Tidbits

- For those that think printing on paper is bad, consider this:
o the paper making industry plants more than 1.7 million trees per day, as when any tree is harvested, it is replaced by several
o The U.S. has about the same number of trees today, as it did 100 years ago, due to management
o For every ton of wood a forest produces, it removes 1.47 tons of CO2 from the air and replaces it with 1.07 tons of oxygen
o In 2009, over 64% of paper consumed was recycled, in contrast the recycle rates for others:
 Metal = 36%
 Glass = 22%
 Plastic = 7%

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- InfoTrends estimates that over 10,000 lawsuits have been filed against desktop printer manufacturers in regards to alleged premature replacement of supplies. Customers are claiming that the printer forces them to change out the cartridge, even though the cartridge is not completely empty. Companies named in the lawsuits are Brother, Canon, Epson, HP, Lexmark and Samsung.

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- Canon announced the following plants in Japan are temporarily closed:
o Utsunomiya = optics
o Oita = compact printers
o Toride
o Ami in Inashiki-gun
o Hirosaki
o Yuki
o Tsukuba – chemicals
o Fukushima
o Kasama – plastic molding
o According to the BBC (British Broadcasting Company), three of the above plants suffered serious damage

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- Toshiba’s stock plunged 16% in reaction to the fact that the company made several of the reactors at the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant in northern Japan. However, Toshiba’s CEO, Norio Sasaki, who is himself a former nuclear engineer, stated that company would not give up on its plans to grow its nuclear plant development.

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- Gartner released its finding of U.S. MFP sales during last quarter of 2010:
o claims that Canon had most marketshare with 18.6% of sales (even though Canon does not certify its numbers)
o totals include low end products sold through websites and office supply/computer superstores

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- A lawsuit was filed against Walgreen’s by disgruntled customers in California, trying to prevent the pharmacy chain from selling customer data. Without identifying individuals, Walgreen sells data that includes patient’s sex, age, state, and name of drug. The data is sold to pharmaceutical manufacturers.

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- Scanning in healthcare vertical on the increase according to research conducted by Record Nations:
o Requirements for Medicaid payments have causing 22% increase in scanning
o Need to recover physical space caused 11% increase
o 8% growth in scanning documents from healthcare business that were closing due to law requiring retention of records for 7 years
o 4% growth caused by a desire to “go green”

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- U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has introduced legislation to expand the types of doctors that can get HITECH funds to pay for EHR systems to now include:
o behavioral health
o mental health
o substance abuse treatment professionals and facilities.

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- The supply of ink and toner cartridges for devices made by Canon (which HP relabels), Epson and Kyocera may be impacted by the temporary closure of plants in Japan.

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- HealthTexas gave out details on the install of its new EHR system:
o First 60 days average cost per physician of $32,409
o For entire year, average cost per physician of $46,659
o In-house staff spent an average of 134.2 hours per physician and $10,325 per physician during implementation

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- Equitrac announced that it won contract from its 25,000th customer, with the inking of a deal with John Moores University of Liverpool, England:
o reduced printing by more than 4 million pages per year
o supposedly will save $250,000 per year
o cutting paper usage by 23 tons

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- Sharp just held its annual dealer meeting in Las Vegas, and main attraction to its dealers was the new 10.1” color touchscreen LCD on new MFPs that works similar to an Apple iPhone with its multi-touch functions. The theme for meeting was the new “UI” which stands for User Interface.

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- The HHS OCR (Health & Human Services division of Office of Civil Rights) is requesting $46.7 million in federal funding increase to accelerate its enforcement of HIPAA regulations on healthcare providers in the U.S. The increase includes the placement of a “Privacy Officer” in each of the OCR’s ten regional offices, to coordinate HIPAA data breach investigations. The agency predicts that it will need to investigate up to 20,000 breach reports per year.

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- Hewlett Packard’s Ann Livermore, Executive VP of Technology Solutions Group, stated “HP is particularly interested in acquiring intellectual property to support vertical markets…”, thus implying that HP is going to buying up software companies

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- The catastrophe in Japan has impacted Ricoh, where the Tohuko, Japan plant is closed, and makes:
o 55ppm and above A3 MFP models
o Duplicators
o Certain accessories
o Other plants that closed are:
 Hanamaki – optics
 Hasama – copiers and data processing
 Ibaraki – Ricoh Printing Systems

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- Ponemon released data from survey of patients regarding their PHI (protected health information):
o 70% want control over their medical records
o 80% expect their healthcare provider to ensure privacy of their medical records
o 49% of patients who had their info exposed (HIPAA breach) took no new steps to protect themselves
o 50% did not report that theft of their medical info to police
 43% did not want to make a “big deal out of it”
 37% were afraid of being embarrassed
 21% are afraid of loss of health insurance coverage
 18% are afraid of lower credit score
o 55% are not familiar with new HIPAA regulations
o 79% are not aware of the creation of a national database of health information

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- A Delaware judge late Thursday ordered that the letter that led to former Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Mark Hurd's August resignation be unsealed.
o A lawyer for Mr. Hurd, Amy Wintersheimer, said in a statement that she planned to appeal the decision, meaning that the letter won't be made public anytime soon.
o The letter detailed his alleged improper relationship with a female employee

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