Texas doctors, through the Texas Medical Association, submitted comments to HHS (Department of Health and Human Services) recommending HHS scrap the implementation of ICD-10 completely. (International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th Edition).

Original article: Healthcare business news and research.

The Texas Medical Association makes some really good points:

1. ICD-10 has been around since the mid-1990’s and the US is just now getting around to “officially” adopting them. Given that that ICD-11 is due in 2015, and the costs/benefits of going to ICD-10 are minimal vs. going straight to ICD-11, it’s just makes sense to go straight to ICD-11.
2. ICD-11 is being revised using Web 2.0 principles and designed specifically for incorporation into electronic medical health records.
3. Given that it’s taken more than 20 years to move from ICD-9 to ICD-10, this makes even more sense. Why adopt ICD-10 just in time to be replaced with a better standard?

Another great point, “HHS should recognize that the costs of going to ICD-11 directly are less than incurring the remaining costs of implementing ICD-10 in 2013 and then implementing ICD-11 sometime soon thereafter."

TMA is not alone as the American Medical Association, a host of state medical groups and medical specialty societies, submitted their own comments calling for at least a one-year delay in ICD-10 implementation.

One can always hope for common sense to prevail, can’t they? In any case, the implementation deadlines are looming and the US will be moving to a new standard; are you ready?

Microsoft released Update Rollup 8 for Dynamics CRM 2011 on May 8, 2012 and has not yet made it available via Microsoft Update.

Please note that Infinity’s best practice is to wait two to four weeks after Microsoft releases an Update Rollup to determine whether the rollup is stable and if it may affect other areas of CRM, including custom code and third party add-ons.

Infinity currently recommends Update Rollup 21 for CRM 4.0 and Update Rollup 7 for CRM 2011.

Installing Update Rollup 8 will bring your CRM 2011 system to version 5.0.9690.2243

Installing Update Rollup 7 will bring your CRM 2011 system to version 5.0.9690.2165

Additional points to consider about Update Rollup 7 are:

• Prerequisites – Update Rollup 6 (version 5.0.9690.1992) established a new servicing baseline. This will enable uninstalls of some future CRM 2011 Update Rollups, but this also means that Update Rollup 6 is a prerequisite for installation of future Update Rollups, starting with Update Rollup 7.
• Uninstall - Update Rollup 7 can be uninstalled, unlike Update Rollups 4-6, which could not be uninstalled.  However, best practice remains to back up your databases and application servers before you install an Update Rollup.
• Feature addition – Read Optimized Forms
  • Update Rollup 7 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 introduces a new feature that is called Read Optimized Forms. By using this feature, an organization can let users decide whether they want to view records using a form that is optimized to load quickly. The read-optimized form improves productivity for users who primarily consume data instead of editing records. It also helps prevent users from unintentional editing field values.
  • For more information about Read Optimized Forms, click the following link: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=246078
  • For more design considerations with Read Optimized Forms, click the following link to read the SDK topic:
  • Design Considerations for Read Only Forms
  • As with any new feature, Infinity’s recommendation is to ensure you have a thorough understanding of its functionality and implications before implementing it. Your Infinity consultant can work with you to determine if Read Optimized Forms might be appropriate in your environment.

For all the information about Update Rollup 7, please see this Microsoft Knowledgebase article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2600643 or leave a comment below.

Back in December I wrote a blog post about the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) rule change for reporting on the Physicians Payment Sunshine Act.

The CMS had decided to extend the data collection start date from January 1, 2012 to “some later date”. A few days ago, on May 3, the CMS provided some updated information in their blog (The CMS Blog). During the extended comment period they received over 300 comments. That’s a good thing that people are voicing their concerns.

The CMS still hasn’t issued a final date but says in their blog “CMS will not require data collection by applicable manufacturers and applicable group purchasing organizations before January 1, 2013” and “CMS intends to release the final rule later this year.”

