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Cerner CEO Neal Patterson dies at 67

Neal Patterson in 2009 (Cerner photo)

Neal Patterson, co-founder, CEO and chairman of health IT heavyweight Cerner, died today at the age of 67. According to the company, Patterson had “unexpected complications” from a recurrence of the soft-tissue cancer that caused him to take a yearlong leave starting in January 2016.

As the “unexpected” explanation suggests, the news comes as a bit of a surprise, since Patterson returned to work early this year. He had made a surprise appearance at the Cerner annual users’ meeting in November.

In another unexpected development, the North Kansas City, Missouri-based EHR vendor named Co-founder and Vice Chairman Cliff Illig to serve as chairman and interim CEO. During Patterson’s leave, President Zane Burke was the public face of the company. Burke gave me a long interview at CHIME last fall.

However, Cerner said in a statement that there has been a “longstanding succession plan” and that “the process to select a new CEO is nearing a conclusion,” suggesting that Patterson had intended to step down fairly soon.

“One of Neal’s enduring ambitions for Cerner was to build a visionary company, not just a company with a visionary,” Illig said in the statement. “He has done that. We have what I believe is the best management team in health IT, and we have associates who think as much about the future as they do the present. As a result, Cerner is well-positioned to have a pioneering impact on the provision of health care in the years to come.”

Patterson, Illig and Paul Gorup founded Cerner as PGI & Associates in 1979 to develop laboratory information systems. They changed the name to Cerner in 1984 and took the company public in 1986.

Cerner is now worth $21.7 billion, based on Friday’s closing price of $65.74 per share. It has become the largest private employer in the Kansas City area, the Kansas City Star reported.

 

July 9, 2017 I Written By

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CMS publishes Stage 3 Meaningful Use proposal

The rumor I heard this morning was true. CMS has published its proposed rules for Stage 3 of Meaningful Use, once again waiting until late on a Friday to release a major document. Stage 3 will start no earlier than 2017.

Simultaneously, ONC released its proposed update to EHR certification regulations, to be known as the 2015 edition.

Both documents will appear in the Federal Register March 30, triggering a public comment period. CMS will take comments on the MU rule through May 29, while ONC will do so on the certification plan through June 30. Expect to see final rules before the end of the year.

From an HHS e-mail announcement:

Together, these proposed rules will give providers additional flexibility, make the program simpler and reduce burden, drive interoperability among electronic health records, and increase the focus on patient outcomes to improve care.

The proposed rules are one part of a larger effort across HHS to deliver better care, spend health dollars more wisely, and have healthier people and communities by working in three core areas: to improve the way providers are paid, improving the way care is delivered, and improving the way information is shared; to support transparency for consumers, health care providers, and researchers; and to strengthen decision-making.

“The flow of information is fundamental to achieving a health system that delivers better care, smarter spending, and healthier people. The steps we are taking today will help to create more transparency on cost and quality information, bring electronic health information to inform care and decision making, and support population health,” said HHS Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell.

The Meaningful Use Stage 3 proposed rule issued by CMS specifies new criteria that eligible professionals, eligible hospitals, and critical access hospitals must meet to qualify for Medicaid EHR incentive payments (Medicare incentive payments end in 2016). The rule also proposes criteria that providers must meet to avoid Medicare payment adjustments (Medicaid has no payment adjustments) based on program performance beginning in payment year 2018.

The 2015 Edition Health IT Certification Criteria proposed rule aligns with the path toward interoperability – the secure, efficient, and effective sharing and use of health information – identified in ONC’s draft shared Nationwide Interoperability Roadmap. The proposed rule builds on past editions of adopted health IT certification criteria, and includes new and updated IT functionality and provisions that support the EHR Incentive Programs care improvement, cost reduction, and patient safety across the health system.

The Stage 3 proposed rule’s scope is generally limited to the requirements and criteria for meaningful use in 2017 and subsequent years. CMS is considering additional changes to meaningful use beginning in 2015 through separate rulemaking.

Enjoy perusing the 301 pages of the Stage 3 proposal and 431 pages of the certification proposal this weekend!

March 20, 2015 I Written By

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Stage 3 Meaningful Use proposals at White House for final review

Why do these things always seem to happen late on Friday afternoons? At least this time it’s not right before a holiday. Actually, with a bit more inspection, I see that it did happen right before a holiday.

HIMSS is reporting today that the White House’s Office of Management and Budget is “in its final stages of review” of the proposed rules for Stage 3 of the Meaningful Use EHR incentive program. OMB always goes over proposed and final regulations to measure the fiscal — and, presumably, political — impact before allowing executive-branch agencies to make public releases.

