EMR: The Plot Thickens

The announcement of an interoperability alliance, long overdue, included the top companies in the EMR industry.  Under the heading of 'CommonWell' they will work together to make sure there is a universal standard for EMR.   But many of us at Kalorama were scratching our heads wondering.  In a group of top players, where was Epic, which we've included in the top for several editions of our EMR market research report?. Perhaps the firm is insisting on going it alone. The take of the alliance - all are invited, and they went with announcement before getting responses from everyone.

Today comes news that according to Epic, no they weren't invited.  And if they were, they'd rather wait for a national standard from the U.S. government.  

So, the plot thickens.  We'll expect a response from Common Well and for this to go on a bit.  We would suspect there is room enough for such a group and then to still have a few 'outliers' 
http://www.linkedin.com/groups/EMR-Plot-Thickens-2177845

Sequestration: 6 Ways It Hurts Hospitals

From Becker's Hospital Review - "6 Key Observations on Sequestration and Hospitals" notes that hospitals will need to refine purchasing, cost cutting mechanisms.   The main theme: sequestration proves that hospitals need to engage in cost cutting that they probably need to do for strategic reasons anyway.

Most important we think is this note:

"Hospitals and health systems should be aware that healthcare spending cuts are in the government's budget crosshairs."

Indeed.  Need to cut domestic spending?  Go to healthcare.  When cuts are needed at the federal level, legislators find healthcare too large a target not to cut, it seems.   Kalorama's key takeaway would be that hospitals are the largest medical device purchasers, thus anything that affects hospitals will wind its way down to the already-suffering device market, and despite growth trends globally, the device market in the US may suffer in terms of growth.    Kalorama comments about the global device market in its report, The Global Market for Medical Devices 

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