ABL HEALTHCARE ONLINE  
MARCH 18, 2010
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Steve Plochocki, Quality Systems Inc. (QSI)

Steve Plochocki is President and CEO of QSI, the parent of NextGen Healthcare Information Systems, which develops and markets computer-based practice management, patient records and revenue cycle management applications, as well as connectivity products and services, for medical and dental group practices. A recognized healthcare leader, Steve has been CEO of: Omniflight Helicopter, Inc., an air medical services company; Trinity Hospice; InSight Health Services, a diagnostic imaging services provider; and Centratex Support Services. Earlier he was President and COO of Apria Healthcare Group, a billion-dollar home healthcare provider; and COO of Abbey Healthcare Group. Steve won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the Health Services Category for Orange County/Inland Empire in 2002 and earned Finalist status in the national competition. Returning to The OC, Steve has re-joined the Orange County Healthcare Executives Round Table.

Aetna Introduces Paperless Contracting
Aetna Health Plans, where Pam Kehaly is President of National Accounts, has launched an electronic contracting process - EchoSign eSignature - for healthcare facilities so that agreements can be signed and sent via e-mail. Aetna expects to decrease contract processing time from three weeks to one day on average. Also, Aetna is now providing members mobile access to features such as its DocFind online provider directory, the Aetna Personal Health Record, Price-a-Drug, claims search, and electronic ID cards.

Alameda County MC Serves Oakland Marathon
Alameda County Medical Center, where Wright Lassiter is CEO, is serving as the official medical provider of the inaugural Oakland Running Festival, March 27-28, and Wright is running in the marathon. An estimated 75 medical personnel will provide coverage throughout the course's seven medical stops.  

Alameda Hospital Wins Gold for Cardiac Care
Alameda Hospital, where Debi Stebbins is CEO, has received the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines - Coronary Artery Disease Gold Performance Achievement Award, for its success in implementing a higher standard of cardiac care.

CalOptima's Buchert Lauded for Leadership
CalOptima's COO Greg Buchert, MD, has been honored by the Dayle McIntosh Center with its "Apple of Our Eye" Award for Community Leadership, in recognition of Greg's lifelong efforts advocating for children with special needs, seniors and persons with disabilities.

CIGNA Simplifies Paying Medical Bills
CIGNA Health, where Chris De Rosa is Southern California/Nevada President, is rolling out Intuit’s Quicken Health Expense Tracker online bill payment for its medical and pharmacy plan customers, at no additional charge. Also, CIGNA earned the top ranking among national health plans for its Explanation of Benefits in an evaluation by DALBAR, Inc.

Epocrates Most Popular Medical Info App
According to a survey from SDI, 30% of physicians access medical information using a handheld device or smartphone, and the most popular application physicians download to do so is Epocrates, where Rose Crane is CEO. The survey also found that: *The most popular handheld device or smartphone is the Apple iPhone, with 31% of respondents owning one. *95% of physicians who use handheld devices/smartphones download apps to access medical information. *When using a handheld device or smartphone, physicians are most likely to access information about drugs, drug interactions and prescribing. *When using a computer, physicians are more likely to seek articles, abstracts and CME-related information. (Healthcare Daily Data Byte, 3/17/10)

HeartMath Teams to Improve Corporate Health
HeartMath LLC, where Bruce Cryer is CEO, has partnered with Dallas-based Trajectory Health LLC to deliver clinical stress management solutions to the corporate marketplace. HeartMath and Trajectory will concentrate on measurably slowing the production of new disease before a catastrophic event occurs, working with companies to design, implement and evaluate clinical intervention programs with employees.

HFS Offers Hospital Productivity Benchmarking Method
HFS Consultants, where Larry Blitz, Scott Frost, Rich Gianello and Rich Parsons are senior executives, has developed an innovative method for understanding productivity in California hospitals. With it, HFS is able to measure productive hours per unit of service in any department, for all hospitals in the State, with source data coming from the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development Annual Financial Disclosure Reports. For clients, HFS can download every report from the OSHPD website, and then convert every data element into readily accessible, 100% accurate records. For the purpose of measuring productivity, HFS can conduct an analysis that compares a department’s performance with a select peer group, and with virtually every hospital in the State. Click for more info.

