This Week in Document Imaging "Industry Notes" 10/31/10

OpenText of Canada, maker of fax servers (FaxPress & Rightfax) and DMS (Hummingbird) announced it has purchased StreamServe Inc., for $71 million, which makes electronic forms software.
- Keane Inc., a company which specializes in offering managed IT services to healthcare industry, announced it was acquired by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) of Japan for $1.2 billion.

- Allscripts, a vendor of EHR, announced that last quarter’s revenue was $192.5 million compared to previous quarter’s revenue of $190.3 million

- McKesson, EHR vendor, announced it won contract from Cowherd Family Medical Center of Heber, Arkansas.

- Federal authorities arrested 4 people in connection with $200 million fraudulent Medicare claims in Miami. The companies involved were American Therapeutic Corp. and Medilink Professional Management Group, and had to do with bogus mental health therapy sessions.

- Auxilio, a company that specializes in offering managed print services to the healthcare industry, announced it won another bid in New York, with a $3.5 million, 3 year contract from New York Hospital Queens.

- Surescripts Inc. announced it is expanding its nationwide e-prescribing network with a new service that will allow for exchange of clinical health information. It includes:
o Up to date summaries of patient’s recent visits
o Secure messaging tools
o Net2Net Connect for sending and receiving clinical info outside their network
o Message Stream for electronic exchange of clinical info
o Clinical Message Portal for those without EHR that wish to send and receive info


- Results from healthcare survey conducted by SK&A:
o Survey of 213,500 medical offices
o EHR adoption at hospital-owned offices grew from 44.1% to 54.9% (10.8% increase)
o EHR Adoption at health-system owned offices grew from 50.2% to 61.2% (11% increase)
o Overall, medical office EHR adoption has grown from 36.1% to 38.7% (3% increase)
o Most commonly used EHR functions are:
 28.4% use electronic patient notes
 27.3% use electronic labs/x-rays
 25.9% use electronic prescribing
o Physician offices with more exam rooms, more physicians on staff, and higher daily patient volumes have highest EHR adoption rates
o Physician specialties with highest adoption rates
 Radiology = 59.9%
 Pathology = 59.8%
 Aerospace medicine = 59.5%
 Dialysis = 59.3%
 Emergency medicine = 57.6%
o Which states use EHR more?
 Northern states = 40.9%
 Southern states = 40.1%
 Minnesota = 62.6%
 Utah = 55.4%
 Wisconsin = 52.3%

- Survey data released by during the recent Medical Group Management Association (MGMA):
o Practices with EHR systems that were not owned by hospitals or integrated delivery systems (IDNs) reported $49,916 greater total medical revenue as compared with those with paper medical records
 These practices also reported greater expenses per physician ($105,591), but had greater median revenue per physician ($178,907) than those with paper medical records systems
 After 5 years of EHR use, had operating margin that was 10.1% greater than practices using EHR for 1 year
o Practices with HER system that were owned by hospitals or IDNs had operating margin that was $42,042 higher than those with paper records
o Medical records staff per physician decreased by 44.12% after install of EHR
o 62% of medical practices will limit the number of new Medicare patients they accept if scheduled reimbursement cuts, totaling more than 30%, go into effect
o Almost 50% stated that they will stop seeing new Medicare patients altogether
o 75% said they planned on delaying purchase of new equipment or facilities
o 50% are planning on reducing staff
o 45% may put off purchasing EHR

- Cerner, maker of EHRs, which recently announced it will build a new office in Kansas, is now asking Kansas City for $50 million in industrial revenue bonds to pay for new computers and other equipment in the new facility. If approved, the city would own the equipment and lease it back to Cerner.

- Siemens, maker of EHR, won contract from Charleston Area Medical Center of West Virginia.

- iSalus Healthcare, maker of EHR systems, announced that the CEO it recently fired, Mark Day, is now suing the company. Mr. Day claims he was fired after reporting that he was suspicious that employees were stealing software.
- Epic, maker of EHR systems, won a contracts from:
o Rush University Medical Center of Illinois.
o New Hanover Regional Medical Center of North Carolina for $56 million to replace McKesson Horizon system

- The Kansas Foundation for Medical Care Inc. and University of Missouri Board of Curators published a list of preferred medical software providers, including GE Healthcare and McKesson. Noticeably absent is Kansas City-based Cerner Corp.

- CapSite announced that its survey reveals that 41% of hospitals will invest in new health information management (HIM) solutions in 2011.

- The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced it will implement auditing procedures to check healthcare providers that are claiming funds for install of EHR systems.

-=Greetings from Sandy Hook=-