Thursday, April 14, 2011

The Week in Imaging

- Recent survey data from Computer World magazine about company’s usage of MFPs:


o most companies fail to utilize the advanced functionality of the hardware

o 91% have activated scan to email

o 86% have set auto-duplex as default

o 39% use N-up function (putting 4 pages of info on one sheet of paper)

o Most do not user secure print feature, even though they are printing confidential documents



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- Many EHR systems (including Epic) supposedly are based on an old programming language developed in the 1960s called MUMPS, which stands for “Massachusetts General Hospital Utility Multi-Programming System”



o MUMPS was developed by Neil Pappalardo and colleagues in Dr. Octo Barnett's animal lab at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston during 1966 and 1967. The original MUMPS system was, like Unix a few years later, built on a spare DEC PDP-7 computer.



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- Four out of five community hospitals believe they can achieve meaningful use by 2013 with their current electronic medical record systems, meaning one-fifth of community hospitals plan to switch their EMRs within the next couple of years, according to a KLAS news release.



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- InfoTrends said a recent survey on scanning usage reveals:

o 52.4% are scanning more

o 43% staying same

o 4.6% scanning less

o 45% using content management systems more

o 44% are now managing scans with software systems



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- The National Association for Printing Leadership (NAPL) reported that results of a recent survey reveals that nearly 70% of printshop owners feel that their sales will grow in 2011.



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- Texas Instruments announced it will spend $6.5 billion to buy rival chip maker National Semiconductor.



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- The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, which is in charge of pushing healthcare providers to get EHR systems, announced it has appointed Dr. Farzad Mostashari as the new National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. He previously worked for New York City’s Department of Health.


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- Recent data from survey on ambulatory-care (non-hospital) physicians conducted by Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) on usage of EHRs:

o 72% are satisfied with their EHRs

o 61% claims their EHRs have increased productivity and boosted practice revenue

o 52% claim to be using EHRs


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- Recent research from IDC on what decision makers feel about sales people:

o 24% believe that sales reps are NOT prepared for appointment/meeting/presentation

o 30% believe they are somewhat prepared


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- Xerox announced that it purchased United Business Solutions, a Ricoh dealer in Addison, Illinois. (Ricoh will cancel this dealership, so Xerox will rush to convert them to Xerox product) Former owners were Reed Byhring and Fred Martin. Purchase price not announced.

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- According to Infonetics, revenue for managed security services will grow by 62% over the next 5 years to $17 billion worldwide.


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- Recent survey results from Information Week magazine regarding what IT is doing to keep devices on their network secure:

o 68% educate their users about security

o 62% put written policies in place, but no technology in place to enforce

o 50% technology in place to enforce

o 48% rely on employee common sense

o 37% require encryption


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- Adam Greene was named at Senior Health IT & Privacy Advisor in the Office of Civil Rights, which is part of the Department of Health & Human Services, and is enforcing HIPAA legislation on the healthcare industry. In a speech he reminded healthcare administrators:

o Business associates and subcontractors can be held directly liable for HIPAA breaches

o In accounts of disclosures of patient information (PHIs), treatment info, payment info and healthcare operation info must be tracked and disclosed

o New restrictions will be put on use of patient data for marketing and sale of protected health info (PHIs)

o Minimum HIPAA breach penalty raised to $50,000, maximum still at $1.5 million

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- Hewlett-Packard is suing a former executive for allegedly stealing trade secrets before he took a job with HP rival Oracle.

o Filed Wednesday in Santa Clara County Superior Court, the lawsuit alleged that Adrian Jones, a former HP senior vice president in Asia, stole proprietary information before he resigned in February and moved to

o An internal investigation at the time of his resignation uncovered that Jones failed to disclose a "close personal relationship" with a subordinate, gave that subordinate a 97% salary bump and expensed thousands of dollars spent visiting that person with no relevant business purpose, HP said.

Before he left, Jones copied "hundreds of files and thousands of e-mails" related to HP's business strategies, future plans, employee data and customer data, the suit said.

o HP seeks an injunction from the court to prevent Jones from using the sensitive information to put the company at an "unfair competitive disadvantage."


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- The media is still publishing reports of copier hard drive security threats.

o The Kilgore News Herald newspaper of Texas ran an article that said; “employee and customer data could easily be downloaded (from copier) by criminals”

o Senator Bob Smith of Middlesex, NJ stated to the press; “It’s frightening to think about all the information that is potentially at risk unless we require (copier) hard drives to be erased…”

o Ondrej Krehel, Chief Security Officer at ID Theft 911 stated; “I don’t think vendors have been doing a good job of pushing the security capabilities available on their devices”

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- HIPAA breach: MidState Medical Center In Meriden, Connecticut reported that an employee took info on 93,500 patients home on a personal hard drive. The employee was fired, but the drive has not been found.
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- According to the Health Information Management Systems Society, here is list of most common EHR installs in the hospital/acute care market in the U.S.:

o Meditech 1,212 installs

o Cerner 606

o McKesson 573

o Epic 413 (but fastest growing)

o Siemens 397

o CPSI 392

o Healthcare Management Systems 347

o Healthland 223

o Allscripts/eClipsys 185

o 273 hospitals claim to have developed their own

-=Greetings from Sandy Hook=-

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Weekend Document Imaging Notes from 3/21/11

Cerner announced that it won EHR contracts from:


o Sharon Regional Health System of Ohio. Contract is $13 million over 5 years.

o Miami Children’s Hospital

o Sheridan Memorial Hospital of Wyoming for $9.8 million

HealthTexas gave out details on the install of its new EHR system:

o First 60 days average cost per physician of $32,409

o For entire year, average cost per physician of $46,659

o In-house staff spent an average of 134.2 hours per physician and $10,325 per physician during implementation

The HHS OCR (Health & Human Services division of Office of Civil Rights) is requesting $46.7 million in federal funding increase to accelerate its enforcement of HIPAA regulations on healthcare providers in the U.S. The increase includes the placement of a “Privacy Officer” in each of the OCR’s ten regional offices, to coordinate HIPAA data breach investigations. The agency predicts that it will need to investigate up to 20,000 breach reports per year.