IBM Joins Effort to Protect Public Health
IBM, where Bill Craddock is Client Service Leader West of Global Business Services, Battelle and Merck & Co. have joined UPMC in its extensive efforts to establish a flexible vaccine development and production facility to strengthen U.S. biosecurity. IBM will provide innovative information technology. Meanwhile, IBM is trusted by U.S. consumers more than any other IT company when it comes to securing and protecting the privacy of their personal information, according to a survey from Ponemon Institute. And, IBM was named Best Security Company by SC Magazine.

LifeModeler's McGuan Wins Award
Shawn McGuan, CEO of LifeModeler Inc., was among the awardees honored at the recent Orange County Business Journal’s Excellence in Entrepreneurship Awards. Shawn joked that he got the idea for the company when he got “bored” at work and wanted to figure out a way to get into neat places such as Nike Inc. and meet interesting people, such as astronauts. (OCBJ, 3/17/10)

Pediatrix Expands in Maryland
Pediatrix Medical Group, where Dave Mintz heads Pacific Region Operations, has acquired Maryland Perinatal Associates, a group of four maternal-fetal medicine physicians that has four offices and relationships with four area hospitals.

Quality Systems Solutions Chosen
Quality Systems, Inc., where Steve Plochocki is CEO, announced that its NextGen Healthcare Information Systems subsidiary has executed an agreement with Wayne State University Physician Group in which WSUPG physicians, residents and staff will have access to NextGen Practice Solutions, which help increase collections, reduce A/R days, and improve efficiency in billing, scheduling, reporting, and other critical functions. Meanwhile, Ohio State Medical Association expanded its preferred partner agreement with NextGen, so that OSMA members will be offered preferred pricing for NextGen solutions.

Satellite Opens New Dialysis Center in Merced
Satellite Healthcare, where Mark Burke is CEO, has opened a new Satellite Dialysis center in Merced, California, equipped with 25 dialysis stations and a Peritoneal Dialysis area. Also, Satellite has launched a Facebook page, which provides the public with important educational facts about their kidneys, kidney disease and therapy options.

Select Data Discusses Medicare Outlier Caps
Select Data Inc., where Ed Buckley is CEO, has published a new E-Zine article - 2010 Outlier Cap: Clearly the Wrong Prescription - which discusses the changes that were made to outlier payments that became effective Jan 1, 2010.

Sutter to Invest in EHR System
Sutter Health, where Peter Anderson is Senior VP of Strategy/Business Development, announced that it will push forward with converting to electronic health records at its hospitals, after delaying the project to save money during the recession. Sutter expects to spend $400 million over the next five years to expand its digital medical system, with Sutter Medical Center going online in 2013. Sutter already has electronic medical records in its physician centers, officials said. (Sacramento Bee, 3/16/10)

VLSystems to Host Upcoming Seminars
VLSystems Inc., where Tom White is CEO, is presenting "Storage for the Efficient Data Center" lunch seminars, in Costa Mesa on March 23, and in El Segundo on April 1. Click for more information.

UPCOMING ROUND TABLES & EVENTS

3/24 - Developing an Effective Board Workshop, Costa Mesa: This interactive discussion program will address the Purposes, Types and Key Drivers for Getting Value from a Board, including Shareholder, Advisory and Special Purpose Boards.

4/28 - 12th Annual Innovations in Healthcare^SM Awards Event, Newport Beach

5/5 - Orange County Round Table
5/11 - Silicon Valley Round Table
5/12 - San Francisco Round Table
5/18 - San Diego Round Table
5/21 - Los Angeles Round Table

Healthcare Senior Exec with CEO & CFO Experience Seeks New Opportunity
Recommended by Jim Ashby, CEO of CareMeridian
Click for resume

State Introduces Cal eConnect
State of California officials have unveiled a new private organization - Cal eConnect - to fit the state's needs to manage California's health information exchange. Starting with a $38.8 million grant from California's HHS, Cal eConnect is charged with developing a statewide system for hospitals, clinics, physicians and other healthcare providers to communicate with each other in a secure, private, electronic way. 
     By helping California healthcare providers meet data exchange criteria to qualify for incentive payments from last year's federal economic stimulus package, Cal eConnect hopes to channel as much as $3 billion - the biggest state allotment of federal stimulus for health IT - over the next decade.
     One of Cal eConnect's first orders of business will be to seat a full board of 22 directors representing state government, private hospitals, public hospitals, medical groups, independent physicians, employers, private health plans, public health plans, consumers, health information exchange organizations, labor organizations, community clinics and informatics. The board then will begin to tackle dozens of issues, including: How much and when to use national systems and criteria such as the Nationwide Health Information Network; Evaluating the pros and cons of contracting with a single vendor vs. multiple vendors for data exchange services; and How and when to include patients/consumers in the process. State officials hope to have the full board in place within 60 to 90 days. (California Healthline, 3/15/10)

