Investors keen on analytics, patient safety tech

by Patty Enrado from Healthcare IT News 03/29/2010

SAN FRANCISCO – The federal incentives target electronic medical and health records, but other healthcare technologies have the potential to transform the industry, a panel of investors said last week at the Health Technology Investment Forum.

EMRs are becoming a commodity, but putting applications on top of EMRs to deliver usable data creates value, said Lisa Suennen, managing member at Psilos Group. "There is a lot of interest in analytics," she said.

Another big area of growth is patient safety - eliminating medical errors, she said. The Institute of Medicine's 2000 report, "To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System," estimated that medical errors cost the country $37.6 billion annually.

Remote monitoring is also getting a lot of attention, she said. While Suennen is seeing interesting technology in this area, she isn't seeing business models. "It's an evolving concept," she said.

The industry has the infrastructure to handle the volume and multiple types of data, said Jack Young, senior investment manager for Qualcomm Ventures. The question is what do you do with the data being collected, he said. Young is looking for solutions that use data to manage patients for caretakers and patients themselves.

He is also interested in useful information such as vital signs that can be communicated bi-directionally in the form of implantable devices and miniaturization paired with wireless capabilities.

The state of California, which will receive $38.8 million to develop a statewide health information exchange, is interested in personalized health, said Kathryn Lowell, deputy secretary for health systems and knife sciences, California Business, Transportation and Housing Agency. The state is looking to pilot how to integrate genomics data into a health IT platform.

Government-driven policy, as opposed to government funding, has the potential to spark innovation. Reimbursement is key to getting some of these technologies adopted, Suennen said.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has initiated demonstration projects and mandated no payments for "never events." Both present opportunities for technology to build services, she said.

Healthcare reform legislation will put the approximately 32 million uninsured population into the healthcare system, creating demand for innovative solutions, she said. With a shortage of primary care physicians, nontraditional methods - such as telemedicine and MinuteClinics - to access primary care will be needed. Reform legislation will also require new insurance products, such as value-based insurance design, that focus on cost, quality and the consumer.

Tao Dagi, MD, partner, HLM Venture Partners, acknowledged an increasing reliance on data. Venture capitalists have a "so what, who cares?" approach with entrepreneurs, he said. "If it's not actionable, it has no use," he said. For any funding to flow, entrepreneurs need to prove what difference their data makes.

Hospital Sales Opportunities--Northeast, Southeast and West!

Hospital Solution Sales Maryland to Maine!
Sell award-winning solutions for one of the 500 fastest growing technology companies in the US. Great opportunity with an established (20+ years) growing organization that's small enough to be agile and large enough to fully support your efforts.
Call Kate at 434-817-5300 x 220 to learn more or submit your resume to kharlow@mr-monticello.com!

Hospital Sales in NC, SC!
An established and well-respected industry leader is looking for a Mid-Atlantic based sales executive with complex sales experience—large ambulatory sales or hospital sales experience required. Call Kate at 434-817-5300 x 220 to learn more or submit your resume to kharlow@mr-monticello.com!

Enterprise Hospital Sales West!
Large and stable industry leader is expanding in this territory—great opportunity to join a successful team and a stellar company. Complex clinical HIT sales experience required; enterprise level or departmental.
Call Kate at 434-817-5300 x 220 to learn more or submit your resume to kharlow@mr-monticello.com!

HIT Mergers & Acquisitions (03/17/10-3/24/10)

Three new mergers to report today:

QualityMetric>Ingenix
MedPlexus>GE Healthcare
AHP Billing Services>AdvantEdge Healthcare Solutions

Just one more reason to keep it simple…

Why the Top Third of Your Resume Counts
Make sure your resume is smartphone friendly
by Abby Locke
PalmPilot, BlackBerry, laptop — you name it – it’s hard to imagine functioning in today’s world without having access to on-the-go technology. With this in mind, it’s no surprise that technology continues to play a big part in how job seekers and recruiters find each other.

Imagine for a second that you have spent hours crafting a standout resume and e-mailed it to a recruiter or hiring manager. Guess what? You can never be sure how they'll end up viewing it. The recruiter could view it on a BlackBerry, a desktop computer or as a hard copy. Picture what your executive resume looks like when viewed on a handheld device — it simply does not have the same effect.

If only the top third of your resume is displayed on a mini screen, can your resume still effectively sell you? The answer is yes, if you have strategically placed a strong, branded profile on the top portion of your executive resume. Generally your resume profile would contain a combination of a few key bits of information. This can include a title header, personal branding statement, unique selling proposition, areas of expertise, industry preferences, job targets, top career achievements, degree from a top university and/or much more.

