Applied Digital Board Member Tommy Thompson Has Yet to Be Implanted with VeriChip RFID Tag
It seems Applied Digital has come into some negative publicity (I mean beyond the usual “sign of the beast” hysteria) in the run up to taking VeriChip public. You can read Applied Digital's November 15th press release here - nothing yet on the offering's price or what percentage of the company will be sold.
this year that former Health & Human Services Secretary Tommy
Thompson agreed, not only to be on their board [Applied Digital], but also to get chipped himself. Turns out, though, that he might not have really meant it. It's been some time, and Secretary Thompson hasn't convinced himself to go through with the implant
— as he's apparently become a bit concerned about the whole thing. The
company alternatively claims he's “too busy” to get chipped or that he
“wants to see it [the
VeriChip] in a real-world environment first.” You mean he didn't check
it out before agreeing to be on the board and to get one himself?
VeriChip has been quite successful in signing hospitals to deploy readers (65 hospitals to date), but this same post claims that to date only 60 people have agreed to be chipped. More on the Applied Digital and VeriChip IPO on the MoneyCentral stock board for ADSX.
The Latest CPOE Dust-up
Once again, a paper - this time published in Pediatrics - has raised controversy about CPOE. These researchers studied the impact of a CPOE implementation over 18 months at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburg. You can read the full text yourself for a mere $12 here. Or you can avail yourself of the excellent summary and analysis from Mr HIStalk here. Be sure to read the comments too.
I’m glad they did the study, but it seems to me more of a “don’t do what we did” lesson for hospitals, not an indictment of [Cerner’s] Millennium. I think their purpose was to raise the awareness of broad outcomes in a major system change and the article does a good job of that.
[…] The only serious takeaway I got from the article was this: be careful out there, vendors and customers alike. No one wants to kill anyone with software or software implementation, especially children. Changing processes is hard work. Magazines, consultants, and vendors make it all seem easy. It’s not.
Once again, a lesson in the importance of how you use your tools over the relative quality of the tool.
Don't Forget This Week's Grand Rounds
I was traveling earlier this week and didn't get a chance to post notice of this week's Grand Rounds at The Examining Room of Dr. Charles. Enjoy!