A peek at OMB’s reginfo.gov site indicates that the MU Stage 3 proposal from CMS and related ONC plan for certification of EHRs are indeed at OMB for final review.

“We are proposing the Stage 3 criteria that [eligible professionals], eligible hospitals, and [Critical Access Hospitals] must meet in order to successfully demonstrate meaningful use under the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs, focusing on advanced use of EHR technology to promote improved outcomes for patients. Stage 3 will also propose changes to the reporting period, timelines, and structure of the program, including providing a single definition of meaningful use. These changes will provide a flexible, yet, clearer framework to ensure future sustainability of the EHR program and reduce confusion stemming from multiple stage requirements,” CMS states in a rule summary on the OMB site.

A placeholder date (“02/00/2015 “) on the same page suggests that the proposal will be published in February. However, a placeholder date on the page for the forthcoming ONC certification standards indicates that the plan was supposed to come out in November.

And the date the two notices appeared on the reginfo.gov? Dec. 31, when pretty much everyone was already checked out for the extended New Year’s weekend.

Stage 3 is scheduled to start no earlier than Oct. 1, 2016, for hospitals and Jan. 1, 2017, for individual providers.

 

January 9, 2015 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.

Health Wonk Review talks turkey

I’ve been a bit remiss the last few days, in that the latest Health Wonk Review came out Thursday, and I’m  just getting around to sharing it now.( Blog carnivals work best when contributors link back to the compilation.) But, better late than never, right?

In that spirit, and in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I invite you to check out Health Wonk Review: The Turkey Edition, hosted by David Harlow on his HealthBlawg. The big stories this time around are all about insurance coverage under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a.k.a., Obamacare, but there is also an interesting posts about “wrist slaps” given to pharmaceutical executives for allegedly violating drug-marketing laws.

My post at Forbes.com about the American Medical Association belatedly but predictably fighting the impending Medicare penalties for not meeting Meaningful Use makes the cut. I’m particularly proud of the line, “Ruthlessly Defending the Status Quo Since 1847. :)

Check it out, and for those of us here in the United States, have a happy Thanksgiving. I’ll see you after the long weekend.

November 25, 2014 I Written By

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CMS extends 2014 MU hospital attestation until end of year

Just days before the clock was to run out on hospitals, including Critical Access Hospitals, hoping to attest to Meaningful Use of EHRs for 2014, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has pushed back the attestation deadline by a month, until Dec. 31.

In an announcement posted yesterday on the CMS Meaningful Use registration and attestation login page, CMS said: “CMS is extending the deadline for Eligible Hospitals and Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) to attest to meaningful use for the Medicare Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Program 2014 reporting year from 11:59 pm EST on November 30, 2014 to 11:59 pm EST on December 31, 2014.”

Just don’t expect to do so online during a short period in a couple of weeks, as CMS says the site will be down for maintenance from Friday, Dec. 12 at 10 a.m. EST to Saturday, Dec. 13 at 12:30 p.m. EST. CMS also says people “may experience intermittent connectivity” Nov. 30 between 12:01 and 5 a.m. EST.

This extension “will allow more time for hospitals to submit their meaningful use data and receive an incentive payment for the 2014 program year, as well as avoid the 2016 Medicare payment adjustment,” CMS says.

 

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The most news I’ve ever gotten out of Meditech

If you think Epic Systems, which doesn’t issue press releases and infrequently shares much with the press, is tough for the media, you should try Meditech. I’ve never gotten a response from anyone there and never written any actual news about the company. Until now.

Today, this tweet appeared:

 

So there you have it: Meditech is at a conference in Ireland today. That’s the most news I’ve ever had on that EHR vendor.

November 19, 2014 I Written By

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Glaser to focus on interoperability as Cerner SVP

A big question surrounding Cerner’s $1.3 billion acquisition of Siemens Health Services has been answered: John Glaser, head of the health IT division of Siemens AG, will join Cerner as a senior vice president, concentrating on  “driving technology and product strategies, interoperability and government policy development,” according to a post on the Cerner blog.

Glaser wrote about his experience at the recent Cerner Health Conference in Kansas City, Mo. “For me, the conference, its energy and vision of patient-centered care and health, cemented my decision to become part of the Cerner organization once the transition is effective,” he said.

“At CHC, the message that resounded most clearly was, “It’s all about the patient.” When our industry talks about the HITECH Act, the drive toward electronic health records (EHR), and about greater efficiency and effectiveness, it’s usually from the perspective of helping the clinician and the organization. But, in the end, those clinicians, those organizations and those of us in the industry, know that it is about the patient,” Glaser continued [emphasis in original].

