies in the industry as we go forward over the next few years and look at the kind of adoption curve we are expecting. And it will give peace of mind to clients and prospects to know that they have that kind of backing, and that is very exciting.

We actually had a handful of clients that we ran through briefings in advance and it has been very positive. I just talked to one of my sales manager working on a fairly substantial client opportunity and it was interesting. The conversation took place in the middle of the sales cycle. We said, “OK, we want to talk through this announcement.” Their reaction was, “We are already using four ADP products, so let’s talk about how do we are going to make it all work together.” It’s just an anecdote, but the synergies that can come from this are powerful.

E-mail Inga.

News 3/1/11

BayCare Health System (FL) partners with eClinicalWorks to provide EHR to BayCare’s 3,000 physicians. eClinicalWorks also announces that it has completed interfaces with over 1,000 hospitals, including bi-directional interfaces with hospitals running Meditech, Cerner, Siemens, Eclipsys, and McKesson.

eClinicalWorks partner GroupOne Health Source is selected by Lake Regional Medical Group (MO) to implement eClinicalWorks’ EMR for its 50 affiliated providers.

KLAS reports that the ambulatory EMR replacement market is thriving, with over a third of providers looking to replace their EMRs. In the 100+ physician market, 43% of practices are replacing legacy systems. Physicians are more likely to consider vendors they consider enduring and stable, with the most popular choices being Allscripts, eClinicalWorks, Epic, and NextGen.

The American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons partners with Gateway EDI to provide claims processing and RCM services to its members. In case you missed it, Trizetto just purchased Gateway EDI.

Louisiana’s Children’s Special Health Services Program contracts with RMK Holdings to provide billing and EMR for its nine clinics. Looks like RMK relies on software from Clinix.

WorkSmartMD announces that it will provide free EMR software to physician clients utilizing its medical billing and PM services.

Three-fourths of physicians believe EHRs can improve care, according to a Sermo/athenahealth survey. However, compared to a year ago, physicians are less likely to believe that the financial benefits outweigh the costs and that EHRs reduce efficiencies and decrease costs. And sadly, the majority of physicians believe the quality of medicine will decline over the next five years. Speaking of athenahealth, last week the company announced a strategic alliance with Microsoft to connect athenahealth’s services with Microsoft’s Amalga platform.

GE Healthcare announces an iPad version of its Centricity Advance and Centricity Practice solutions. GE says it will give away iPads to all providers purchasing Centricity Advance by March 31, and also give them free access to the Centricity Advance iPad EMR app when it becomes available.

Practice Fusion also releases a new iPad option that uses LogMeIn Ignition. The EMR is free, but the app will cost you $29.95. In my HIMSS updates, I mentioned trying to get a peek at the Practice Fusion software. It never happened because Practice Fusion had only one constantly busy demo station. I assume they underestimated how many people would want to check them out.

HITEC-LA selects Office Ally as a preferred EHR vendor. The HITEC-LA website specifically says it has not yet selected any preferred vendors, though the Office Ally press release includes this quote from HITEC-LA’s executive director: “We selected Office Ally as our first EHR vendor to announce since many of our small and solo member practices are looking for a product that not only helps them adopt EHRs and improves the quality of care that they deliver, but ultimately keeps their costs as low as possible.” It will be interesting to see if any of the not-so-low-cost vendors make HITEC-LA’s preferred EHR  list.

The 21-physician Texas Orthopedics, Sports and Rehabilitation Associations will implement Encoda’s revenue cycle automation tool.

Flashback, of sorts:  a physician in Bono, AR (population 1,600) opens a once-a-week Barter Clinic for patients unable to pay with insurance or cash. So far Dr. John House (who holds the clinic out of his house) has accepted canned produce, manual labor, live animals, and baked goods in exchange for medical care. Richer patients can pay $45 for a clinic visit on Barter Days. Dr. House also runs a traditional practice in a traditional office in Jonesboro, AR.

The regional Hayes Clinical Laboratory (FL) partners with MedLink to provide its physicians financial assistance in implementing MedLink’s iSuite EHR. Hayes will subsidize up to 85% of the cost of  iSuite .

Mankato Clinic, a 120-physician group in Minnesota, selects Jardogs FollowMyHealth universal health record to provide online access to its patients.

Sage will integrate HealthUnity’s HIE solution into its Intergy product. I saw a prototype at HIMSS and I think Sage has the right idea. The HIE data is embedded directly into Intergy so you don’t have to jump to a separate portal. Look for its official release later this year.

Physician EMR adoption is nearing 50%, according to a new report that also predicts 18-20% market growth over the next two years. However, the company also predicted 15% growth in both 2009 and 2010; actual growth was a mere 10% and 13.7%, respectively.

Associated Radiologists (WV) signs a long-term contract extension with Zotec Partners to provide billing software for its 17 physicians.

The American Academy of Dermatology and American Telemedicine Association send a letter to Donald Berwick urging CMS to make teledermatology a covered service under Medicare Part B.

Health insurer Highmark will put tablets and kiosks into the offices of 100 Pittsburgh physicians. During the trial, patients will be able to swipe their insurance cards on the device while in their physician’s office. They will then be able to communicate directly with Highmark before meeting with the physician. Sounds cool, I suppose, though I can’t imagine too many scenarios where I as the patient would need to talk to the insurance company in advance. Doesn’t the office staff handle all the verification ahead of time?

