Xybernaut Files Chapter 11
The wearable computer company, founded in 1990, has filed for bankruptcy protection. Xybernaut
developed tiny computers with the power of desktop PCs that you can
carry around
on your belt and operate by voice control or a wrist-mounted keypad.
Sadly, they never really got any market traction. This write up on Motley Fool (registration required) sounds like an echo of the dot com bust. The founders were squeezed out in April after the feds started an investigation, and a shareholder lawsuit was filed in May.
What's this got to do with health care? Intellectual property. Wireless
sensors, gateways and miniaturized computing devices for caregivers
might all run up against Xybernaut's 166 global patents. And Xypernaut has another 600 patents awaiting approval.
Having burned through $160 million in shareholder wealth, its stock
falling from $30 per share to pennies, someone might pick up some
important IP on the cheap.
[Hat tip Wireless Healthcare]
Wireless Gateway and EMS Software
Taking the AMR/In Motion Technology approach another step further, Dublin based Valentia provides both a gateway and ambulatory information system. Called the Ambulatory Patient Care
system, the package includes clinical software for incident info,
patient registration, clinical data (history, vitals, meds, etc.), and
documenting interventions. This software runs on a ruggedized laptop
and is included with their mobile gateway.
Monitor/defib vendors like Medtronic, Philips, and Zoll
have offered similar systems for years. Of course, these device
vendor's application packages are tightly integrated with their
hardware, offering added value and considerably higher switching costs
(if you want to someone else's software or devices, you must replace
both) — a common device vendor strategy. Device integration and
clinical documentation is just the front end of the emergency medical
services (EMS) workflow.
On the back end, appropriate data must be shared with clinicians in
destination hospitals. And because each EMS team serves multiple
hospitals there must be a way to deliver patient data and interact with
hospital staff on a per hospital basis. Some hospitals may be a
straight shot into the emergency department (ED) or Accident and Emergency as they say in the UK. Accomplishing the new new thing
of minimizing time to patient treatment entails more variability. This
can include more rapid diagnosis and drug therapy delivered in the
emergency department, or patients skipping the ED altogether and going
straight to the cath lab or surgery.
Government: Just Kidding About the Free VistaOffice Software
In a bit of a reverse, HHS is “clairifying” statements reported in a New York Times article from last week. (Reported on this site here.) Vista-Office EHR will not
be made available to physicians for free. HHS officials will be
collecting a $2,700 license fee per physician from those using the
softare. In another step backwards, the $2,700 fee is characterized by
a CMS spokesman as being, “for
the first year,” which would imply some sort of recurring license fee.
It also seems that the August 1, 2005 release date will not be met.
Software license fees are only part of the cost of implementing an EMR.
Additional costs include infrastructure (servers, computers, network),
physical installation, and implementation (software configuration, integration with billing and other systems, user
training, and initial “dual operation” where original procedures are
continued for a time while EMR operation is validated). Given that
Vista has a reputation for difficult installations ($$$), and EMR
implementation of any kind is not trivial, the actual savings realized
by physicians may not be significant.
My previous post on “free” VistaOffice is here.
In the Health IT World News story, the New York Times gets a spanking:
Typical performance for the “newspaper of record.”