As Cerner President Zane Burke told me a few weeks ago, the acquisition is still on track to close in late winter or early spring. Still unknown is the fate of other Siemens Health Services executives and thousands of employees.

November 18, 2014 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.

Podcast: Scot Silverstein talks health IT safety risks

In a sidebar to the September cover story I did for Healthcare IT News, I reviewed some of the work of Scot Silverstein, M.D., who has long been chronicling problems with EHRs and other health IT systems. Unfortunately, he wasn’t available for an interview in time for that report, but he was last week, so I got him for a new podcast.

Silverstein, a professor of health informatics at Drexel University in Philadelphia, considers EHRs to be experimental and, sometimes, less safe than paper records and would like to see health IT subjected to the same kind of quality controls as aerospace software or medical devices. “Suboptimal system design could lead even careful users to make mistakes,” Silverstein said in this interview.

During this podcast, we refer to a couple of pages that I promise links to, so here they are. Silverstein writes regularly for the Health Care Renewal blog, a site founded by Roy Poses, M.D., a Brown University internist who runs the Foundation for Integrity and Responsibility in Medicine. His definitions of good health IT and bad health IT appear on his Drexel Web page.

Podcast details: Scot Silverstein, M.D., on health IT safety risks. MP3, mono, 128 kbps, 33.8 MB. running time 36:59.

1:10 How this interest came about
3:05 His blogging
3:45 His 11 points demonstrating why he believes the FDA should be concerned about health IT risks
5:00 IOM, FDA and ECRI Institute statements on health IT safety
5:50 Comparing EHRs to medical devices and pharmaceuticals
8:35 Lack of safety testing in health IT
9:25 Issues with EHR certification
10:00 Safety validation of software
10:35 EHR’s role in Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital’s initial discharge of Ebola patient
11:50 EHR failure causing medical harm to a close relative
13:10 Poor design vs. poor implementation
14:35 Who should regulate?
15:55 Billions already spent on EHRs
16:45 Threat of litigation
17:40 “Postmarket surveillance” of “medical meta-devices”
18:50 EHRs now more like “command and control” systems
19:30 Movement to slow down Meaningful Use
20:17 Safety issues with interoperability
21:40 Importance of usability
22:30 His role at Drexel
24:18 “Critical thinking always, or your patient’s dead”
25:05 Lack of health/medical experience among “disruptors”
29:30 Training informatics professionals and leaders
31:15 Concept vs. reality of “experimental” technology
32:50 Advice for evaluating health IT
33:55 Guardians of the status quo
35:10 Health IT “bubble”
36:10 Good health IT vs. bad health IT

 

October 20, 2014 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.

Breaking: ONC’s Judy Murphy leaving for IBM job

Judy Murphy, R.N., Director of the Office of Clinical Quality and Safety in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, and the ONC’s chief nursing officer, is stepping down Oct. 17 to become CNO of IBM Healthcare Global Business Services.

Murphy has been with the ONC since December 2011 after 25 years as a nursing and informatics expert at Aurora Health Care in Wisconsin; she had led Aurora’s EHR program since 1995. Most importantly to those of us in the media, she has never been afraid to speak her mind and provide good quotes. Now that she’s moving back to the private sector, she won’t be hamstrung by political and considerations when she gives public presentations.

According to National Coordinator Karen DeSalvo, M.D., health IT specialist Jon White, M.D., will be on part-time detail from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to serve as interim head of the Office of Clinical Quality and Safety and acting ONC chief medical officer until those positions get permanent replacements. (Former ONC CMO Jacob Reider, MD, is now deputy national coordinator.) Andy Gettinger, M.D., of Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, will head up patient safety efforts at the ONC on an interim basis.

Judy’s CNO responsibilities will be entrusted to the other nurses at ONC until a replacement CNO can be named,” DeSalvo said in a memo to ONC staff.

October 3, 2014 I Written By

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Infographics: Health IT leadership and salaries

It’s infographic time! In fact, it’s time for two infographics.

The first is from HIMSS, celebrating 25 years of the organization’s annual health IT leadership survey. Some interesting findings, as pointed out by a HIMSS publicist:

  • 1991- 75 percent say their institution’s financial health is helped by computers
  • 1994 – 14 percent predict that digital patient information will be shared nationwide in 1-3 years
  • 2000 – 70 percent of respondents say HIPAA is a top business issue.

 

The second infographic comes from HealthITJobs.com. Not surprisingly, the most lucrative jobs are in consulting, and those with experience get paid significantly more than newbies.

September 18, 2014 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.