The Place To Be for Healthcare IT Shopping

There’s no denying–the HIMSS 2006 exhibit is the place to be in February to see the latest in healthcare IT.

It’s see-and-be-seen time at HIMSS–the Magilla of healthcare IT trade shows and conventions. This year, the annual Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society Conference and Exhibition in February expects to draw almost 800 exhibitors and more than 23,000 attendees to 325,000 square feet of space at the San Diego Convention Center. That’s the size of six football fields.

There’s no denying–the HIMSS 2006 exhibit is the place to be in February to see the latest in healthcare IT.

Known for its massive exhibit hall that makes comfortable walking shoes a must, the HIMSS exhibit hall typically provides the industry’s broadest and most comprehensive look at available healthcare IT. This year should be no exception, as everyone from end-users to payers and from providers to media reps comb long corridors in search of the latest information technology.

This month, Health Management Technology provides a sampling of the fare being showcased at HIMSS in San Diego. See you there in February.

To help physician practices go digital and eliminate paper-based processes, e-MDs provides integrated practice management and electronic medical records (EMR) technology. The company’s e-MDs Solution Series is a multimodule suite led by e-MDs Chart, an EMR with SOAP note formatted clinical documentation integrated with ICD, CPT and HCPCS coding, plus prescription management, referral management and automated E&M coding. e-MDs Schedule supports patient, equipment and physician scheduling at single and multiple locations, while e-MDs Bill offers practice management, claims management, billing and reporting capabilities. Daily clinical activities and workflow are managed by e-MDs Tracking Board, that offers a one-screen view of the whole day with scheduled appointments, patient flow through the practice, outstanding messages and nurses’ orders. The company also offers technology for automated document management, charge capture, task and message management, and the practice of evidence-based medicine through a clinical rules engine. Booth 1750www.rsleads.com/601ht-231

Labor costs can constitute as much as 60 percent of a healthcare organization’s budget, so api Software Inc. offers a suite of products to streamline management and administration of employee information. The company provides time and attendance, staffing/scheduling, payroll, human resources, productivity management, education tracking and access control software. Founded in 1982, api Software has more than 400 installations in the United States, with customers ranging in size from 500 employees to more than 30,000 employees. The company’s flagship product, Payrollmation time and attendance system, automates a healthcare organization’s unique and complex pay policies and applies these pay policies in a fair and consistent manner, even across multiple physical locations. Booth 3337www.rsleads.com/601ht-233

Carstens Inc. will showcase products designed to help clinicians document at the point of care. Prominent in the line are WALLaroo wall-mounted workstations with sizes and configurations to fit the tightest or largest of wall spaces. The original WALLaroo, WALLaroo 2000 and WALLaroo 2000XW–and their economonically-sized Half-a-Roo and Half-a-Roo 2000 counterparts–accommodate a variety of charts, notebook PCs and keyboards with full closure of the mounted units. The WALKaroo III Mobile PC Cart can handle a full-size keyboard and any laptop computer, and includes a left- or right-handed pull-out mouse tray. Height is adjustable, and its contoured base was designed for walking behind it. It comes with power pack options, locking casters and a lockable work surface for securing notebooks. Carstens offers a hands-on experience with their equipment at HIMSS, so stop by Booth 7108.www.rsleads.com/601ht-234

HSS, an Ingenix company, develops and markets solutions to streamline coding, compliance and reimbursement at both provider and payer organizations; its products also are embedded in other suppliers’ software. WebStrat is a Web-native and scalable application for provider organizations, geared to ensure that all coders and HIM staff see, share and use the same coding and compliance policies, guidelines and processes–whether they work at the main enterprise facility, a remote location or at home. It supports more than 30 state or payer-specific payment systems with both logic-based and book-based encoding. WinStrat is the desktop version that runs on Windows 95/98/2000 or NT, and can operate standalone or be integrated with an organization’s existing HIM software. The company’s APC Assistant is a reference resource for billing staff that service Outpatient Prospective Payment System financials. See these and other solutions for chargemaster accuracy, code look up and code set access, payer contract management and PPS reimbursement at Booth 2729. www.rsleads.com/601ht-230

