- 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.
