That CNBC segment

A bunch of people have been finding this site while searching for what was said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” yesterday morning, which featured athenahealth chief Jonathan Bush as a guest host, plus Piper Jaffray senior analyst Sean Wieland and Intel e-health executive Louis Burns talking about health information technology. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt apparently had been invited but did not appear.

Bush actually was at the anchor desk for an hour, but the dialog on health IT only took up about 10 minutes or so. Bush (whom regular anchor Carl Quintanilla at one point inadvertently said was founder and chairman of “Aetna Health”) praised the new Stark/Medicare anti-kickback exemptions for health IT and commented on quarterly results from Medtronic and news about Bausch & Lomb during his stint, but there were more mentions of Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah’s couch than there were of health IT until late in the hour. Such is the nature of TV news.

When they finally got down to things, Wieland recommended investment in companies focused on IT for the 80 percent of healthcare services delivered outside of hospitals, specifically plugging Allscripts (MDRX) and Quality Systems (QSII), parent company of NextGen Healthcare Information Systems. He also praised Eclipsys (ECLP) for changing its pricing model to emphasize delivering results to customers rather than selling software—much as Bush’s company does.

Burns said that Intel was focused on delivering “the right information at the point of decision” in healthcare, but also said it was “too early to talk about” how much business Intel was doing in the healthcare sector. Burns did, however, show a prototype Sensitron tablet PC with integrated barcode reader and RFID capability, designed specifically for nurses. He said the product should hit the market early next year.