October 8, 2007

1. Microsoft Announces HealthVault Personal Health Record

Facts and Background

Microsoft announced its HealthVault site on Thursday, which will consist of personal health record hosting, a health search engine, and Internet-based connectivity to home monitoring devices like glucometers.

Opinion

Microsoft seems to be more widely hated than almost every company other than TV cable operators and ambulance-chasing attorneys. Every blue screen of death or IE shutdown turns one more user against them. Even if consumers and doctors cared about PHRs - and they don't, judging from the lukewarm response to earlier entrants - will they really voluntarily turn their most private information over to Microsoft?

Musings

• Rhetoric aside, this is all about advertising revenue, not health.
• The device connectivity is the best idea in the announcement.
• Second best is partnering with other companies to build out HealthVault.
• Surprisingly, especially given widespread distrust of Microsoft, privacy fanatics weren't all over this announcement. So far.
• The only cheerleaders for PHRs, other than companies wanting to sell ads on them, are insurance companies and employers. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why they're interested in having patient records in one easily accessible location, with the patient obligingly self-reporting all kinds of information that could be used against them.
• You can't e-mail your doctor. They won't talk to you on the telephone. They don't do Webcams, won't come to your house, and may turn your hospital care over to specialists. Do they really want to sit around and read your PHR information, especially if it may be incomplete? What's their incentive? If they really wanted to know more about you, wouldn't they be more supportive of RHIOs so they could connect to other physician and hospital systems?
• One hacking will bury HealthVault in bad publicity. Microsoft's security holes get far more press than anyone's. Does anyone doubt that it can be hacked, especially since it's such a large, well-lit target and run by a company that hackers detest?
• A PHR without physician participation is a private blog connected to nothing, i.e. waste of time. And nobody's offering to pay physicians to use them.
• Instead of listening to surveys asking consumers what they want, ask them if they or their doctors are using PHRs. They're not. Being in favor of something vs. actually doing it is quite different. PHRs are inconvenient for both patients and physicians.
   

2. Healthvision Acquired by Quovadx

Facts and Background

Integration specialist Quovadx announced its acquisition of hospital information exchange vendor Healthvision on Wednesday.

Opinion

The last of the dot-com darlings finally flames out. The business model was suspect even in 2000, thrown together by Eclipsys, VHA, and Neoforma to try to cash in before the bubble burst. Didn't happen. A last-ditch VeriSign investment earlier this year either fell through or didn't help. With RHIOs struggling, that left Healthvision in the hospital website business, a hopelessly commoditized market.

Musings

• Flush with private equity money (Battery Ventures), Quovadx says more acquisitions are coming.
• Given a historic lack of success and an iffy business model, it's hard to see how Quovadx can do anything impressive with what's left of Healthvision, although they probably picked it up cheap since it appeared to be close to shutting down anyway.
   

3. IBA Health Finally Acquires iSoft

Facts and Background

Shareholders in UK hospital software vendor iSoft approved the sale of the company to Australian competitor IBA Health on Thursday. The sale is expected to be completed by October 30.

Opinion

iSoft is a key player in the UK's NHS IT modernization program, but it's had a long list of financial and accounting problems in addition to being blamed by its primary contractors for delivery problems that caused them financial hardship. They've been in the news constantly for months: rumored to be going out of business, the subject of legal probes, the rumored acquisition target of several companies, and the poster child for what's gone wrong with the UK's massive NPfIT project.

Musings

• Primary contractor CSC, which has veto power over an iSoft acquisition, used it to block IBA's intended acuisition of iSoft in June.
• IBA said in late August that it would concede bidding on iSoft to Germany's CompuGroup, but then raised the bid.
• Since iSoft was never able to follow through on its boast of preparing for an invasion of the US market, this doesn't really matter much to anyone in the US except to companies like Cerner, who have picked up some of the NHS business.
   

4. Cerner, Eclipsys Kick Off User Group Meetings

Facts and Background

The 2007 Cerner Health Confence will be October 7-10 in Kansas City, MO. The Eclipsys User Network will hold its Outcomes Conference in Orlando on the same days.

Opinion

At least most hospitals won't have to choose between the events since the two companies often compete directly. It's interesting how large and comprehensive these vendor-specific conferences have become over the years.

Musings

• For some hospitals not looking to kick product tires, vendor conferences may hold more value than the HIMSS conference, especially for users in a non-strategic hospital role.
• InSight, the McKesson user group, will follow these conferences on October 17-20 in Atlanta.
• Cerner will continue with one of the most brilliant marketing themes of any vendor: letting customers do the talking. It's done a lot to dispel the company's image as a vendor of vision instead of real, working software.
   

5. Misys Homecare Gets a Big Sale

Facts and Background

Misys Healthcare Systems announced Tuesday that Advocate Home Health Services of Oak Brook, IL will use its Misys Homecare application.

Opinion

Everybody forgot about Misys Home Care as the company was busy getting out of the hospital software business by selling off its clinical and ancillary systems in July. Still, given its oft-repeated statement that it's in the physician system business, that division seems like a lame duck.

Musings

• US homecare automation will be hot in the foreseeable future, although it's questionable whether a struggling British banking software vendor is in the best position to capitalize on that.
• KLAS ranks the Misys product at #5 of 7.
  
  

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