Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/961245
104 CIO / HEALTH IT Medical Center Health System CEO Rick Napper: 'There is no ideal electronic medical system' By Jessica Kim Cohen R ick Napper, president and CEO of Odessa, Texas-based Medical Center Health System, discussed the health system's troubled Cern- er implementation at a Feb. 13 meeting with the Ector County Hospital District board of directors, the Odessa American reported. Medical Center Health System went live on a Cern- er EMR in April 2017. Officials were awarded a roughly $55 million budget for the project, about $34.7 million of which has been spent. Mr. Napper said he expects the total cost to come in at $47 mil- lion, despite the initial rollout including issues with system stabilization, revenue cycle management and reporting. Mr. Napper argued to the board that these issues are not unique to Cerner. Other hospitals that have worked with major EHR vendors — such as Epic or Meditech — have faced similar problems, accord- ing to Mr. Napper. "ere was an attempt to find an ideal system," Mr. Napper said when discussing how the health system selected Cerner. "at is not a possibility. ere is no ideal electronic medical system." To address issues associated with the EMR rollout, Mr. Napper said he now has a weekly one-on-one phone call with Cerner executives. Medical Center Health System has also contracted with Xtend to manage its revenue cycle functions until its employ- ees are better trained, and health system executives and Cerner staff meet three times a week to discuss the go-live process. e EMR rollout has shown progress since Mr. Napper and Cerner executives committed to com- municating on a weekly basis, the Odessa Ameri- can reported. "Probably the biggest issue that typically happens is training," Mr. Napper said. "Typically it is several months down the road before you realize you did not do that well enough for your staff, and I stand before you admitting that we did not do that well enough." n Practice Fusion could charge physicians for using its software By Julie Spitzer A little more than a month after Allscripts acquired Practice Fusion for $100 million — a fraction of the software company's valua- tion — Practice Fusion is ditching its free software business mod- el, CNBC reported. Practice Fusion began warning customers its free service will convert to subscription-based payments beginning this summer. Physicians will re- portedly have to pay $100 per month to use its software. However, the com- pany has not yet made this change public, CNBC reported. A Practice Fusion spokesperson hinted at the new business model and told CNBC that as part of its mission, the company has "been offering some fea- tures and services to our customers at no cost while other solutions and ser- vices offered do involve reasonable prices. … We have a product announce- ment upcoming in early March, and we look forward to sharing it further with you and all of our stakeholders very soon," the company told CNBC. This new business model is a drastic change in the way Founder and ex-CEO Ryan Howard originally positioned the company. Mr. Howard praised Practice Fusion's free product and promised it would never cost customers money to use it. In 2013, he told Medgaget, "Practice Fusion will always be free," before he was ousted in 2015 when the company failed to meet its financial goals. Practice Fusion is most popular among small physician groups, but its user base has grown to nearly 100,000 healthcare professionals, accord- ing to CNBC. n UC San Francisco, Samsung partner on blood pressure app for research By Jessica Kim Cohen U C San Francisco and Samsung Electronics launched a smartphone app, dubbed My BP Lab, on the Google Play Store March 15 to fuel a research project on blood pressure and stress. Samsung's Galaxy S9 and S9+ users who download the My BP Lab app will have the option to join a three-week research study conducted by UCSF re- searchers. The app leverages an optical sensor on the S9 and S9+ phones to measure users' blood pressure and stress levels throughout the day. During the study period, participants will also input their behaviors — such as sleep, exercise and diet — into the app to track how emotions and activ- ities they experience throughout the day influence their well-being. The researchers' goal for the study is to improve the accuracy of Sam- sung's blood pressure readings, while also providing users with person- alized insights into how to manage their daily health, according to a Feb. 25 statement from UCSF. "This study could provide the largest dataset yet on stress, daily emo- tional experiences and blood pressure," said Wendy Berry Mendes, PhD, a professor of psychiatry at UCSF and the director of the San Francis- co-based Emotion, Health and Psychophysiology Lab. "Our partnership with Samsung could help people all over the world improve their health by managing stress." n