Epic announced it won EHR contract from Cooper University Hospital of New Jersey.

Ponemon released data from survey of patients regarding their PHI (protected health information):

o 70% want control over their medical records

o 80% expect their healthcare provider to ensure privacy of their medical records

o 49% of patients who had their info exposed (HIPAA breach) took no new steps to protect themselves

o 50% did not report that theft of their medical info to police

 43% did not want to make a “big deal out of it”

 37% were afraid of being embarrassed

 21% are afraid of loss of health insurance coverage

 18% are afraid of lower credit score

o 55% are not familiar with new HIPAA regulations

o 79% are not aware of the creation of a national database of health information

Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana is urging lawmakers in his state to reconsider their ruling which rejected the $35 million in HITECH Act funds for implementation of EHR systems.

 Black Book Rankings gave out results of EHR survey:

o Top EHR for radiologists is MedInformatix of Los Angeles

o Top EHR for pathologists is PSA (a division of MED 3000) of South Carolina

o Top EHR for oncologists is MOSAIQ, from Elekta of Sweden

o Top EHR for cardiologists is MicroMD from Henry Schein Inc. of Ohio

CareLogic announced it won EHR contract from Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services of Michigan.

Siemans announced it won a Soarian EHR contract from UMass Memorial Health Care of Massachusetts for $140 million

According to Kalorama Information, a total of $15.7 billion was spent on EHR systems in 2010.

U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has introduced legislation to expand the types of doctors that can get HITECH funds to pay for EHR systems to now include:

o behavioral health

o mental health

o substance abuse treatment professionals and facilities.

According to research completed by Center for Studying Health System Change, some 16 million more people are expected to receive healthcare via Medicaid by 2019 under Obamacare, and that it predicts there will not be enough doctors to see all these patients in many areas.

Sage announced it won an EHR contract from United Medical Centers of Texas.

MedAssets announced that it has added biometric finger vein readers from PatientSecure to its GPO catalog.

HIPAA Breach: Health Net Inc. of Rancho Cordova, CA, announced that 9 hard drives from one of its servers went missing, potentially exposing PHI (protected health information) for over 1.9 million patients.

Scanning in healthcare vertical on the increase according to research conducted by Record Nations:

o Requirements for Medicaid payments have causing 22% increase in scanning

o Need to recover physical space caused 11% increase

o 8% growth in scanning documents from healthcare business that were closing due to law requiring retention of records for 7 years

o 4% growth caused by a desire to “go green”

A hospital in Chennai, India reporting that a computer virus entered its network and “wiped off voluminous medical records of the premier hospital that treats 15,000 patients a day”

Allscripts announced it is opening up development centers in Pune and Bangalore, India.

A lawsuit was filed against Walgreen’s by disgruntled customers in California, trying to prevent the pharmacy chain from selling customer data. Without identifying individuals, Walgreen sells data that includes patient’s sex, age, state, and name of drug. The data is sold to pharmaceutical manufacturers.

Golden Gate Capital of San Francisco has made an unsolicited offer to buy Lawson Software of Minnesota for $1.8 billion. Lawson financial software for healthcare vertical offers:

o Automated data-collection and management tasks

o Budget Preparation & Reporting

o Grant Management

o Compliance Control Manager

o Accounts Payable & Accounts Receivable

o Financial Reporting Self-Service

o General Ledger

-=Greetings from Sandy Hook=-

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

This Week in Document Imaging 2/27/2011

- The University of California Davis announced that it has awarded contract to InterSystems Corp. of Massachusetts for integration services with its Epic EHR system.


- Epic claims that its EHR system at Kaiser Permanente securely manages the records of 8.6 million patients.

- Epic announced it won EHR contracts from:

o Sentara Health System in Norfolk, VA, 8 hospitals, for $273 million

o Franciscan Alliance, including all 13 hosptials and 165 practices for a total of $100 million.

- Allscripts announced it won EHR contract from St. Joseph’s Health System, which has locations in California, Texas and New Mexico.

- The Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), using it new enforcement power, slapped a $4.3 million penalty against Cignet Health of Maryland for failure to honor patients’ requests for access to their medical records, as part of the HIPAA law.
- A study conducted by DowJones VentureSource found that:

o venture capital investment in medical software rose from $387.5 million in 2009 to $460 million in 2010, representing a growth of 19%

o an estimated 77% of venture capitalists predict that investment in healthcare information technology will continue to increase this year

