HIMSS Digest: Health-Care Moves From IBM, Cisco, Avaya And Others

Some of the most visible vendors in the channel brought significant announcements to the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference in Atlanta this week. Here's a look at major vendor newsmakers from the show.

Cisco Launches HealthPresence

Cisco earlier this weekend launched HealthPresence, a telemedicine platform that brings Cisco's Telepresence immersive video and collaboration technology into health care settings. In essence, HealthPresence is a combination of TelePresence and Cisco's unified communications portfolio, and includes vertical-specific tools like Cisco Vitals Software, a feature for physiological data capture and high-definition video streaming, and specialized medical equipment like an ear-nose-throat camera, a digital stethoscope and vital signs testers.

According to Cisco, HealthPresence is available immediately, was piloted by Cisco's Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG), and is designed for both permanent facilities and mobile units.

Dr. Kaveh Safavi, vice president and global lead for the health-care practice at IBSG, said in an interview that HealthPresence isn't so much intended to be a catch all device as drive the collaboration agenda in the vertical.

"We're creating an alternative to an onsite clinic," he said. "You have doctors' offices in different locations, and this is as good as being there."

IBM Closes Acquisition of Initiate Systems

IBM earlier this week completed its acquisition of Initiate Systems, which develops data integrity software for health care organizations, insurance providers and the government. IBM's Dan Pelino, general manager of Big Blue's Healthcare and Life Sciences group, said the move would help expand IBM's health care expertise -- including what it can offer its healthcare channel -- and speaks to the ongoing consolidation of healthcare software companies.

"You're going to see a consolidation of EMR companies and a greater level of applications," Pelino said. "They're [Initiate] best in show according to Gartner -- the gold standard."

Pelino and Sean Cassidy, vice president of product management at Initiate, said there are no plans to disrupt any of Initiate's existing partnerships, which include agreements with IBM rivals like Oracle.

"It can be co-opetition," Pelino said.

"Almost to a partner, we've seen no negative reaction," Cassidy insisted. "We can collaborate, and it can be mutually beneficial for everyone."

Avaya Intros New UC Tools

Avaya debuted four new unified communications products at HIMSS: an updated version of its Mobile Device Checkout system for tracking mobile devices; a Nurse Call Response system that allows patients to reach nurses directly; Patient Admit Coordinator, a system that uses various messaging tools like e-mail and IM to notify individual departments about patients from an emergency room; and Patient Appointment Reminder, a patient notification system that sends automated messages to patients to remind them about appointments.

Sanjeev Gupta, general manager of Avaya's Healthcare Solutions group, told Channelweb.com that the new products are designed to advance mobility in the health care space and help organizations grapple with ongoing problems such as staff shortages.

"Most healthcare CMIOs spend a lot of time on process improvement, and many nurses spend a lot more time on care coordination than patient care," he said. "These are designed to relieve bottlenecks."

The new products will role out to the channel over the coming months, according to Avaya, with Mobile Device Checkout available now, Nurse Call Response and Patient Appointment Reminder arriving in June, and Patient Admit Coordinator ready by July.

Avaya's recent acquisition of Nortel's enterprise unit significantly ups the company's stake in health care. Gupta was formerly Nortel's general manager for healthcare solutions and was among executives who transitioned to Avaya following the acquisition.

Next: Health Care Releases From Symantec, Verizon, Microsoft And Oracle Microsoft Expands HealthVault

Microsoft at HIMSS launched HealthVault Community Connect, an extension of its HealthVault patient health record platform that's designed to unify disparate health IT systems and make patient data available for sharing between hospitals, patients and referring physicians. Patients can also view, store and share medical information on their own, and perform functions like pre-register for hospital visits.

"We're enabling the entire ecosystem to the continuum of care. Data that resides on disparate back-end systems is liberated, extracted out and then passed to the consumer," said Chris Sullivan, industry solutions director for Microsoft's U.S. Health and Life Sciences Group, in an interview. "We now have information that is flowing from the enterprise to the consumer in safe, private way."

Sullivan suggested the opportunities for Microsoft solution providers and app developers in health care would continue to grow as the push toward interoperable data systems creates need for rich applications.

Symantec Wants To Host

Symantec used HIMSS to unveil Symantec Health, a new service that enables healthcare providers to securely store, archive and share medical records. It's a hosted offering, consisting of Symantec Health Safe and Symantec Health Image Share.

The former component offers storage for medical images and also business analytics and business continuity features, and the latter enables healthcare facilities to share and download images between providers and hospital networks.

"Health IT executives continually cite the soaring costs associated with medical image storage as one of the biggest challenges they face," said Lori Wright, vice president and general manager of the Electronic Health Group at Symantec, in a statement. "Symantec's security and storage management expertise and its leading Software as a Service portfolio are key reasons why many healthcare industry leaders trust Symantec to deliver these new hosted offerings in a cost-effective and secure way."

Verizon Debuts New EHR Platform

Verizon on Wednesday introduced Verizon Medical Data Exchange, a platform the telecommunications giant says will accelerate adoption of electronic health records (EHR) by allowing healthcare organizations to share physician notes more easily. It uses a central directory to verify identities of both senders and recipients to make sure sensitive medical data reaches the right users, and transmits it over an encrypted platform.

"Pervasive sharing of patient information can save lives, but complex challenges have stood in the way of health IT solutions," said Peter Tippett, vice president, security solutions and enterprise innovation for Verizon Business, in a statement. "Digital record sharing among the entire health information ecosystem can help speed patient diagnoses while enabling health care organizations to operate more efficiently and cost-effectively."

Oracle Tees Up Analytics Tools

Oracle used HIMSS to debut a number of business analytics tools tailored to health care settings. Among them are Oracle Healthcare Data Warehouse Foundation, a database for healthcare analytics app developers, and Operating Room Analytics, a performance management application geared toward surgical services directors and nursing leaders to judge operating room efficiency. The goal with the applications and others like it is to spur app development in Oracle's health care partner ecosystem, the company explained.

"It is critical for healthcare providers to have key business information such as daily volumes, financial indicators, productivity variances, service line metrics, and revenue cycle performance at their fingertips," said Roy Mathews, CEO of Oracle partner Anthem Healthcare Intelligence, in a statement. "However, enterprise performance dashboards become meaningful only when founded on a credible, comprehensive data warehouse. Because it is designed specifically for healthcare providers, we see tremendous value in Oracle's new enterprise healthcare analytics and its ability to help providers vastly improve their overall productivity and improve quality of care."

Oracle further announced an update, version 6.1, of its Oracle Healthcare Transaction Base, a data repository for use with administrative, clinical and financial health-care data. The 6.1 release adds new Web services support, and according to Oracle, now supports more than 10 million patient records around the world.