Allscripts signs hardware support deal with DecisionOne

DEVON, PA – One of the nation’s largest providers of software for physicians and hospitals has signed a deal for hardware support.

Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions is contracting with DecisionOne, a Devon, Pa.-based provider of technology support services for healthcare providers, to assume responsibility for the maintenance of the hardware infrastructure of thousands of Allscripts clients nationwide.

Based in Chicago, Allscripts serves more than 800 hospitals, 160,000 physicians and thousands of other healthcare providers with solutions that include electronic health records and practice management, revenue cycle management, e-prescribing, document management and prenatal care technology

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GE has created a $250 million equity investment fund, called Healthymagination, to put money into promising healthcare technology companies. The new fund could be a source for Orange County ventures in medical and technology, which is one of the strong venture-backed sectors locally.Healthymagination is part of GE’s $6 billion global commitment to deliver better healthcare to more people at a lower cost. The fund will look for innovative technology the would be compatible with the strategic objectives of GE Healthcare. The fund will consider three broad areas: Broad-based diagnostics, including imaging, home health, patient monitoring, molecular diagnostics, pathology, novel imaging agents and other technologies for disease diagnosis.



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GAO Report: VA's EHR Project Running Behind Schedule, Over Budget

A Department of Veterans Affairs project aimed at helping the agency transition to electronic health records is behind schedule and over budget, according to a new Government Accountability Office report, Healthcare IT News reports.

Report Details
The GAO report examined the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture-Foundations Modernization program between June 2008 and May 2009.

The report found that by May 2009, the VistA-FM project exceeded its projected cost by $14.9 million. In addition, the program has not yet completed $24.9 million in scheduled work, the report said.

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Florida to launch Medicaid personal health record

Florida will launch in early December the first stage of a program that will eventually allow all 2.6 million Medicaid patients in the state to have their own Web-based personal health record, and let physicians see other providers’ claims data.
The state’s Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) hopes this will help boost the overall health of Medicaid users by giving patients the ability to more closely track such things as doctor visits, immunization shots, medications and procedures performed. They’ll also have access to a large library of health topics that will be integrated with the health record.

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Free Webinar: Build Additional Value for Epic Systems Clients

Title: Build Additional Value for Epic Systems Clients

Date: Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Webinar Description:
Learn how you can add value to your Epic clients while at the same time increasing your billable time. Learn how J-Point Cashiering provides an enhanced cashiering solution for Epic's Virtual Cash Drawer. J-Point is tightly integrated with Epic and allows clients to improve their front end patient payment processing functions. This free webinar will cover the solution and the benefits your clients will realize from implementing this enhanced cashiering solution. Learn how other Epic customers have deployed the enhanced cashiering solution and what results they achieved. An important webinar for those consultants providing Epic consulting services or those interested in Revenue Cycle improvements in general.

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Conn. Official Probes Blues' Actions On Stolen Laptop

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is criticizing the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association's response to the theft of an employee's personal laptop computer loaded with a directory of as many as 850,000 providers across the U.S.

Blumenthal is investigating whether the association and its local member plans violated Connecticut laws requiring that companies secure personal information and quickly disclose breaches. Nearly 19,000 Connecticut providers were listed in the stolen directory, according to a news release from his office.

The computer went missing when an employee's car was burglarized in late August, and providers were notified in October. “As appalling as the data loss, equally alarming and potentially illegal is the delay in disclosing it,” Blumenthal said in the release. He said he would push the companies to offer two years of free identify-theft protection to the providers included in the breach.

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Ingenix to buy CareMedic in cash deal

Ingenix, a leading health information, technology and consulting company, today announced it will acquire CareMedic Services Inc., an industry leader in revenue cycle management (RCM) solutions for hospitals and health systems, in a cash transaction.
With the acquisition of CareMedic, Ingenix will offer solutions that address each major component of the hospital revenue cycle: patient registration, eligibility verification, financial clearance, coding and compliance, bill submission, denials management, and remittance processing. Ingenix and CareMedic’s combined products and services will create a comprehensive suite of solutions for hospitals to manage the revenue cycle and improve financial performance – from the time a patient begins the registration process with a health care provider to the time payment for that care is received. This will be the industry’s only enterprise-wide solution that identifies inefficiencies as they occur, so clients can take practical actions to receive appropriate reimbursements and reduce costs throughout the process.

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In little more than five years, electronic medical records (EMRs) will be required by the federal government, and if the experience of local health care providers that already use such systems is any indication, the transition is likely to be bumpy.

Electronic medical records are large, complex systems that must be easy to use yet secure, and like many IT systems, implementing EMR can be complicated.

Putting an EMR system in place isn’t an end unto itself. In fact, it’s only the beginning for doctors and their patients. Like other software, the pace of updates and the number of features available are great and frequently changing. They’ll challenge health care organizations to keep pace.

“Once meaningful use is defined, you’re going to see a lot of changes” to existing EMR systems and what they offer, explained Chris Diguette, director of application services at Fallon Clinic in Worcester. Fallon Clinic is a large, multi-specialty physicians group practice that has more than 20 locations throughout Central Massachusetts. Diguette implemented Fallon Clinic’s “MyChart” EMR system, which is a product of Epic Systems Corp. of Madison, Wis.

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GE to Test Hand-Held Ultrasound

GE Healthcare will test a pocket sized, hand-held ultrasound product, called Vscan, with hospitals in Spain and Italy.

The device will enable physicians to have an immediate view inside the body to help confirm what they feel and hear during an exam, according to the Waukesha, Wis.-based vendor. Intensive care specialists, for instance, could use Vscan to identify fluid around the heart and cardiologists could see how well the heart is pumping.

Testing will occur at five hospitals in Italy associated with the University of Naples and at several USP Hospitales sites in Spain. Continue Reading

McKesson signs an agreement to help the statewide medical services innovator streamline workflow

Dedicated to enabling healthcare providers to improve performance using information technology, McKesson has signed an agreement with Iowa Health System to help the statewide medical services innovator streamline workflow and boost productivity. McKesson is deploying its enterprise-wide solution Horizon Medical Imaging™ picture archiving and communications system (PACS) at 34 metropolitan hospitals and clinics throughout Iowa. Iowa Health System, the state’s first and largest integrated health system, conducts an increasing number of procedures per year and diagnostic imaging is a critical element to delivering high-quality and timely patient care.

Iowa Health System is currently live on the new PACS solution in five of the seven regions it serves – including Des Moines, Quad Cities, Fort Dodge, Sioux City and Waterloo. The remaining regions, Cedar Rapids and Dubuque, are expected to be live by the end of this year. The project also includes data migration of all historical Iowa Health System data, which should be completed in November as well.

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