Some news is better than no news. The window is closing though for companies that will be required to report this information to the FDA. Time is ticking. We have helped a number of companies ensure their systems and processes are up date and compliant. If you are struggling with these rules, give us call, we are happy to help you too!

Sales, by definition, is the single most important source of organic growth to your company regardless if you are in Manufacturing, Life Sciences, Financial Services, or most any other industry.  Whether through obtaining new customers, expanding your existing customers, or more successfully managing your partners, effectively driving and increasing revenue through your sales force and related channels represents the end-result of a vast majority of planning, analysis and strategic business decisions across the enterprise.

“Where do we start?” is a common question, especially when facing a challenging and volatile economic environment.  One of the most vital (and often overlooked) ways of exploiting your existing sales process to a competitive advantage is through investment in your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.  Why is this a starting point?  If you are like most sales executives, the volume of information already at your disposal or that which can be easily captured is not being leveraged to anywhere near its potential.

CRM is now a top technology priority for CIOs, moving to No. 8, up from No. 18 in 2011, according to a global survey by Gartner Inc.'s Executive Programs. And in a separate Gartner survey, CEOs cited CRM as the most important investment area to improve business over the next five years.

As a former VP of Sales, I ,too, often fell into the trap that my CRM system was good for managing contacts, the progress of my team’s opportunities, and, at times, producing an accurate pipeline.  I say “at times” because lackluster user adoption, less-than-impressive reporting capabilities and little analytics were the main contributors leading to us overlooking the treasure-trove of information at our fingertips.  We often were more focused on the marketing initiatives and sales messaging we planned to implement in the hopes of achieving our sometimes lofty goals.  Not to belittle the importance of Marketing and other initiatives; on the contrary: use the information at your disposal to improve productivity and performance there as well.

Leveraging CRM to uncover the “buried treasure” is a topic that can span best practices across people, process and technology.  Not to oversimplify the process, let’s briefly focus on segments of our customer ecosystem and what benefits effective CRM investments can offer:

1.    New Business:

• Identifying previously unknown opportunities
• Visibility (into the last “touch”, activities, etc.)
• New developments: industry / geography / company
• Network of contacts, relationships, “spheres of influence”
• Social media
• Partners / Distribution Channels

2.    Existing Clients:

• Opportunities for upselling
• Upgrades (technology) / New initiatives (services)
• Cross-selling

3.    Customer Service:

• Client Satisfaction- effect on renewals, upselling, cross-selling
• Referrals
• Loyalty- impact

Please share your success stories across any segment of this customer eco-system, particularly the challenge, how it was overcome, and the benefit.  This may include how re-thinking the use of your existing CRM system benefitted you, changing the system, data mining, integration, or implementing a particular technology like Business Intelligence.

I just got back from the 2012 QlikView Qonnections Partner conference, where Infinity Info Systems was presented with the "Implementation of the Year" award for the Americas region.  This award is given annually to the partner with the best QlikView deployment as measured by customer satisfaction, technical proficiency, and overall value.

Leveraging our Life Sciences industry expertise and enterprise-level technical ability, Infinity empowered a pharmaceutical sales force with key analytical information so that they could spread their life-changing drugs to more people.  The implementation started out with just eight people and the value was so immediate and tangible that the dashboards and analytics were expanded to the entire sales force (and its leadership).  QlikView is now used daily by over 160 people!

One of the key reasons for the implementation success was Infinity’s understanding that existing processes do not change overnight and that the most effective solutions are often evolutionary, not revolutionary.  By shaping Business Intelligence (BI) around a business as opposed to requiring wholesale changes to IT and data flow, Infinity was able to deliver an easy, intuitive application that allowed the sales force to make better decisions with accurate data delivered fast.

Now QlikView users access secure, customized BI applications through a web portal while also receiving emails and reports as supplementary information aids.  This new paradigm replaces an old system that used static spreadsheets generated from outside vendors which suffered from slow delivery times and an inability to adapt to the changing needs of the sales force.  Now, analytics can change at the speed of business.

If you’d like to learn more about QlikView or Infinity’s BI offerings click the image below.