- Massachusetts General Hospital agreed to pay HHS a fine of $1 million to settle a HIPAA violation involving 192 patients.
- KLAS Research announced results of a survey of customer satisfaction of EHRs in the ambulatory market:

o Allscripts = 16%

o Epic = 12%

o NextGen = 10%

- Hewlett Packard claims it won managed print services contracts, including its printers and MFPs from the following healthcare vertical customers:

o Bayer Schering Pharma AG

o Centra Health

o Children’s Hospital of Boston

o Cigna

o Exempla Healthcare

o Health Net

o Humana

o San Juan Regional Medical Center
- The Medicare Fraud Strike Force reported that it arrested 111 people last month, for allegedly bilking Medicare out of $225 million in false claims.
- Adam Greene, Senior Health IT and Privacy Advisor in the Office of Civil Rights (OCR), part of the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), announced the minimum fine for HIPAA violation will increase from $100 to $50,000. This means that the minimum fine for misplacing just one patient record could result in a $50K fine.
- eClinicalWorks won an EHR contract from BayCare, a community based healthcare system in Tampa, FL.
- McKesson won an EHR contract from Stanly Regional Medical Center of Albermarle, NC.
- CapSite survey finds that 23% of hospitals plan to use consulting help to get their clinical systems up and running
- Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health & Human Services, announced the following about the EHR vendors that have been certified as meeting federal “meaningful use” standards:

o 231 vendors now certified

o 66% of these have fewer than 50 employees

- David Blumenthal, National Coordinator for HITECH stimulus money announced:

o 21,300 healthcare providers have signed up to qualify

o $20 million has been paid out so far from Medicaid

o Medicare payments start in May, 2011
- PatientKeeper announced it won contract from Madison Memorial Hospital of Rexburg, Idaho.
- Cerner, maker of EHR systems, announced it is in negotiations to but the former Sam’s Town Casino complex in Kansas City.
- The Henry Ford Health System of Michigan announced that an employee lost a flash drive containing the records of 2,777 patients. This is their second HIPAA violation in less than a year.

- Allscripts partner, dbMotion, announced contracts with:

o Orlando Health

o University Hospitals of Cleveland

o Sharp Healthcare (which will connect to its Cerner system)

o Huntington Memorial Hospital of Pasadena, CA
- Siemens announced it won an EHR contract from Jefferson Regional Medical Center of Pennsylvania.

-=Greetings from Sandy Hook=-

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Weekend Document Imaging Notes 2/20/2011

- In the recent budget submitted by President Obama, it includes adding 1,054 agents to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to enforce new healthcare regulations. (this is first part of original plan to add 11,000 agents to IRS)


- HIPAA Data Breach Update:

o Charleston Area Medical Center of West Virginia announced that it inadvertently exposed personal protected patient information on its website. The breach impacted 3,655 patients and exposed them to potential identity theft, as the info included their social security numbers. Patient data on the website had been accessed more than 90 times, with some of the site’s hits formcing from Indian and Germany.

o St. Francis Health System of Tulsa, Oklahoma announced that its HIPAA breach impacted 84,000 patients, after a computer was stolen from one of its outpatient facilities.

- More HIPAA oversight? Senator Stuart Smalley (aka Al Franken of Saturday Night Live fame) of Minnesota was named the ranking member of a new U.S. Senate committee on Privacy, Technology and the Law. His duties will include; “oversight of laws and policies governing the collection, protection, use and dissemination of commercial information…”

- In new statistics released by RedSpin Inc., and IT security audit firm regarding HIPAA breaches:

o Private health information of more than 6 million people has been compromised since 8/2009

o Breaches occurred in all but 7 states in the U.S.

o Average breach affected about 27,000 people

o Average of 82 days passed between discovery of breach, and when it was reported to federal government (law requires notification within 60 days)

o 6 out 10 breaches were intentional and malicious

- Imprivata released EHR survey results of hospital executives:

o 75% claim meaningful use (investing in EHR systems that qualify for federal stimulus dollars) is the top budget priority in 2011

o 54% cite physician adoption of EHR to be greatest challenge to meeting meaningful use rules

o 48% believe that password management issues will slow physician adoption of EHR systems

o 87% say that the time it takes for an EHR system to access a patient record affects physician satisfaction

o 73% say that EHR access time impacts patient care

o 50% report that at least 26% of physicians are accessing EHR remotely

o 65% have deployed personal devices for physicians, or have plans to deploy by end of 2012

o 49% have virtual desktop infrastructure or have plans to implement by 2012

- Canon now shipping a new option that allows it to sell one of its color copiers as an output device for MRI reports, radiology reports and CT scans:

o Option is called the Canon imagePRESS Server T1 V2 Controller

o Works with Canon imagePRESS C1+ color copier (single drum 14ppm unit) that is already equipped a Canon CYPHER PS Print Server

o The T1 V2 processes DICOM (digital imaging and communication in medicine) data, which is used in radiology systems (instead of traditional PCL or PS)


- Does healthcare vertical really buy biometric units? Genesis Healthcare of Zanesville, Ohio announced it is investing in biometric finger vein readers from Lumidigm. Reasons:

o Coupled with BIO-key software, it integrates into most EHR software, including Epic, Allscripts and others.

o Helps compliancy with new HIPAA regulations

o “Because skin dryness is so prevalent in the healthcare industry, due in part to constant hand washing, traditional fingerprint sensors can produce up to a 20% failure rate” according to Bill Spence, VP of Lumidigm

- Sutter Health gives out more details on its Epic EHR implementation:

o Chain of 26 hospitals in California

o Originally had systems from IBM (MedSeriesIV) and Siemens, awarded a contract to Epic in 2007 for $500 million

o After originally putting the brakes on the project, it announced it would spend an additional $400 million to complete Epic EHR project by 2015.

- University Hospitals of Ohio announced it awarded its EHR project to Allscripts, for its Sunrise Enterprise Acute Care EHR version 5.5, in all 7 of its hospitals.