Picis delivers solutions for high-acuity care–the emergency department, the operating room, the intensive care unit and critical care. Picis systems are installed in more than 900 medical centers and integrated delivery networks worldwide. The company’s product line includes software for total perioperative automation and specific automation for ED, the OR, anesthesia documentation, bed management and patient scheduling. In 2004, Picis merged with ibex, a provider of emergency department systems, and now offers Ibex PulseCheck, Web browser-based software that combines triage, patient tracking, physician and nursing documentation, risk management, charge management, integrated voice recognition and prescription writing features for ED personnel as well as seamless data sharing between the ED and the hospital’s existing HIS. Booth 2718www.rsleads.com/601ht-236

Spacelabs Medical is a manufacturer and distributor of patient monitoring systems. They include bedside monitors, wireless, telemetry and networking solutions, as well as advanced multiparameter monitoring. They also provide ambulatory blood pressure monitors and medical data services. Spacelabs Medical systems are designed to help care teams in critical care, emergency, neonatal and perioperative areas make informed decisions and save time. The Intesys Clinical Suite stores patient information centrally and makes it available from any connected PC on the network, so that clinicians can work more effectively from multiple and remote locations including the patient’s bedside, their own workstations, a nurses’ station, a remote physician office or even a home office. Intesys Clinical Suite applications include Full Disclosure, Electronic Flowsheet, Vital Signs Viewer, Print Manager, ADT Interface and Vital Signs Interface. Booth 2537www.rsleads.com/601ht-237

MedQuist Inc. provides a suite of products and modules designed to wrap around the clinical documentation, dictation capture, transcription, health information management and speech recognition arenas including provision of outsourcing services. Its DocQment Enterprise Platform (DEP) is a document workflow management system that integrates all these functions along with dictation routing and delivery services using an Internet-hosted model. DEP includes four integrated components: VoiceQ, a hosted system that captures dictation via an 800 call-in and handles workflow via the keypad so the clinician doesn’t have to change his dictation style preferences; DocQmanage, a Web-based tool for workflow and administrative reporting management; DocQscribe, another Web-based tool for transcriptionists and medical editors to work remotely via the Internet; SpeechQ, a speech recognition system based on the Philips SpeechMagic technology. Read a case history about DEP and SpeechQ for Radiology in a large enterprise system on page 20 of this issue. Booth 5107www.rsleads.com/601ht-232

Pulse Systems, a supplier of EHR and practice management technology since 1982, recently enhanced its integrated product line with the 2005 addition of the Pulse Patient Relationship Management (PRM) system. Pulse PRM focuses on flow–patient flow, workflow and the provider’s cash flow. It includes all practice management functionality, EHRs, document management, scheduling capability, accounts receivable administration, management of contracts, eligibility verification, authorizations and referrals. More than 200 standard reports are available, along with PulseIQ Reporting that can integrate clinical, financial and administrative data from the core applications. PulseCare allows physicians to document patient encounters at the point of care using wireless handheld devices. Electronic prescribing, voice recognition and transcription management, plus a specialized module for ambulatory surgery centers are also available. Test drive it at Booth 4101. www.rsleads.com/601ht -238

A 15-year old company, MedPlus has focused and developed its technology solutions for healthcare providers around a core of three functionalities, illustrated through specific product lines. Care360 represents an electronic network for storing, accessing and sharing patient data, with physician portal capability. The ChartMaxx Electronic Patient Record is an enterprise system for patient record-keeping, chart completion and assembly, coding integration and physician e-signature on patient data; at the same time, ChartMaxx for Patient Accounts zeroes in on an organization’s need for automated registration, data capture for billing, electronic remittance processing, management of patients accounts and the integration of clinical with financial data. OptiMaxx is MedPlus’ document management technology, geared to help providers replace their paper, tape or microfiche storage with digital storage, and specifically designed to help healthcare organizations leverage their existing IT and HIS investments. Booth 2527www.rsleads.com/601ht -239