In order to create a resume profile that communicates your immediate value and prompts the reader to contact you, it’s vital that you determine the following:

1. How do you want to be perceived?

Keep in mind that your executive resume is not a career obituary, so only the key career highlights that are most relevant to your target position will count. Consequently you want to maximize your professional reputation and position yourself as a solution for the company. Are you a turnaround strategist, finance and investment guru, technology innovator or marketing specialist? Determine what you want your reader’s key take-away to be and keep this in mind as you prepare the top third of your resume.

2. What title header best represents you?

A title header on your executive resume should be like a handshake. It should confidently say, “I am a senior marketing executive,” or “My areas of expertise lie in human resource management and global technology.” It is generally placed immediately following your personal contact information on the resume. For example, an operations executive with extensive experience in global markets could have a title header that simply says:

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT EXECUTIVE

Without meeting this individual, you can immediately get an idea of their background. It also sets expectations for the type of achievements you’re capable of.

3. How would you summarize top career achievements?

Once you know how you want to be perceived, you must support your title header with evidence of top performance and achievements. Looking over your entire career, what is the consistent trend of achievements and contributions that stand out? Have you repeatedly grown startup companies into industry leaders, are you highly competent at spearheading cost-cutting initiatives or do you maximize emerging technologies to power internal operations?

For example, a marketing executive who excels at building companies through market share expansion could have a title header and unique selling proposition that says:

SENIOR MARKETING EXECUTIVE

Senior Vice President / Vice President

"I deliver growth for companies every time." Accurately forecasting industry trends and consumer interests that allow companies to exceed revenue projections, maximize ROI performance, achieve strong profitability and realize significant market growth.

Because the body of the resume will provide detailed content about specific position and industry-related achievements, you could opt to use an executive summary instead of a unique selling proprosition. This approach showcases performance trends overall.

SENIOR MANAGEMENT EXECUTIVE

Non-Profits & Philanthropic Organizations with Focus on Mental Health, Children and Education

Visionary Strategy...Innovative Thought Leadership...Collaborative Management Style...

Another good approach for those with many focuses is to follow the title header with an area of expertise. Going back to the Ops executive, here's an example of how one could lay this out:

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT EXECUTIVE

Supply Chain Management • Planning & Inventory Management • Logistics • Systems Implementation

Startup, Turnaround & High-Growth Companies — High-Tech & Manufacturing Industries

Domestic & International Markets

It takes extra effort and careful planning to achieve a technology-friendly layout, but it is certainly worth the time in the end!

Feds Add $162 Million To EMR Funding

See the article in Tuesday's InformationWeek

HIT Mergers & Acquisitions (01/01/10-03/17/10)

Starting next Friday, M & A News will be a weekly installment.  In the meantime, here's a list of M & A activity that's already taken place in 2010...

(In no particular order)
Initiate Systems > IBM
American Healthnet > Healthland
HTMS > Emdeon
AMICAS > Merge Healthcare
Sentillion > Microsoft
Medhost > HMS
PassportMD > Mediconnect Global
Opus Healthcare Solutions > Quality Systems, Inc. (Nextgen)
Healthvision > Lawson Software
Clearview Staffing Software > API Healthcare
NurseSquared > Elsevier
PracticeOne > AdvancedMD
Concuity > The Advisory Board Company
eWebHealth > Hyland Software
Check Medical Diagnostics > PositiveID
Consult-A-Doc 24/7 > Phytel
Affiliated Computer Services > Xerox
ReliefInSite > PatientsLikeMe
Cognosante > Fox Systems
Bowman Enterprises > Diversified Information Technology
Res-Q Healthcare Systems > Concerro
Global Medical Technologies > Haemonetics
Virtual Health Technologies > Wound Management Technologies
Prosoft > Thomson Reuters
FutureVision Technologies > Emdeon
P & W Software > Consumer Health Technologies

6 Simple Rules of Resume Writing

My last post drew on the wisdom of CEO, Marc Cendenella (The Ladders)—reading his thoughts on simplicity inspired me to take it a step further. So, while advising people to keep it simple, I would like to extend that advice specifically to resumes.

In a competitive market, I certainly understand the temptation to add more detail when you should probably be taking some away. Trust me when I say that we’ve all been guilty of “under-editing.” The resume is important; it’s two pages (or less) that represent your entire career to a complete stranger. And as that complete stranger, what I want every job seeker to remember is: time is money.