- Siemens Healthcare announced it won more Soarian EHR contracts:

o Baptist St. Anthony’s Health System of Amarillo, Texas

o Peconic Bay Medical Center of Riverhead, New York

o Children’s Hospital of New Orleans, LA

o MaineGeneral Health of Maine

- McKesson, an EHR vendor, announced it won a contract from Parrish Medical Center of Titusville, FL.

- eClinicalWorks announced it won an EHR contract from Riverside HealthCare of Chicago, Illinois.

- ImageSoft, a dealer in Michigan, announced it has won document management contracts (with Hyland OnBase software) from Duke University and Henry Ford Hospital.

- According to a survey on EHRs conducted by the University of Chicago, 78% of Americans favor the use of electronic medical records systems. Other data:

o 59% believe it will reduce costs

o 72% support sharing of data between providers

o 80% favor electronic prescriptions

o 79% believe that access to their personal health records (PHR) on-line would keep them better informed

o 48% are concerned about privacy of records

o 64% believe that the benefits outweigh privacy concerns

o 44% are not willing to pay more to get benefits of electronic records

o 57% do not believe that use of electronic records would impact their choice of physician


- Record Nations, a national network of document scanning service provider, published results of survey:

o Rate of medical record scanning grew 22% in 2010

o Scanning requests to get space back grew 11%

o Requests to scan from businesses that were closing was up 8%

o Requests to scan due to “green” concerns up 4%


- Survey conducted by Oce’ reveals the following about document management systems:

o 30% were only managing paper records

o 81% said it improves process of filing and retrieval

o 47% able to use in business process workflows

o 40% said collaboration was easier

o 77% use to improve processes and operational efficiencies

o 72% use to reduce paper and save storage space

o 50% use to comply with regulations

o 21% use to increase competitive edge

- Palisades Medical Center of New Jersey, which had chosen Siemens Soarian as its EHR, announced that it chose DB Technology’s RASi software as its document management system.

-=Greetings from Sandy Hook=-

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Weekend Document Imaging Notes 2/5/2011

- Meditech announced it won EHR contracts from:


o Sierra View District Hospital of Porterville, CA.

o Saint Francis Medical Center in Grand Island, NE

o United Memorial Medical Center of New York

 Also acquired Lexmark Perceptive imageNOW document management system


- Epic apparently won EHR contracts from:

o Kadlec Medical of Washington

o Resurrection Health of Chicago, IL

o Providence Hospital of Oregon

o Providence Hospital of Washington

o Owensboro Hospital of Kentucky

o Yale New Haven Hospital of Connecticut



- Swedish Medical Center of Seattle, WA announced that its Epic EHR system shutdown for 4 hours due to a software glitch, forcing doctors and nurses to temporarily conduct business with pen and paper.



- Allscripts won EHR contract from UMass Memorial Health Care in Worcester, Mass.



- HIPAA Breach News: The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) reports that the number of entities reporting breaches of patient files affecting 500 or more patients has hit 225, since the first breach was reported to OCR in 9/2009.

o 10 reports of breaches impacting more than 100,000 patients

o 4 reports of breaches impacting between 50,000 and 99,999 patients

o 6 reports of breaches impacting between 25,000 and 49,999 patients

o 27 reports of breaches impacting between 10,000 and 24,999 patients

o 61 reports of breaches that involved a laptop computer



- HIPAA Breach in Indianapolis. Saint Vincent Hospital notified 1,800 patients that their PHI info may have been exposed due to someone hacking into their email system.



- Apparently Methodist Hospitals of Indiana is suing consulting firms FTI Cambio and HealthNET as well as Meditech for supposedly convincing the hospital to abandon its in-progress $26 million Epic implementation and instead spend $16 million upgrading their existing Meditech EHR. Methodist wants out of its Meditech contract and asking for $16 million in damages.



- McKesson announced it won contracts from:

o F.F. Thompson Hospital of New York

o OhioHealth Dublin Methodist Hospital



- According to Lyra, here are average monthly volumes in the healthcare vertical:

o B/W midrange MFPs = 6,525 pages/month

o Color midrange MFPs = 7,160 pages/month

o B/w desktop printers = 2,165 pages/month

o Color desktop printers = 1,235 pages/month

o Inkjet printers/MFPs = 675 pages/month



- Congressman, Jim Jordan, of Ohio introduced House bill HR408 which apparently would repeal the EHR reimbursement funds in the HITECH Act. Even if the House of Representatives passes the bill, it would still have to be approved by the Senate, and then President Obama.





- Quality Systems, Inc. (NextGen EHR) turns in record Q3 numbers:

o Revenue up 23% to $91.9 million

o Board chair, founder, and former CEO Sheldon Razin holds almost $400 million worth of shares.

 He started the company in his garage in 1973 with $2,000 in capital and took it public in 1982. Its market cap is now over $2 billion.

- Research firm KLAS has released its 2010 Top 20 Best in KLAS Awards: EHR Software & Professional Services report, which includes the annual rankings of healthcare information technology vendors. The rankings are based on more than 17,000 interviews conducted yearly with healthcare providers.

o Winners in the Ambulatory Electronic Medical Record (EMR) category, by practice size:

 More than 100 physicians: Epic EpicCare Ambulatory EMR

 26 to 100 physicians: eClinicalWorks EMR

 6 to 25 physicians: Greenway Medical PrimeSuite Chart

 2 to 5 physicians: e-MDs Chart

o For practice management systems, by practice size:

 More than 100 physicians: Epic Resolute/Prelude/Cadence

 26 to 100 physicians: McKesson Horizon Practice Plus

 6 to 25 physicians: Greenway Medical PrimeSuite Practice

 2 to 5 physicians: e-MDs Bill

o Also in the 2010 report, Epic was the top-ranked overall software vendor, with a performance score of 86.7 out of 100, followed by CareFusion and 3M.

o The top-rated overall services firm was Hayes Management (88.9), followed by Deloitte Consulting Inc. and CTG.

