Article

2014-10-11 -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

New E-Records Systems Hightlighted by Ebola Case

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Bobby 2014-10-11 10:57|| || Front Page|| [4 views ] Top

#1 ....Considering that the state systems were probably designed/built by the same kind of people who did the Federal system - i.e.; the best-connected people with some vague connection to an IT outfit - this should be no surprise.

Mike

Posted by Mike Kozlowski 2014-10-11 12:40|| 2014-10-11 12:40|| Front Page Top

#2 FYI, the system in question, Epic, is a privately held company that has received tons of public money for development of the software, and billions more in public money by way of contracts with the hospitals.

And their CEO is a big-time Obama and Obamacare backer. There is a LOT of dirt here.

From Michelle Malkin:

Epic was founded by billionaire Judy Faulkner, a top Obama donor whose company is the dominant EMR player in the U.S. health care market. Epic employees donated nearly $1 million to political parties and candidates between 1995 and 2012 — 82 percent of it to Democrats. The company's Top 10 PAC recipients are all Democratic or leftwing outfits, from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (nearly $230,000) to the DNC Services Corporation (nearly $175,000) and the America’s Families First Action Fund super-PAC ($150,000).

Faulkner, an influential Obama campaign finance bundler, served as an adviser to David Blumenthal, the White House health information technology guru in charge of dispensing the federal electronic medical records subsidies that Faulkner pushed President Obama to adopt. Faulkner also served on the same committee Blumenthal chaired.

[gee any influence going on there?]

Epic and other large firms lobbied aggressively for nearly $30 billion in federal subsidies for their companies under the 2009 Obama stimulus package. The law penalizes medical providers who fail to comply with the one-size-fits-all mandate. Health care analysts at the RAND Corporation admitted last year that their cost-savings predictions of $81 billion a year were vastly inflated.

Epic has been the subject of rising industry and provider complaints about its antiquated closed-end system. So much so that when Texas Health released its first statement about the software glitch in the Ebola case, Jack Shaffer, a health care IT guru and top official at KRM Associates, immediately snarked on Twitter: "Guess Epic can't share data even with itself!"

Rep. Phil Gingrey of Georgia cited criticisms of Epic at a congressional hearing this summer and asked: "Is the government getting its money's worth? It may be time for the committee to take a closer look at the practices of vendor companies in this space, given the possibility that fraud may be perpetrated on the American taxpayer."

The president-elect of the American Medical Association, Dr. Steven Stack, told Modern Healthcare magazine earlier this month that Epic’s software architecture "often leaves out key information and corrupts data in transit."

More proof that Obamacare was a boondoggle - to enrich connected companies and connected executives -- not to improve healthcare at all.

Posted by OldSpook 2014-10-11 13:44|| 2014-10-11 13:44|| Front Page Top

23:39 Beavis
23:25 Redneck Jim
22:02 Anguper Hupomosing9418
21:30 badanov
21:29 CrazyFool
20:59 SteveS
20:36 49 Pan
20:23 49 Pan
20:20 regular joe
20:15 Frank G
20:10 Frank G
20:04 SteveS
19:26 49 Pan
19:25 Old Patriot
19:21 Old Patriot
18:43 Shipman
18:33 Alaska Paul
18:29 Shipman
18:21 Barbara
18:12 Barbara
18:09 OldSpook
18:00 JohnQC
17:58 Skidmark
17:46 Mr. Frank