Guest Humor: Parody of Healthcare IT Vendors

A surgeon friend of mine, who’s been a great proponent of practical healthcare IT solutions, prepared this nice little parody of a fictitious HIT/HIS vendor named Extormity’s press release :-). Here’s what my friend wrote after some bad experiences with a few healthcare IT firms at his hospital:

Health care information systems provider Extormity, Inc. (NASDAC:EXTRT) announces a product class action law firms have been developing in concert with Extormity corporate leadership.  Extormity Litigation Aggregator (ELA) helps by bringing together thousands of plaintiffs from Extormity installations nationwide for focused legal action, or threats of legal action.  Often with the help of ELA, an experienced legal firm can bring a settlement provider organization (SPO) to its knees, without having to let the actual injured plaintiffs become aware of the potential for legal action.  Hospital billing records and clinical data are scoured for use of products outside the confines of the FDA approved list, or for impossible to disprove potential adverse effects (IDPAE) for presentation to the SPO (a pharmaceutical firm such as makers of Vioxx, or a professional organization (e.g., the American Society of Neurosurgeons), who refuse to staff emergency rooms 24/7 as plaintiffs arrive in medical need.  While kickbacks to hospitals for such legal actions are illegal, complex contracting for Extormity’s clinical suite can conceal incentives to install ELA by extending our Extormity contract, free of additional charges, for a decade or more.  We expect the product to provide an immediate return on investment for Extormity, since the usual delay in litigation can be avoided, and settlement terms hammered out quickly as data is presented on a real-time basis.  Our legal team assures us that trial lawyers won’t delay product roll-out, as spin off suits can be identified and passed to smaller local or regional firms, allowing ELA’s legal clients to go after only the best litigation targets.