- University of Iowa Hospitals in Iowa City announced it is conducting an investigation after a screening showed the electronic medical records of 13 University of Iowa football players may have been accessed inappropriately.

o The hospital says under the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the patient medical records can only be accessed by health care workers with legitimate reasons to review those records. The hospital says it routinely screens for possible privacy violations to protect the confidentiality of patients, including those with "high public profiles."

o The football players have drawn national attention after they fell ill following off-season workouts. They have been in the hospital since Monday. Since then, there have been media reports on the results of drug tests and the player's conditions.

-=Greets from Sandy Hook=-

Saturday, January 29, 2011

This Week in Document Imaging 1/28/2011

- Medsphere announced it won a contract for its OpenVista EHR system from Cooper Green Mercy Hospital of Alabama.
- Meditech announced it won contract from Charlotte Hungerford Hospital of Connecticutt.

- BMC Healthcare of Maryland announced it will use Meditech EHR in hospital and eClinicalWorks in its physician offices.

- HIPAA breach. The St. Vincent Indianapolis Hospital in Indiana had to notify 1,800 patients that their protected health information (PHI) may have been compromised when a hacker successfully persuaded some employees to reveal a login to the hospital’s email system.

- A survey of hospital by Accenture shows EHR installs:

o Epic = 30%

o Cerner = 30%

o Eclipsys (division of Allscripts) = 10%

o GE Centricity = 10%

o McKesson = 10%

o Meditech = 5%

o Siemens = 5%

o Quadramed = 5%

- Children’s Hospital of Boston, MA announced that it acquired:

o eClinicalWorks as its EHR

o Perceptive (Lexmark) imageNOW as its document management system

o Hewlett Packard for its MFPs and printers

o NSi AutoStore as middleware to connect HP MFPs to imageNOW

- Allscripts announced that its EHR connects to Cardiac Science Corp’s automated external defibrillators and diagnostic cardiac monitoring devices.

- In survey published by OpenText of internal medicine trainees, it was revealed that over two-thirds were spending more than 4 hours per day on documentation.

- Cerner announced an install of its Millennium EHR system at Memorial Hermann Healthcare System of Houston, Texas, as well as Lancaster General Health of Lancaster, PA.

- According to The New York Times newspaper, the United States government and Israel’s government worked together to develop the Stuxnet worm that’s blamed for crippling Iran’s program to develop a nuclear weapon. The worm reportedly knocked out one-fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges.

- HIPAA breach: A nurse fired for allegedly looking at the medical records of Tiger Woods is suing for defamation and says he never saw the golf star's files, the Orlando Sentinel reported Friday.

o David Rothenberg seeks 400,000 dollars in damages plus reinstatement and a letter of explanation from officials at Health Central, the hospital where Woods was taken after a November 2009 car crash.

o Hospital officials fired Rothenberg in December of 2009 for looking at the record of Woods three times within 10 minutes on his computer, according to the lawsuit filed Friday.

o Rothenberg, who faces the loss of his nursing license, accused the hospital of defamation and conspiracy to defame plus violating polygraph procedures and causing harm to his reputation.

o Rothenberg argues the evidence against him was circumstantial and that he left his computer terminal unattended and someone else logged in to peep at the golf star's medical records.

- According to a one industry author, in the year 2010, Epic secured EHR contracts from the following hospitals:

o Johns Hopkins

Catholic Health Services of Long Island

New Hanover Regional Medical Center

Ochsner

Moses Cone

Bronson

St. Joseph Michigan – Lakeland

Martin Memorial

Idaho – St. Luke’s

US Coast Guard

Provena

Aurora

University of Mississippi Medical Center

JPS Health Network

SUNY Upstate Medical University

LSU Health

Rochester General

ProHealth Care

Owensboro

Rockford

Sansum

Access Community Health Network

Bassett Healthcare

Stormont-Vail Health Care

Hurley Medical Center

Temple University Health System

Amphia Hospital (Netherlands)

Memorial Healthcare System

Orange Regional Medical Center

Tampa General Hospital

Wenatchee Valley Medical Center

-=Greetings from Sandy Hook=-

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

This Week in Document Imaging 12/29/10

- According to EHR study conducted by RAND Corp, regarding adoption of EHR systems in hospitals:


o Number of hospitals using either basic or advanced EHR up from 24% to 38%

o Largest increase in quality of care was for patients treated for heart failure for hospitals with EHR versus those without


- Results of EHR study conducted by University of California-Davis finds:

o Initial implementation of EHR results in a 25-33% drop in physician productivity

o Internal medicine units adjusted to the new technology and experienced increase in productivity

o Pediatricians and family practice doctors did not return to original productivity levels



- Dell announced it is buying InSiteOne Inc. of Wallingford, CT, and provides medical diagnostic image archiving services.