ProVation Medical provides software solutions specifically for physicians and nurses–designed by clinicians and aimed at the clinical preferences of clinician-users–as they document episodic and procedural patient care. ProVation MD offers physicians in gastroenterology, orthopedics, urology, pain management and cardiology documentation software that auto-populates with post-procedural orders and patient instructions. It prompts physicians to document efficiently so that correct clinical terminology links automatically to appropriate ICD and CPT codes for procedures, supplies and medications. ProVation RN eliminates paper documentation for nurses, automating collection of vitals while transferring patient demographics and scheduling data from ProVation MD. ProVation software serves both hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers with installations in more than 260 facilities. Booth 547
www.rsleads.com/601ht-240

Since 1994, QCSI (Quality Care Solutions Inc.) has dedicated itself to serving health plans and payers with enterprise applications that target operations among the many relationships that health plans support–employers, brokers, members and providers. QNXT, the company’s flagship system, is a product suite with functionality aimed at all these relationships including claims management, call management, utilization management, premium billing, credentialing, plan sponsor administration, member administration, payment management, contract management, medical policy, provider management and consumer-directed healthcare options. Independent components for user interface, business logic and data structure characterize the QNXT architecture, enabling the product suite to continually evolve and to replace existing technology with advanced technology as necessary, without having to redesign or add new layers. Simultaneously, cross-functional integration of QNXT applications eliminates having to rekey data or rely on hotlinks to applications or data across the enterprise. Booth 4413www.rsleads.com/601ht-241

Headquartered in Norcross, Ga., Flo Healthcare provides wireless and mobile workstations and medication workstations for healthcare clinicians, with 35,000 devices and infrastructure systems installed in about 700 hospitals nationwide. Flo’s products, including the Flo 1750 Workstation and the Flo 2400 Medication Workstation, are designed to address both ergonomics and patient safety requirements, with spaces for clinicians to write, adjustable monitor heights and a smaller size that fits next to patient beds. The Flo 2400 is part of a closed-loop system designed to eliminate potential for error in medication administration, using sophisticated cabinetry along with barcode technology. Supporting use of the workstations is the Flo 2.4 Wireless Network with UL and IEEE compliance. HIMSS conference goers can try out the workstations personally at Booth 1801.www.rsleads.com/601ht-242

XPress Technologies services hospital emergency departments nationwide with a comprehensive EDIS that includes specialized components for ED nurses, automated prescriptions, discharge instructions and management reporting. XPress Classic offers all these functionalities along with more than 100 charting templates that support creation of a new patient chart at a centralized hub or at bedside via a tablet PC. XPress EMR merges all one-touch clinical entries to create and store a prose-based patient record, eliminating the need for dictation and allowing the clinician to view his work as a report. Using the system’s Helm and Observatory capabilities, ED clinicians can focus on a single patient, concentrate on an individual section of the ED or view the entire department’s activities as a whole. Prescription Writer calculates pediatric doses and allows the clinician to customize a personalized list of preferred medication combinations for specific diagnoses. Booth 7249www.rsleads.com/601ht-243

Healthcare Management Systems Inc. provides an information technology system to help hospitals integrate clinical and financial applications on an IBM platform, designed for enterprise use but with specific modules dedicated to clinical, financial and administrative functions. On the clinical side, HMS solutions include technology for clinical documentation, generation of provider orders, electronic medication administration, surgery management, transcription and quality improvement. Integrated within the HIS technology are revenue cycle solutions for contract management, patient accounting, HIM, electronic billing and remittance and medical-necessity validation, as well as FIS applications for general ledger, payroll and human resources, management of fixed assets, time and attendance and materials management. For more than 20 years, HMS has focused on developing partnerships with healthcare organizations that enable organizations to benefit from single platform integration of all enterprise data–administrative, clinical and financial–and now services more than 450 hospitals nationwide. Booth 3052www.rsleads.com/601ht-241