Allscripts had a series of announcements last week in conjunction with HIMSS, including the launch of an app store and referral network. The Application Store & Exchange (ASX) enables clients and other organizations to add to the company’s open product platform, while the Allscripts Referral Network facilitates electronic patient referrals within Allscripts’ client base of 180,000 physicians, 1,500 hospitals, and 10,000 post acute care organizations (link to demo above). Allscripts also demonstrated the native integration between Sunrise Clinical Manager and Allscripts Enterprise and Professional EHRs. Finally, UK Healthcare (KY) will deploy Allscripts EHR and PM for its 6,000 physicians, pharmacists, and other providers and integrate it with its existing Sunrise Enterprise EHR.

The Birmingham paper highlights the recent growth of local company SuccessEHS. The 16-year-old EMR company, formerly known as EHS, just moved to larger office space and has added 45 employees (220 total) in the last year. CEO W. Sanders “Sandy” Pittman says Meaningful Use is “really fueling our growth today.”

The GAO tells the CMS to address inconsistencies between the Meaningful Use and e-prescribing incentive payment programs. To reduce duplication and reporting burdens for participating providers, the GAO recommends that the CMS encourage participants in the e-prescribing program to adopt certified technology. GAO also says CMS should also reconcile areas where the two programs are similar but inconsistent.

CMS says that more than 21,000 providers initiated registration for Medicaid and Medicare EHR Incentive programs in January and so far four states have paid out over $20 million. In addition, as of February 11, more than 45,000 providers requested information or registration help from 62 RECs.

E-mail Inga.

Intelligent Healthcare Information Integration 2/24/11

HIStalk Practice Empowers Providers

Many of you who read HIStalk Practice are industry folks, people who work on the vendor side of healthcare information technology. That is greatly appreciated, but my recent trip to HIMSS11 has me feeling the need to make a pitch to the providers out there, my colleagues-in-arms, as to why they should read – and contribute commentary to – HIStalk Practice. The value of what the good folks from HIStalk provide us providers was driven home (with a sledgehammer!) by my experiences at this year’s HIMSS.

A brief background: A little over two years ago, the lovely Inga somehow found a blog I had only recently created where I was just, literally, playing around, writing for myself. I had not told anybody about it and had no expectations that anyone would ever read my ramblings. She asked if I would consider writing for HIStalk’s recently-started offshoot Web site, HIStalk Practice, which was created to try to reach providers such as myself more than the vendor world that HIStalk.com mainly addresses.

Jump forward to 2011 and they are still posting my pseudo-regular blatherings. The HIStalk sites are about “IT News and Opinion.” I write mostly on the “Opinion” side with the occasional “News” item wafting in. The inscrutable Mr. H, fashionista Inga, and the new CMIO-type Dr. Jayne handle the HIT news stuff better than perhaps anybody in the business. They keep it easy to read, entertaining, almost completely all-encompassing, and do so with awe-inspiring regularity.

As a “grunt in the trenches opinionator,” I sort of look at myself as more of a cheerleader, a voice on the sidelines of this gigundo HIT world who wants to see the perspective of us little guys kept in mind as the HIT snowball rolls all of us providers toward digitization. I firmly believe that what works in the big centers doesn’t play the same for us grunts.

I occasionally gripe or bitch about some plan or some company when I see something I think is wrong, but I don’t really like bitching, especially if it isn’t followed up with constructive suggestions for improvements. I think I add more value providing support for things that look smart from my little corner of the healthcare world. I try to look at all things HIT with an eye for what I and other providers like me might find useful, of value, helpful.

I’m not paid as a writer for the HIStalk pages. I’ve thought about it a lot, and we’ve discussed a few options along those lines, but the freedom to say what I want, to be beholdin’ to no one, has a very powerful draw for me. I’ve decided to forego further considerations of that because of the following, which is also why I hope more providers will join in this choir:

At HIMSS11, Mr. H, Inga, and Dr. Jayne held a “thank you” luncheon for their sponsors. As they are anonymous, Ed Marx and I agreed to be their stand-in body doubles to do things they couldn’t do without blowing their covers. The event was attended by big wigs from across the HIT vendor world spectrum. It was an amazing turnout.

Ed kicked off the luncheon with a few remarks, a great little story of the relevance and power of HIT in enabling improved care for someone near and dear to him. But, when he first started, he introduced himself and me and we got an unexpected, and larger than I would have ever imagined, round of applause from all these big wig, HIT muckety mucks.

As surprising as that was, what was even more surprising was the number of folks who approached me, both there and on the conference and exhibition floors, who took the time to stop and say “Hello,” to mention that they enjoyed reading my stuff on HIStalk/HIStalk Practice, and to ask my take on this or that HIT-related issue.

Remember, I’m truly a “grunt in the trenches” pediatrician for Nowhere, Ohio, who was just lucky enough to be “discovered” by Inga. I know there are lots of my colleagues out there who have great opinions and insights who could be having their views seen by the vendor folks who are building out this new HIT world. If they’re paying heed to my banter, how much more powerful could it be if more “grunts” provided their takes on how this HIT stuff impacts their worlds?

Thus, my plea: if you’re a provider, or if you know of a provider you could direct this way, I stronger want to encourage any and all to add your provider voices to these now infamous pages. If they’re hearing me, just think how much more of an impact we could have if they were hearing more of “us!” (Just look at what the grunts did in Egypt.)

From the trenches…

“The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” – Ralph Nader

PS – I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the real “wow” at the HIStalk Sponsors’ Lunch came when, for the first time ever, Mr. H, Inga, and Dr. Jayne showed up, live and in-person, though in disguise, and addressed the attendees. It was so fun!!!

Dr. Gregg Alexander, a grunt in the trenches pediatrician, directs the “Pediatric Office of the Future” exhibit for the American Academy of Pediatrics and is a member of the Professional Advisory Council for ModernMedicine.com. More of his blather…er, writings…can be found at his blog, practice web site or directly from doc@madisonpediatric.com.