- According to Black Book Rankings about EHR adoption:

o 90% of healthcare providers that purchased EHR systems are off track to meet meaningful use implementation goals

o Only 10% foresee achieving requirements for stimulus funding this spring

o Over 400 EHR system developers have emerged in past year

o Top five reasons why will not meet requirements:

 93% say lack of support from their EHR vendor

 89% say delay caused by cost of additional support by EHR vendor

 82% caused by rushed selection of EHR vendor

 77% lack staff to implement

 69% are underfunded to rectify difficult EHR system interfaces



- The State of Wisconsin is still pursuing a lawsuit it filed against McKesson for $150 million, for allegedly overcharging Medicare and Medicaid programs.


- Allscripts announced that its EHR can not be integrated with WellDoc DiabetesManager solution. WellDoc allows physicians to have real-time patient self-care data, including; blood glucose data, mediation use, lifestyle info and other diabetes related info.


- Premier Inc., one of the 6 large healthcare group purchasing organizations (GPOs) in the U.S. announced that over the past year, 1,220 hospitals participating in its group buy program have identified $81 million in savings. Savings under the program vary between 5% and 15%.


- HIPAA breach. Dean Health System of Wisconsin notified 2,000 surgery patients that their personal information was exposed when the laptop computer belonging to a doctor was stolen.


- Centra Health System of Virginia notified 14,000 patients that their personal info was exposed when an employee’s laptop computer was stolen from her rental car.


- EHR vendor, eClinicalWorks of Massachusetts reports:

o CEO if Girish Kumar Navani

o Will be hiring up to 200 in 2011 due to growth

o Currently has more than 1,300 employees

o Will build new headquarters for $18 million

o Will finish the year with $150 million in revenue

o 5 year goal is to have 100,000 providers and 100 million patients on its HER


- Results of healthcare survey conducted by PriceWatersCoopers (PwC):

o 86% of patients do not access their medical records electronically

o What consumers would use web-access to health info for:

 58% lab reports

 56% prescription orders

 53% immunization records

 52% upcoming appointments

 48% physician visit notes

 33% suggested preventive health screening

o 72% would trade employer-based insurance for higher pay

-=Greetings from Sandy Hook=-

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

This Week in Document Imaging 12/13/2010

- Kofax, maker of document capture middleware software, announced it won large $400,000 install at Rohm and Haas, a large global manufacturer of chemical products with 50 locations.
- According to “GreenOrder”, a sustainable business strategy firm:

o Copier sales in US are worth $24 billion annually

o Older copiers use up to 60% more energy than new models

o Average office worker creates 1.5 pounds of paper waste each day

o Recycled paper uses 44% less energy and produces 48% less waste

o More than 100 million cartridges end up in trash each year in US

o Cartridges take up to 450 years to decompose

o Toner remanufacturing employs 35,000 in the US

o Reconditioning cartridges saves 264 gallons of oil and 845 lbs. of solid waste each month

o Fewer than 10% of all electronics discarded are recycled each year in US

o Electronics contribute 50 million tons of trash each year to landfills

- Hyland, maker of OnBase document management software, which has a large market share in the healthcare vertical, announced version 10.0 adding:

o Intelligent automated indexing

o Business process and notation modeler

o Site provisioning for MS SharePoint

o Comprehensive full-text search with Autonomy IDOL integration

o Integration for MS Outlook 2010

- EHR usage survey. Survey conducted by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveals:

o More than half of physicians surveyed are using at least a partial EHR system in their practices

o Nearly a quarter have a system in place that meets criteria for basic EHR system

o 10% have fully functional EHR in place

- McKesson, maker of EHR systems, announced that Professional Data Services Inc. won its “Value Added Reseller of the Year” award for its sales of McKesson Practice Partner EHR during last year.

- According to survey of EHR usage in pediatric hospitals conducted by Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine:

o 2.8% have a comprehensive EHR system

o 17.9% have a basic EHR system

o 15.7% exchange health info electronically

o 34.3% have CPOE (computerized physician order entry) systems

- According to survey from College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME):

o 15% of hospital CIOs are confident that they will have EHR installed by April, 2011

o 5% expect to meet meaningful use targets in first 6 months
- Allscripts, maker of EHR systems, announced it won a contract from Berkshire Health Systems of Berkshire County, Mass.

- Pediatric Cardiology Associates in Syracuse, N.Y., implemented Allscripts EHR.

- Cerner announced it won an EHR contract from WellSpan Health of Pennsylvania.

- Epic won an EHR contract from University of Colorado Hospital.

- Medsphere won an EHR contract from Lutheran Medical Center of New York.
- Auxilio, a managed print services provider that focus on the healthcare vertical, announced it won contracts in California from:

o Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital

o Petaluma Valley Hospital

o Queen of the Valley Hospital
- Worldox, a document management program for the legal vertical, won the “Gold” award from Legal Technology News for 2010 based on customer satisfaction.
- Ricoh announced it has chosen to offer IPRO Tech software for its legal vertical market customers, including the eCapture, Allegro and Eclipse eDiscovery products.

-=Greetings from the Highlands=-

Monday, November 29, 2010

This Week in Document Imaging 11/28/2010

- Microsoft’s Peter Neupert stated that the company is abandoning efforts to make HealthVault (cloud based storage of PHI info) profitable because of the complexity of the U.S. health system. Now the benefit of continuing to offer the product was “simply to increase brand relationship” by raising Microsoft’s image with customers as “important, critical and trusted”.

- McKesson announced it won an EHR contract from North Sunflower Medical Center of Mississippi.

- The Ohio Regional Health Information Partnership (OHIP), a state regional extension center (REC) has selected eClinicalWorks as the ambulatory EHR vendor of choice.