Founded in 2000, the privately held company manufactures and sells peripherals and accessories for mobile and desktop computer technology. Ambir Technology’s products for healthcare include sheet-fed, automatic document feeder and ID/photo scanners for document imaging; biometric fingerprint scanners for network logon and security authentication; and electronic signature pads that can reduce the paperwork associated with medical records. The PS662W and FS531 ID/photo scanners can be used to copy insurance cards and identification during check-ins. They feature a 600 dpi optical resolution, are TWAIN compliant and require no external power source. Docketport and AV, PS and DS series scanners have small footprints and can be used to digitize large volumes of paper medical records for electronic storage and access. Booth 3610www.rsleads.com/601ht-245

Since 1984, CDW Corp. has offered technology solutions to business, government and education. They carry a plethora of PC/Mac hardware, software, storage and network equipment at the company’s online superstore. They also provide online support for networking, telephony, storage, security and software, as well as prepackaged and onsite customized IT installation, support and staffing services. Onsite installation includes the unpacking, setup, assembly, testing and support of desktops, servers and networking equipment purchased from CDW and installed on a company’s network. Onsite deployment augments a company’s IT capability to execute hardware and software migrations, including removal and disposal of existing equipment. Staff augmentation provides skilled IT staff, short- and long-term, for company call centers, new product installations, and network maintenance and deployment. Booth 249www.rsleads.com/601ht-246

Cisco Systems Inc. is a provider of converged network solutions for healthcare, business and the Internet. From biometric technologies to healthcare informatics to point-of-care information systems, Cisco offers solutions that streamline communications between patients and physicians. Medical-grade networks offer converged picture archive and communications system (PACS), electronic medical record (EMR), computerized physician order entry and integrated health systems on a single, self-monitoring/-repairing network. Connected electronic health records (EHR) streamline the input, viewing and exchange of patient information on a hospital’s network. The Clinical Connection Suite includes Nurse Call, Patient Monitoring, Location-Based Services and Collaborative Care clinical applications. E-radiology integrates PACS, storage area network and EMR in a linked RIS/HIS network. Cisco also offers network security, storage, wireless LAN, and data, voice and video technologies, as well as consulting services through its Internet Business Solutions Group. Booth 2513www.rsleads.com/601ht-247

Misys Healthcare Systems designs and develops clinical information solutions for physician practices, acute healthcare organizations and the homecare sector. Misys Optimum includes a host of clinical and Web-based solutions designed to streamline communications and data sharing between acute care facilities and healthcare professionals. Misys Connect bridges the gap between physicians, homecare providers and acute care facilities by providing 24/7 access to patient information from any location that has Web access. Misys Fast Services is a family of patient management solutions that includes billing, claims management, automated appointment reminders and more. Misys Tiger for small- and mid-sized practices, and Misys Vision for enterprise installations, provide practice management solutions that include HIPAA security audit reports, ID card scanning, appointment scheduling and insurance eligibility validation. Other Misys healthcare solutions include laboratory, EMR and CPR information systems. Booth 721www.rsleads.com/601ht-248

QuadraMed focuses on streamlining healthcare with technologies and services to automate, manage and standardize organizations’ billing, financial and compliance systems. The Quantim Health Information Management suite includes inpatient and outpatient compliance solutions in a single-platform, Web-native package to automate, manage and monitor coding and billing practices. HIS management solutions include Affinity Patient Scheduling, Affinity Patient Registration and Affinity Precise ID, designed to improve productivity by keeping patient information and scheduling updated and accessible. Care solutions include Affinity Order Management, which tracks test results and treatment notes and supplies real-time reports on possible drug interaction problems, and Affinity Department Management, used to streamline scheduling and patient-tracking workflows. Financial management solutions like Affinity Patient Accounting are designed to improve patient billing accuracy and increase receivables through revenue cycle management tools. Booth 1421www.rsleads.com/601ht-249

