Healthcare IT News - September 2007 - (Page 43)

www.HealthcareITNews.com September 2007 ■ Healthcare IT News 43 NEWSBRIEFS ONEx EaRNINgS BOlStEREd By CaREStREam puRChaSE The Toronto-based Onex Corporation, bolstered by its April purchase of Eastman Kodak’s healthcare group, has announced that its revenues for the second quarter are up 27 percent, or $1.2 billion, over the same period last year, while net earnings grew from $45 million to $157 million. Company officials say Carestream Health, the renamed Kodak acquistion, contributed to Onex’s growth in annual revenues, which totaled more than $30 billion. Computrition, Skylight put IT on the menu By ErIC WICkluNd, Managing Editor SCOTTSDALE, AZ – The world of healthcare IT is entering a new domain: ordering meals. While IT solutions have been used in the past to help manage a hospital’s food service department, Scottsdale Healthcare is piloting a firstof-its-kind solution that allows patients to order meals from an interactive TV at their bedside, choosing from a preconfigured menu that offers them only what they are allowed to eat. The Scottsdale, Ariz.-based healthcare pro- vider is partnering with Skylight Healthcare Systems of San Diego to deliver Computrition, Inc.’s “Smart Substitution” offering to the bedside. Computrition, based in Chatsworth, Calif., provides fully integrated food service and nutrition management software systems to hospitality and healthcare systems around the world. “This is so unique,” says Ellyn Luros-Elson, the company’s chairwoman and CEO. “We’ve had plenty of integrations before, but this is the first that, before that menu even shows up in front of the patient, we’ve already gone through everything on the menu” and made it patient-specific. For example, a diabetic patient on a strict carbohydrate-counting diet won’t be able to order more food than he or she should eat, while a patient with specific allergies won’t have access to food that might cause an adverse reaction. mENu see page 44 dEll, FujItSu, lENOvO tO hElp CENtER FOR COmmuNIty hEalth The Center for Community Health Leadership, an organization sponsored by Misys Healthcare Systems, has announced that hardware vendors Dell, Fujitsu and Lenovo will offer computer equipment, including servers, laptops, desktops, tablet PCs and scanners, to the center’s grant recipients at a discounted price. Physicians and healthcare organizations that receive an electronic health record grant from the center will be able to purchase hardware to host their solutions at rates supporting the center’s goals of fostering EHR adoption and clinical connectivity. Allscripts banks on EHR, EDIS deals By ErIC WICkluNd, Managing Editor CHICAGO – Summer is proving to NORthROp WINS CONtRaCt FROm dEpt. OF dEFENSE The Northrop Grumman Corporation has been awarded a contract from the U.S. Department of Defense to deploy, enhance and maintain the Clinical and Health Data Repository initiative to help the Defense Department and Department of Veterans Affairs share patient information. Northrop Grumman’s IT sector has developed enhancements to allow for realtime exchange of computable health data between the Defense Department’s AHLTA EHR system and the VA’s HealtheVet patient record system, VistA. be a busy month for Allscripts, the Chicago-based vendor of clinical software solutions for physicians. A May ruling by the Internal Revenue Service that encouraged not-for-profit hospitals to provide healthcare information technology to medical staff physicians has resulted in a slew of new contracts for electronic health record and practice management solutions. “Some of the hospitals were holding back” until the IRS ruling, said Allscripts CEO Glen Tullman. “That seems to have opened the floodgates.” After the IRS clarified a provision in the so-called Stark Law that indicated it would not consider donations of IT and supporting services as kickbacks that would jeopardize healthcare providers’ non-profit status, Allscripts secured contracts with the Butler Health Systems in Butler, Pa., which is deploying the TouchWorks Electronic Health Record to 60 physicians and plans to offer it to another 65; the Frankford Health Care System in Philadelphia, which is deploying TouchWorks to 100 employed and independent physicians; Saint Francis Hospital in Hartford, Conn., which is CoNTraCTs see page 46 IMAGINE Philips Electronics has donated a first-of-its-kind “Imagination Light Canvas” to the Mercy Health System of Northwest Arkansas for use in the women’s and children’s waiting area at the new Mercy hospital in Rogers, Ark., set to open in 2008. The $250,000 interactive light wall, which measures 15 feet long and six feet high, uses touch screen and Philips technologies to animate 2,800 LED lights, allowing visitors to, in essence, “paint with light.” The images remain visible for a few minutes before disappearing. The wall can be used by as many as five people at a time and consumes only the daily energy equivalent of a toaster. Microsoft’s healthcare chief promotes the unified touch By ErIC WICkluNd, Managing Editor mEdplExuS RElEaSES SaaSBaSEd EhR, pm SOlutIONS MedPlexus, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based provider of Internet-based administrative, financial and clinical software and services for physician practices, has announced the general availability of its software-asa-service suite of solutions, which include practice management software, electronic health records and a browser-based patient self-service portal. “The SaaS software delivery model is tryly a ‘disruptive technology’ – one that is changing the paradigm of software acquisition and access for small and medium-sized physician offices,” said Chittaranjan Mallipeddi, the company’s CEO. More at HealthcareITNews.com e Connect: VeNDorS 0907 Ten years ago, Bill Crounse launched Doctor Goodwell, with a plan to provide Web-based medical information, secure messaging and virtual visits between doctors and their patients. It didn’t work out too well. SEATTLE – “Quite frankly, the technology at that time was still a little costly (and) a lot complex,” Crounse says. Flash forward a decade, and Crounse – now Worldwide Health Director for the Microsoft Corporation – is ready to take the plunge again. He’s beating the drum now for Microsoft Unified Communications, a technology designed to make it possible for healthcare providers and users to keep in constant touch with each other through a variety of video and audio portals, ranging from the PC to the Smartphone. The concept ranges from a group of doctors in different parts of the world using videoconferencing tools to a patient communicating vital statistics to his or her doctor while at home, or on the road, or even in the supermarket. “All the pieces are now starting CrouNsE see page 46 Keeping track of personal health information Do you feel that patients have lost 50% Yes control over how their medical records are used by organizations 31% No such as life insurers, employers and Not sure 19% government health agencies? N = 2,337 e ● Connect: GraPHS 0907 SOURCE: HARRIS POLL, MARCH 26, 2007 Misys Healthcare, iMedica plan to help small physician practices By ErIC WICkluNd, Managing Editor ● Two months ago, Misys Healthcare Systems took a step backwards in selling off two smaller business units and concentrating on the ambulatory healthcare market. This past month, the newly focused company took a step forward. Misys announced on Aug. 28 that it has entered into an agreement with iMedica, a developer of electronic health records and practice management solutions for physician practices, to license iMedica’s EHR and PM solutions as the foundation of a new group of offerings targeted at physicians in the small-practice market. “This is a game-changing event for our customers, our company, our channel partners and the wider marketplace,” said Vern RALEIGH, NC – praCTICEs see page 46 http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=7696

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Healthcare IT News - September 2007

Contents Alaska Sweep SiCKO Debate Data Exchange Rx EDITH knows Hold That Script IT in the Sun Breathing Easy IT on the Menu Ambulatory EMRs Identity Crisis

Healthcare IT News - September 2007

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