- Details from survey from the Agency for Health Research and Quality:
o based on data from 10,567 staff from 470 medical offices in 33 states
o More than 50% have encountered problems when exchanging information
o 69% reported that patient was unable to get appointment within 48 hours for serious problem
o 85% reported that a wrong chart/medical record was used for a patient
o 63% reported that a chart/medical record was not available when needed
o 70% reported scanning a patient record into the wrong patient folder
o 22% reported that pharmacy contacted office to clarify prescription
o 44% reported that patient’s medication list was not updated during their visit
o 39% reported that lab results were not available when needed
o 79% reported that an abnormal result from a test was not followed up within one business day
o 55% reported problems communicating with labs/imaging centers
o 50% reported problems communicating with other physicians
o 52% reported problems communicating with pharmacies
o 58% reported problem communicating with hospitals
o 82% had electronic appointment scheduling
o 59% have electronic access to test/lab/imaging results
o 51% have EHR systems
o 41% have electronic medication ordering
o 37% have electronic ordering of tests

- The California Department of Public Health fined 7 hospitals for HIPAA breaches:
o Kern Medical Center fined $250,000 for theft of 596 patient records from unlocked locker
 Also fined $60,000 regarding unauthorized access to emergency room patient by two employees
o Pacific Hospital of Long Beach fined $225,000 for employee gaining unauthorized access to 9 patient records
o Kawaeah Manor Convalescent Hospital in Visalia fined $125,000 for employee gaining unauthorized access to 5 patient records
o Delano Regional Medical Center fined $60,000 for employee gaining unauthorized access to medical record of relative
o Childrens Hospital of Orange fined $25,000 for employee gaining unauthorized access to patient record of coworker’s child
o Oroville Hospital fine $42,500 for employee discussing patient record on cell phone with others and posting on MySpace
o Biggs Gridley Memorial Hospital of Gridley fined $5000 for two employees gaining unauthorized access to medical record of coworker

-=Greetings from Sandy Hook=-
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Monday, November 22, 2010

This Week in Document Imaging 11/21/10


- Survey shows hospitals with EHR systems are ready to meet some components of the “Meaningful Use” rules set forth by federal government to access HITECH stimulus dollars:


o Conducted by HIMSS (health information management systems society)

o 22% have capability to achieve 10 or more of the required core measures in Stage 1 of meaningful use

o 34% can achieve between 5 and 9 of the core measures

o 40.47% can achieve 5 or more of the menu items

o 9.61% can achieve 12 core measures

- Most common benefits of installing an EHR(electronic health records system) according to New England Journal of Medicine:

o No more filing, pulling, re-filing or creating paper charts

o No lost charts

o Less time filing

o Universal chart access

o Easier compliance with chart requests

o Improve external communication

o Fewer call backs from pharmacies

o Higher quality documentation

o Spend less time charting

o More efficient chart signing

o Built-in health maintenance protocols and reminders

o Improved medication management

o Improved customer service

o Free up valuable office space

o Eliminate transcription costs (average physician spends $12K to $25K/year)

o Eliminate chart creation costs (average of $5 per chart for supplies and labor)

o No more paying staff to pull and refile charts (average of $0.40 per transaction)

o No more cost to find lost charts (average of $2500 per year)

o Eliminate paper faxes for prescription renewals (average of $36K/year for supplies and labor)

o Reduce undercoding, where physicians are not getting paid for everything they do (average of $25K/year)

- Study by Medical Economics magazine shows that annual cost for an average physician practice to manage paper charts is: (instead of using EHR)

o $12K/year for transcriptions

o $2400/year for paper chart supplies

o $41.6K/year in labor to pull and refile charts

o $2.5K/year in labor to find misplaced charts

o $36K/year for inbound faxes

o $21.875K/year for outbound faxes

o $25K/year for money lost in downcoding (not claiming enough)

o TOTAL = $141,375/year

- According to the Kansas City Business Journal, due to wildlife environmental concerns, EHR vendor Cerner is reconsidering the location of its future 600,000 square foot office in Wyandotte County.

- Cerner wins contract from DeLand Hospital of Florida and North York General Hospital of Toronto.

- Cerner announced it will sponsor the USA Bid Committee to help bring the FIFA World Cup soccer championship to the U.S. in 2022.

- McAfee and Cisco have released their detailed cybersecurity reports for the third quarter:

o 60,000 new pieces of malware were identified per day, quadruple the 2007 rate

o In third quarter, McAfree identified 14 million unique pieces of malware, up 1 million

o The Zeus botnet malware let business to lose $70 million to Ukranian organized crime

o The Cutwail botnet malware used denial of service attacks against 300 websites

o 60% of Google search terms delivered customers to malicious sites in first 100 results

o 10% of malware was encountered via search engines

o 7% of malware was referred by Google

o 7% of all encounters targeted Java

o 1% targeted Adobe Acrobat Reader

o Pharmaceutical vertical was the most targeted

- Survey of large healthcare organizations conducted by Ponemon Institute reveals the following about data security:

o 85% feel they comply with HIPAA

o 72% enforce policies with includes termination of employees who pose threat

o 71% provide training to users

o 66% have business associate agreements

o 65% ensure minimal system downtime

o 53% perform timely system updates with patches

o 47% secure patient data in motion

o 47% know where patient info if physically located

o 45% conduct independent audits

o 39% prevent cyber attacks

o 32% identify major data breaches

o 31% prevent major data breaches

o 30% determine root cause of data breach

o 29% protect patient info used by business associates

o 23% limit access to data storage devices

o 10% protect patient info used by outsourcers, including cloud computing vendors

- According to the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), the most common cause of data breaches impacting more than 500 people is the theft of laptop computers.

o Of the 189 data breaches recorded this year that involved more than 500 people, 52% were result of theft

o 20% were from unauthorized access

o 18% were from loss

o 24% involved laptop computer

o 22% involved paper records

o 16% involved desktop computers

o 14% involved portable devices like smartphones

- Holy Cross Hospital if Florida had to notify 40,000 of its patients that a former employee may have stolen their personal information and sold info to a third party. 4 of the 5 people involved have been arrested, including the former hospital emergency room worker. The info was used to illegally obtain credit cards, effectively stealing their identities.