Tele-Tracking Technologies provides capacity management and workflow automation solutions. More than 600 hospitals in North America use the company’s Capacity Management Solutions products to streamline bed turnover, patient placement and transport processes. Bed Management Suite includes real-time bed and admissions tracking, room cleaning and patient status modules. The individual modules are designed to assist and automate staff communications–monitoring and reporting during all phases of room turnover. The system requires no special communications hardware and operates over a hospital’s telephone system. Environmental services employees use BedTracking to receive assignments and make reports to their supervisors, who use PreAdmitTracking with electronic bedboard to monitor the status of the room between patients. The TransportTracking module is an automatic transport dispatcher, designed to streamline patient transport through the hospital, and ServiceTracking is for operations and facility managers to automate communications and assign tasks. Read how the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison, Wis. used bedboard mobile beginning on page 12 of this issue. Booth 1609www.rsleads.com/601ht-250

American Power Conversion (APC) helps digital hospitals optimize the availability of their healthcare IT applications through the use of innovative network-critical, physical infrastructure (NCPI) solutions. APC will feature its InfraStruXure data center solutions for high density, first time data center users, data center restructuring and VoIP applications. Featuring fully integrating power, cooling and environmental management within a rack-optimized design, InfraStruXure’s agile architecture is designed to reduce NCPI installation time while decreasing total cost of ownership. APC offers digital hospitals three types of InfraStruXure systems for high density–one for each of the three major blade server providers: Dell, HP and IBM. With these blade specific systems, customers can deploy blades in their data center without adjustment or modification to their existing environment. Also on display will be APC’s InfraStruXure system for VoIP, for customers looking to increase IT productivity and capitalize on the business value of converged networks. Booth 423www.rsleads.com/601ht-251

Speech recognition, dictation and transcription technology for hospitals, clinics and physician practices is a strength Dictaphone will have on display. Enterprise Express is the company’s enterprise platform for dictation and workflow management, for both traditional dictation and speech recognition. Across the enterprise, EXSpeech offers speech recognition tools for phone-based dictation and transcriptionist-edited dictation, as well as for physician-controlled ability to dictate, edit, correct and complete documentation. PowerScribe for General Medicine provides speech recognition software with specialized language models for emergency medicine and pathology, while PowerScribe for Radiology serves the specialized needs of radiologists. Dictaphone also offers natural language processing (NLP) software with NLP Voice Originated Intelligence. Speech recognized text documents are processed through the software that can extract and structure key medical data on diagnoses, procedures, medications and allergies, which clinicians can view through a Web interface; the data are linked back to the originating text documents from which they were extracted for added medical reference. Booth 1023www.rsleads.com/601ht-235

Lawson Software specializes in the business and administrative side of healthcare. Lawson Financials automate the necessities of business, such as accounts payable, general ledger and accounts receivable. Beyond those, Asset Management organizes the book value, location, inventory costs, lease costs and depreciation values of fixed assets; Financial Reporting Self-Service provides Internet-supported dissemination of financial information and reporting throughout an organization, so that managers can interact dynamically with the data; Budgeting and Planning is a forecasting tool, supported by a Web-based user interface, that allows automatic roll-ups of forecasts received from remotely-based participants into an organizational forecast; Strategic Ledger is a business performance management module for analysis of cost management, vendor management, customer management, and revenue and profitability. Lawson also delivers specialized Healthcare Supply Chain Management applications that include automated purchasing, inventory management and vendor payment; Surgical Instrument Management for efficient ordering, locating and tracking of all surgical instruments; and Par and Cycle Counting to support paperless and mobile maintenance of par areas and performance of cycle counts. Booth 3601www.rsleads.com/601ht-252