Now, if you’re currently unemployed, I know it seems like no fact could be more painfully obvious. But it’s important to understand what that means to those of us on the other side of the ropes.

For people like me (recruiters), that means getting the right candidate in front of my client as soon as possible. For my clients, that means filling the position as soon as possible because every day that it’s open is not only costing them money, but also negatively impacting the satisfaction of the people sharing the burden of those extra responsibilities. And with employee-company loyalty at an all-time low, that’s something no company can afford right now.

The bottom line is: hiring managers and recruiters don’t have five minutes to devote to deconstructing each resume that comes across their desks. In truth, a typical initial assessment—his or her or my first pass at your information—will go from start to finish in less than 30 seconds.

So, with all of the above in mind, here are some tips that can help make the difference between a call back and ending up in the recycle bin—jobseekers who want to get noticed, take heed:

1. Be consistent. Check for spelling and grammar but also make sure that your tabs, justifications, punctuation, fonts (no more than 2; no exceptions), spacing and character size are consistent throughout the resume.

2. Keep it clean. When you have completed writing your resume, preview the document and reduce the view to 50%--enough to obscure the text so you can focus on the image of the document. Did you leave enough white space, is your line spacing even, did you use a reasonably sized font (12pt) and leave at least a 1” margin?

3. Headings. Put your contact information at the top of your resume; it should be complete, easy to read and above all, easy to find.

4. Experience. Surprisingly few people seem to realize that your resume should not read like a job description; your resume should clearly outline what you have done but it should do it in a way that demonstrates why a hiring manager should talk to you.

5. So, highlight your accomplishments. This can most easily be done by using bullets—a very reader-friendly tool. Tangible successes and quantifiable accomplishments should be out in the open and found throughout your resume.

6. BE CONCISE. Never put a paragraph where a sentence could convey the same message—anyone who looks at your resume should be able to quickly and easily come away with a sense of whether or not you could perform the job functions. Make sure hiring managers can get enough in a glance to know they want to read the rest.

Sage advice from Marc Cenedella, CEO of The Ladders...

Theirs a problem with you're emailGrammar and spelling mistakes, such as those in the subject line of this e-mail, are sure to get you the wrong kind of attention in your job hunt. Modern software has made writing e-mails so quick and easy that you can easily find yourself clicking "send" before you really should have.

Spell-checker is your enemy
That darn, deceptive spell-check feature is your enemy. Sure, it fixes the obvious misspellings, but it misses the context, so you can end up using the wrong their / there / they're or its / it's by accident.

(My weakness, because of the way I type with a very dominant right hand, is writing "form" instead of "from" and the dang spell-checker never catches it... because it's spelled right even if it's the wrong word!)

You need to re-read your emails carefully -- my best advice is to set them aside after you've drafted them, take a bio break or a walk around the block, and come back and proof-read once more before hitting "send."

The need for clearing your head to make sure your email is simple and makes sense leads to my next suggestion, which is:

Simpler is safer

A lot of the bad emails I see aren't bad because the person writing them is unintelligent. Quite the opposite. They are bad because an intelligent person is trying to say too much, in too complicated a way, with too much complexity, in a bid to sound qualified for the job.

But that is just exactly the wrong approach.

Because, in fact, what employers and hiring managers are looking for is somebody who can communicate clearly and effectively. Rarely do long, complicated words and compound, complex sentences make you sound easy-to-understand.

And those longer, more turgid e-mails have a much higher chance of a misspelling, or grammar mistake, or unclear meaning, than a simple email.

Look, we're trying to get you a job here, not win the Nobel Prize, so don't over-
complicate it and get too fancy.

It reminds me of a famous exchange between two writers who did win the Nobel Prize, William Faulkner (famous for complex, dense prose) and Ernest Hemingway (who rarely used words greater than two syllables):

Faulkner: "Hemingway has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."

Hemingway: "Poor Faulkner! Does he really think big emotions come from big words?" If you're trying to get a job, simple, clear communication is far more effective than big five-dollar words.

As an example, which of these two people would you rather hire?
Sally Simple writes, "I work well with teams, that might not necessarily like each other, to get them to understand the other side's viewpoint, sometimes with a bit of humor, and work together so that we can all be successful as a company."
While Terry Turgid elucidates, "My background indicates a capability to bring together disparate elements of the organizational structure in which inherent tensions arise due to the substance of the work output, the cross-utilization of organizational resources, and competition for allocations and prioritzations that occur as a result, and to enable those elements to optimize their effort co-ordination and process implementation in order to achieve synergistic outcomes on behalf of the global organization."