- McKesson Corp, an EHR vendor, announced it is cutting its lobbying spending by 61%, from $110,000 in third quarter, versus $281,000 a year ago. It lobbied Congress, DHHS, CNS and FDA.

- McKesson announced it won an EHR contract from HealthPoint of Tampa, FL with its Practice Partner product that will cover 110 physicians.

- Greenway Corp. & Sage Corp. announced that their EHR products were endorsed by PA REACH East and PA REACH West, the Pennsylvania regional extension centers (RECs)

- Most companies do not erase sensitive data from hard drives according to study conducted by Kroll Ontrack:

o Only 49% stated that their businesses deployed a data eraser method

o Among that group, 75% do not delete data securely

o Average business suffers at least one data breach per year

o Data breaches cost U.S. companies an average of $6.75 million

o Only 19% deploy data eraser software

o 6Z% use a degausser to erase media

o 33% do not know how to ensure data has been erased

o 22% say they reboot the drive to see if data is still there

o 60% of all old business computers are fully intact with proprietary business data in the second hand computer marketplace

o 40% say their companies gave away their used hard drive to another individual

o 22% don’t know what happened to their old computers

o 16% rely on a product or service report to confirm all of their data had been wiped

- The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) reported its data breaches in October of 2010:

o Notified 2,574 veterans that there personal info may be compromised

o Two stolen desktop computers

o Lost 22 Blackberry devices

o 79 internal unencrypted email incidents

o 79 mishandling incidents (i.e. mixing up prescriptions)

o 10 mis-mailed medications

- AvMed Health Plans had a class action lawsuit filed against the company by the law firm of Edelson McGuire:

o Two unencrypted laptop computers were stolen on 12/11/2009 in Gainesville, FL, with possibly 1.22 million customers having their personal information compromised.

o Info stolen included Social Security numbers

- According to Dan Vesset, analyst at IDC, the Healthcare business intelligence market was $600 million in 2009, and will grow faster than any other vertical market in the next 5 years. Growth driven by:

o Increased focus on financial performance management

o Labor productivity

o Cost control

o Analysis of billing

o Analysis of payments

o Bed occupancy rates

o Patient treatment

- St. Joseph Health System, with locations in western U.S., announced it chose Microsoft’s Amalga Unified Intelligence System for data storage. It will load data from its Allscripts, GE and Meditech EHR systems.

- Allscripts, maker of EHR systems, announced that it will allow outside developers to write programs. So far, 200 software developers have expressed an interest with 45 already signing on.

- Allscripts has partnered with the Illinois Technology Association to support and promote the ITA Fall Challenge, to identify students who are future technology leaders. Partnership led by Celia Harper-Guerra, Senior VP of Talent Acquisition and Development for Allscripts.

- Allscripts announced it won an EHR contract from SA Health, the public health system of Australia that covers 80 hospitals. Also have install at West Penn Allegheny Health System.

- The Ohio Health Information Partnership, a regional extension center serving parts of the state, announced it selected 5 preferred HER vendor:

o Allscripts

o eClinicalWorks

o eMDs

o NextGen

o Sage
- Geisinger Health System of Pennsylvania was featured recently in Bloombery Businessweek as having spent $35 million to install Epic EHR, and then spent another 4@ million to get the system to work with its pharmacy database.
- Epic won EHR contract from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.
- Dell reported that its sales to healthcare vertical are responsible for its recent financial performance. The company reported that its profits more than doubled, and its revenue was up 19%. Examples of contracts won:

o Methodist Hospital in Houston, TX

o Western Maryland Health Systems in Cumberland, ND

o Songjiang Hospital in Shanghai, China
- Dr. Robert Wheatley of Florissant, MO reported that his laptop computer was stolen from a locked vehicle which contained information on 1,400 patients.


- Vangent of Arlington, VA won a $3.3 million EHR contract from Indian Health Services for locations in:

o Aberdeen

o Albuquerque

o Bemidji

o Billings

o California

o Nashville

o Navajo

o Oklahoma City

o Phoenix

o Portland

o Tucson
- Athenahealth announced its EHR product was selected as preferred choice by Tri-State Regional Extension Center (REC) which covers Ohio, Kentucky & Indiana.
- Meditech wins EHR contract from Memorial Hospital of Illinois. The company also has system in place at Chandler Regional Medical Center of Arizona.
- NextGen won contract to provide its EHR to physicians of Baptist Health Care of Florida and Alabama.
- C3 Partners LLC announced it is offering a on-line software package to assist physicians make sure they are meeting Meaningful Use requirements for fed stimulus funding. www.hitechanswers.net

- According to Office for Civil Rights, over 5 million people have been affected by healthcare data breaches since September, 2009.