NextGen provides automation solutions for physician practices with NextGen EPM (Enterprise Practice Management) as a foundation. NextGen EPM was designed to integrate and streamline all aspects of a physician practice–clinical, financial and administrative–and is especially suited for enterprises with multiple locations and providers. The software includes an Enterprise Patient Index so patient demographic data is entered only once and is available, correctly, throughout the enterprise. Automated Registration offers practices the ability to preregister new patients through an Internet interface and then to scan insurance photos and cards directly from registration into the application. Claims Edits & Scrubbing scrubs claims prior to submission; users can choose edits from a library of payer-specific edits including ICD-9, CTE, CCI and LMRP edits or customize their own edits. EPM integrates completely with the NextGen EMR with its modules for electronic charting, patient education, medication management, referral management, lab order entry and results reporting, contract management, outcomes analysis, clinical decision support and enterprise data sharing, among others. Booth 1637www.rsleads.com/601ht-253

Charting Plus from MediNotes Corp. is a best-of-breed, HIPAA certified electronic health record system designed for any practice size. Charting Plus utilizes a single screen “what you see is what you get” interface, to make documentation intuitive for users. It interfaces with more than 40 practice management systems, as well as several reference laboratories, document management systems and appointment scheduling systems. It is one of only a few EMRs that use anatomical graphics for clinicians to describe the exact location of a medical condition. Charting Plus allows a medical group to eliminate transcription costs by creating, storing and organizing medical encounter notes using customizable diagnosis- or treatment-based templates. Charting Plus typically is used on a wireless tablet PC, allowing the provider to document in real-time, while keeping his focus and attention on the patient. In addition to storing encounter notes, the application also can store scanned hard copies or link to other digital files stored on the practice’s network. Booth 6011www.rsleads.com/601ht-254

Draeger Medical provides products, services and integrated CareArea Solutions for clinical utilization in multiple arenas, from perioperative care to critical care to perinatal care. The company’s new Infinity OneNet lets hospitals run wired and wireless patient monitoring systems on the hospital’s existing network infrastructure. Traditionally, patient monitoring has required its own separate, dedicated network to guarantee security and performance. Draeger Medical’s alternative solution allows “life critical” information from the patient monitor to be delivered over the hospital network. Infinity OneNet is both a network architecture and a comprehensive suite of professional services that allow the hospital’s existing enterprise network to provide patient monitoring in parallel with its commercial and administrative applications–all in one industry-standard network. As a VLAN-based shared infrastructure, Infinity OneNet aims to reduce necessary administration and cost of network management. Booth 4501www.rsleads.com/601ht-255

Dell Healthcare provides diverse computing, network and imaging solutions and services to healthcare providers. Beside the portable, desktop and mainframe computers for which the company is well known, Dell’s product line includes flat-panel and touchscreen monitors, printers, scanners and PDAs. They also offer operating system software and IT infrastructure hardware, such as networking and data storage equipment. Through Dell’s Healthcare Alliance Program Dell consultants work with leading software/hardware vendors to build certified, customized computing solutions designed specifically to a healthcare provider’s needs. Dell offers state-of-the-art PACS imaging solutions, through agreements with vendor partners such as AGFA, AMICAS, Barco, Planar and Siemens, among others. They also offer best-of-breed, HIPAA compliant network security solutions, for protecting an organizations data and servers. Dell’s relationship with their Healthcare Alliance Partners allows them to guarantee compatibility with existing systems and industry standards. Booth 3148www.rsleads.com/601ht-256

Formed in 2001, Motion Computing specializes in high-end tablet PCs for mobile computing and wireless applications. At use in many hospitals around the nation, the company’s LS800 and LE1600 models have found favor in the healthcare network industry as handhelds for mobile CPOE, access to EHRs at the point of care, charge capture and more. The LS800 features an ultra-compact design with full XP functionality and the power of a desktop PC. The LE1600 contains the same features as the LS800 in a slightly larger design. It offers extended battery life and a larger display. Both models feature biometric fingerprint reader/scanners. Especially useful in today’s security conscious wireless environments is the company’s thin client model. The LE1600TC features an embedded Windows XPe operating system and the most common client applications, giving the model a high-degree of compatibility. Booth 5043www.rsleads.com/601ht-257