Do you know about WOWs…they’re COWs but better! That’s workstations on wheels and computers on wheels. The way to get computers mobile by the bed side. Here is Keith Washington, the General Manager of Flo standing by his new model the 1800 (which is worth more than my car!). Here’s his explanation of Flo and their products.
Michael Millenson is exctracting the Michael (google your english slang) out of the future of health IT. It’s a appropriate end to HIMMS for me, and he’s not even here!
MrHISTalk is up discussing HIMSS, with particular focus on a certain EMR vendor’s booth assets!
First interview is Peter Seiff from Aethon who make the tug robot which potentially could change how hospitals move stuff around, and very nifty it is too. Here’s the interview.
Want to know more about Vocera, the cool lapel-based VOIP company that’s grown fast in health care since it was founded at the height of the boom in 2000? Then listen to my interview with President & CEO Brent Lang.
So I caught the bus outside the Ritz-Carlton (no I wasn’t staying there but a few government employees were!) which took a long roundabout route to the convention center. After the nice people in the press room gave me a tote bag I don’t want.
I staggered to the overflow room to see the video screen. Microsoft says Connect, Collaborate, Informed Decisions. We heard it from Steve Ballmer a lot. Not too sure where he was going with the talk beyond that other than to say that Microsoft rally really cares about health care, but he did have one really cool futuristic video about the future of health care technology…very reminiscent of the great AT&T “You Will” videos—not that they did the company any good!
Then he brought in some guys from Scripps to show us a very cool app for drug development. I think it lost the health care service audience totally, (including me) but it looked cool. I just had no idea why it was in his talk and why he couldn’t show a health care services app? Especially as Ballmer then said that Azyxxi (or whatever it’s spelt) is the most exciting piece of software in all of Microsoft. Not sure whether that’s a reflection of how good Azyxxi is, or of the rest of what his shops putting out!
Two announcements. First MSFT has announced its Connected Health Framework (a software tool set for SOA in health care) One major gripe. Kaiser, Cisco, Partners, the UK NHS, now Microsoft. Can someone please come up with a name not including Connect and Health?
More interestingly for the Health2.0 crowd Ballmer also announced that they’re buying Medstory. Guess that’s why Alain Rappaport never wanted to talk to me! That’ll certainly shake up the search market in health care.
Then the lieutenant-governor of Louisiana, Mitch Landrieu came to offer his fairly genuine thanks that we actually showed up & that things are getting better—at least the tourist area of the French Quarter and the Convention Center. But he also laid into the emergency response system, and the fact that we haven’t rebuilt New Orleans. And he got a big hand when he said we don’t have the moral authority to build other nations if we don’t have the commitment to do it here.
UPDATE #1: Via Silicon Valley.com. Snip:
"Redmond’s intent regarding the booming health care industry
is reflected in the resources it’s throwing that way. The company had
six health care-focused staff members in 2000; now, its Health
Solutions Group numbers more than 600."
Fred Trotter says that he won the beers with Bush (Jonathan Bush of AthenaHealth, that is) on HISTalk. I suppose he’s going to use his time to persuade Johnathan to put his source code on the Web!
Today’s LA Times has a long story about Kaiser’s Health Connect project. As far as I can tell it has no new information at all other than a quote from one pissed off employee who quit last week right at the end saying it was the worst project he’d ever seen, etc.
Otherwise it was a complete rehash of all the stuff that was in the blogs and in Computer World 3 months ago. And it missed the key issue—was KP’s Citrix-based strategy a fatal flaw, or is it just having teething problems. In other words, will HealthConnect work when it’s fully deployed, or is it doomed from the start? That’s what KP members and the rest of us should really be caring about.
Given the leading role the LA Times has played in breaking myriad issues concerning KP (the kidney transplant fiasco) and other California health plans (cancellations) in the last year, I’m confused as to how this shoddy summary—about something that the rest of us wrote about last year—got written so late in the day.
Jeff Greene believes that his "elegant" solution can change health care delivery in one of the toughest places in America to do it–the wild medical mid-west. Jeff claims that the only two places on earth where life expectancy is falling are sub-Saharan Africa and Oklahoma City. (I assume Iraq is soon joining that list!) His company MedEncentive offers a simple way of physicians to follow guidelines, patients to get informed about their care, and apparently payers to save lots of money. Before you dismiss it, listen to this podcast.
(Technical note–For some bizarre reason Jeff’s channel was recorded a few seconds ahead of mine. So he’s answering my questions a little before I’ve finished asking them. Or alternatively, he’s psychic. At any rate it sounds a little odd. But I know you lot never listen to me on these podcasts anyway!)
HIMSS blogger meet-up is on.
Sunday, February 25, 2007Time: 08:00 PM (right after the HIMSS Reception)Location: Mulate’s (Cajun restaurant and bar located right across from the convention center) — thanks to Tim Gee for this arrangement
Come meet Shahid Shah, Tim Gee, John Sharp, and guess whic one of the lurkers at the bar is really MrHISTalk….
This is so important that I’m flying in especially from London for it. Hope to see you there!
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