Now both of those say the same thing (I think), but which candidate would you put in charge of getting sales and marketing to work together? Or leading the product and tech groups on an important new initiative?
I'll take Sally Simple every time.

My rule of thumb for job hunt emails is: if Mom can't understand it, you're not communicating. Not so incidentally, this rule applies to 80% of business email communication, not just the job hunt.

OK, folks, that's my two bits on e-mails. I hope you have a clearly successful and simply wonderful week! How do you prevent yourself from making the type of mistakes I just made in the subject line? My advice is to not trust the computer and to keep it simple.

How to Avoid Bad (or Mediocre) Employers

By Alison Doyle, About.com Guide  As you may know, I always encourage job seekers to make sure that their application materials are perfect. I tell you to be sure that your resumes and cover letters are targeted to the jobs you are applying for. Then, I remind you to check, double check, and triple check, for typos and grammatical errors.

Most job seekers do a good job of making sure everything they send is perfect. What happens though, when someone goes to all that effort, only to discover that the employer doesn't pay similar attention to detail?

When the Company Isn't Professional

An example is the email I received from Sonya who said, "I sent my resume, portfolio URL, and cover letter to a company last week; addressed to a Vice President as indicated in the advertisement. Several days later I got back a letter that was grammatically incorrect and unprofessional. I guess you could say at least I got a reply."

She went on to say, "Sometimes you just get a little put off when you try so hard to do things correctly and you either don't get a response or you get a really bad one from someone who has the title of Vice President."

I'd be put off too, and, to be honest, I'd wonder whether I would want to work for a company that was that unprofessional.

Communication Skills Matter

It's not just written communications. It can be off-putting to be called repeatedly by an overly aggressive recruiter who has an opportunity that is absolutely too good for you to pass up, but, who can't divulge the employer until much later in the hiring the process.

I'm not impressed either, by hiring managers who don't show up for interviews, without rescheduling in advance. One job seeker I spoke to me told me he spent over an hour getting to the interview site, only to be told by a secretary that he needed to come back at a later date.

Keep in mind, that even if you need a job very badly, you don't have to accept a job you're not comfortable with. All of the above scenarios, are red flags and should give you pause. At the least, you will want to consider whether the employer who doesn't communicate effectively or appropriately is one you want to work for.

Warning Signs to Watch For

Poor Communication Skills

When an employer can't communicate effectively, by email, phone, or in writing, with candidates for employment, be careful. If all their communications are handled that way, how well are they running a business?

Overselling

Whenever I hear a recruiter or hiring manger say that you absolutely can't pass up this opportunity and you have to send your resume, drop everything and interview, etc. right now, I wonder what the sense of urgency is. Perhaps, it's a legitimate opportunity that needs to be filled immediately or maybe it's just an overzealous recruiter or manager trying to meet a hiring quota.

Limited Contact Information

Vague contact information (no contact person or company name) and phone numbers that don't show up on Caller ID are another warning sign. You should be able to easily search Google and find the company and company information.

Jobs That Sound too Good to be True

That old mantra that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, still holds true. One person who was in the midst of a job search was told by a recruiter that an employer was hiring a high level executive for a top secret multi-million start-up company. When the job seeker inquired further, he found out that the start-up wasn't funded, that it had no existing products, or even a marketing plan.

What a Job Seeker Can Do

There are a few things you can do when you see a red flag. You can stop, or at least, halt the hiring process temporarily while you research the company. There isn't anything the matter with delaying sending your resume or scheduling an interview if you're hesitant about whether you want to work for the company.

Research the Company

Google the company name to find out what you can discover about it online. Post questions on Bulletin Boards, like the About.com Job Searching Forum, to see if anyone is aware of the company. Check web sites, like Vault, that have company specific forums to see if you can get any information that will help you decide whether to continue with the hiring process, or not.

Use Your Connections

If you have a connection that will help you find inside information, use it. Do you know someone who works there? Ask them about the company. If you belong to a professional association, they may be able to help you network with people who can give you advice. Use online networking resources, like LinkedIn, as well. You may be surprised at how much you can find out.

Evaluating Bad (or Mediocre) Companies

It's important to keep in mind that not all companies are "good" companies. They don't all operate professionally and you may not want to work for a company that doesn't match your standards. You always have the option of declining an interview, withdrawing your candidacy for employment, or declining a job offer.

When it comes to accepting a position, the ball is in your court, and you'll want to make an educated, informed decision to be sure the opportunity is the right one for you.

MGMA physician survey results a reason to worry? | EHR Watch

MGMA physician survey results a reason to worry? EHR Watch