HHS to Award $162M for State HIEs
HHS announced the final $162 million in awards to support health information exchange projects in 16 states and qualified state-designated entities. Funding comes from the 2009 federal economic stimulus package. With the latest grant announcement, all U.S. states and eligible territories will have received stimulus funds for HIE initiatives. National Coordinator for Health IT David Blumenthal said federal officials would provide states with guidance and technical assistance as part of the grants. (Healthcare IT News, HealthLeaders Media, UPI, Government Health IT – 3/15/10)

Employers Rethinking Healthcare Offerings
An annual National Business Group on Health  and Towers Watson Survey found that 83% of employers either have made significant changes or expect to revamp their healthcare strategies in the next two years, up from 59% in 2009. Employers also are greatly concerned about their workers' poor health habits, which they cite as a primary cost driver, but say they are disappointed in the effectiveness of vendor programs. Employers are losing confidence that they will be able to continue to provide such benefits in the future. Only 57% said they are very confident they will continue to offer health benefits 10 years from now, down from 62% in 2009 and 73% in 2007.
     67% of employers point to employees’ poor health habits as a top challenge to maintaining affordable benefit coverage, with 58% indicating that the biggest obstacle to changing employees’ health-related behavior is lack of engagement, followed by lack of sufficient financial incentives to encourage participation (31%) and lack of an adequate health management program budget (30%). In response, 66% of employers plan to offer financial incentives to employees to complete a health risk assessment, up from 61% in 2009. In addition, 56% of employers now offer employees access to health coaches, up from 48% in 2009. However, employers said they are disappointed with vendor program delivery in this area, with 66% indicating that vendor programs designed to encourage lifestyle changes are not at all or only slightly effective. (businessinsurance.com, 2/22/10)

Changing Bad Employee Habits Takes Time, Patience
A recent survey found that employers are frustrated that employees aren't taking advantage of their work-based wellness programs to rid themselves of unhealthy habits such as smoking and excess weight. The article's conclusion: these health issues are the result of years, if not decades, of unhealthy choices that people have made. To expect that an employee is going to lose 30 pounds in the next six months because you're paying half of his gym fee is not realistic.
     That doesn't mean that we should give up on the wellness movement. The fact is, we are seeing progress in societal wellness. The "obesity epidemic" has flattened, not fattened, over the last 10 years. Fewer than one in five Americans now smoke, down from more than 42% in 1965. That's taken more than 40 years, and a lot of money. The employer-sponsored wellness movement is still quite young. As the movement matures, it will become more effective as it finds the right combination of incentives and benefits that will nudge employees to adopt healthier lifestyles. Now is not the time to get discouraged. Now is the time to take the long view. (HealthLeaders Media, 3/15/10)

MGMA: "Fully Pilot Meaningful Use Criteria"
A survey from the Medical Group Management Association found that 76% of respondents from mostly independent medical practices believe that the government should fully pilot test the 2013 and 2015 meaningful use criteria before requiring them to abide by it. MGMA interviewed 445 individuals in medical groups to determine their ability to meet the meaningful use requirements and qualify for the CMS EHR incentive programs. 55.1% of respondents store patient information in an EMR system that stores patient and medical demographic information in a computer database, while 31.9% use paper medical records and charts storage. 51% believe that Medicare and Medicaid incentive payments are important or very important to respondents' practice in establishing financial viability of an EMR upgrade or purchase.
     When asked how easy or difficult it was or will be for their practices to meet certain meaningful use criteria by 2011, the majority of respondents (111) thought it was or will be easy to enable the functionality of a certified EMR to implement drug-drug, drug-allergy and drug-formulary checks. 90 thought that it would be difficult to use a certified EHR to implement five clinical decision support rules relevant to a physician’s specialty. 81 thought it would be or was easy to use a CPOE feature of a certified EHR for at least 80% of all orders by 2011. However, 166 thought it was or would be difficult or very difficult to perform at least one test of a certified EHR’s capability to electronically exchange clinical information among providers of care and patient authorized entities for their practice by this time.
     In addition to other concerns - particularly regarding physician-patient connectivity, 31% estimated that productivity for an eligible provider implementing all of the 25 proposed meaningful use criteria would decrease more than 10%, the report concluded. (HealthImaging.com, 3/9/10)