Heathcareitnews.com:”One of the most striking examples of the impact of integration within the closed loop is Siemens, Hess notes. On one hand, providers who rated the Siemens Pharmacy product alone gave it a relatively low overall score of 70.8 out of 100. However, those providers who rated both Siemens Pharmacy and the Siemens bar-coding at the point of care product – Medication Administration Check (MAK) – scored the pharmacy product much higher, giving it an overall satisfaction rating of 83.9. That BPOC/pharmacy integration is one of the key reasons that Siemens Pharmacy earned the second-highest satisfaction score in the study.” - This was mentioned earlier in the week by Todd Eury at PTR, but I wasn’t able to get a close look at the article until now. I am a Siemens Pharmacy user and am not surprised by their low satisfaction score. The Siemens pharmacy system has a lot to be desired and their product support is seriously lacking. I am happy to see, however that the satisfaction with the system increases with MAK, which we will be implementing later this year.
Innovations ’09
Siemens Innovations ’09 is being held in the “City of Brotherly Love” this year (i.e. Philadelphia). I received the registration packet in the mail just a few of hours ago. A lot of great minds gather at this meeting to discuss many timely topics. I highly recommend attending. I attended the meeting last year in Las Vegas, NV and picked up some great tips on how to make our pharmacy system run smarter and more efficiently.
Follow-up on Siemens Raid
Earlier this week I mentioned that Siemens U.S. Headquarters was raided. Here’s some additional information from the Healthcare IT Consultant Blog
“Siemens Medical Solutions USA Inc., whose Malvern, Pa., complex was searched by Defense Department agents Wednesday, is a defendant in a whistle-blower lawsuit.
The unit of German conglomerate Siemens AG (NYSE:SI) is accused in the suit of giving corporate customers of its medical imaging equipment bigger discounts than it gave the federal government while assuring the government that it was getting the best discounts Siemens offered.The lawsuit was filed under the Federal False Claims Act, which allows individuals to file lawsuits alleging fraud by federal contractors and receive a percentage of any damages recovered by the suits.
It’s a civil suit that was filed in 2004 in U.S. District Court in the Virgin Islands and subsequently amended.”
