Continue reading »]]> On this week’s show, we talk with Jim Pesce, Executive Vice President and General Manager of McKesson’s Paragon group about what is going on with the Paragon Hospital Information System.  I still need other vendors to give me a call so we can feature their products and what is going on with them.  Jim asked me to pass along his phone number at the Paragon Corporate offices in Charlotte, NC so that our listeners can contact them with any questions.  Their number is (704)549.7123.

PLEASE…I need you to get the information out to your vendors and have them contact me at spencer@itpodcast.org so we can set up a time to talk with them.

If you want to add this link to your Google homepage, please click here:

The following articles are referenced on the “In the News” section of today’s podcast.

Cisco to Phase-Out Linksys Brand

H-1B Visa Quota Met

Testimony to Congress that we need 40,000 more Health IT Professionals

The next podcast will be produced and released on May 3, 2008.

Continue reading »]]> On this week’s show, we talk about the CMS “Never Events” and talk with San Luis Valley Regional Medical Center’s Director of Quality and Patient Safety, Coryee Hamons about how these never events are going to affect hospitals and the challenges we face.  I have not forgotten about the multi-part series to talk about the various integrated hospital information systems that are out there, but so far, I have only had McKesson’s Paragon group and Meditech respond.  If I don’t get more vendors interested in participating, I plan on going forward with interviews with McKesson’s Jim Pesce as well as some (at this time unnamed) executive from Meditech.

I need you to get the information out to your vendors and have them contact me at spencer@itpodcast.org so we can set up a time to talk with them.

If you want to add this link to your Google homepage, please click here:

Here are the links for the stories mentioned in the news segment of the show:

Alamosa, Colorado Salmonella Outbreak Update

11 Year Old takes school network by the horns

Cautious VoIP Approach

Safari Web Browser Catches Businesses by Surprise

National Institute of Health Division Laptop Stolen

Antioch University Sun Solaris Server Breach

Thank you for listening.  The next show will be released on Saturday, April 19, 2008

Continue reading »]]> I posted this response at CIO.com in response to an article surrounding the need for more than one software vendor.  Text of response is below.

READER FEEDBACK

Spencer Hamons Tue, 2008-01-15 17:09

Although I agree with some points made here regarding negotiation position and the relatively small number of large software vendors available, I take issue with just stating that this is the best strategy.

This may well be the best strategy for organizations with mature enought IT departments capable of handling the complexity multiple vendors involves. It is also dependent upon the business of the organization and the risk tolerance and what data integrity means to the specific organization.

For example, I am the CIO of a hospital, and if I encounter a data integration problem that happens to result in some clinical data from one patient being transposed to another patient, I don’t have an upset customer on the end of the support line for an online order they placed. I have the potential for adverse drug interactions, incorrect lab or radiology data, or even death resulting from mistreatment. These are risks that I am not willing to take for the sake of a negotiation advantage. Likewise, if my IT staff were 250 employees capable of monitoring each and every HL7 transaction, my risk tolerance would be different than it is currently with my 10 IT staff members. Additionally, in healthcare, I never have the luxury of taking the entire system down for 24 hours over the weekend…not even a portion of the system. In a 24×7 operation, care must be taken on how do you keep systems active and functioning day and night. If a data integrity problem erupts, for the safety of our patients, we have to take systems off-line. With “one throat to choke”, combined with good contract metrics, the vendor is motivated to resolve our problems quickly rather that point fingers at integration points.

This is a topic that will be discussed on an upcoming podcast at ITPodcast.org for anyone in the healthcare industry (or interested in the healthcare industry) that would like to listen in.