News 6/30/23

Top News

Just in time for the long holiday weekend, HHS publishes a 130-page final rule outlining the civil money penalties health IT developers will incur for information-blocking. HHS may publish a proposed rule for provider penalties in September.

Webinars

July 12 (Wednesday) 2 ET. “101: National Network Data Exchanges.” Sponsor: Particle Health. Presenter: Troy Bannister, founder and CEO, Particle Health. It’s highly likely that your most recent medical records were indexed by a national Health Information Network (HIN). Network participants can submit basic demographic information into an API and receive full, longitudinal medical records sourced from HINs. Records come in a parsed, standardized format, on demand, with a success rate above 90%. There’s so much more to learn and discover, which is why Troy Bannister is going to provide a 101 on all things HIN. You will learn what HINs are, see how the major HINS compare, and learn how networks will evolve due to TEFCA.

July 27 (Thursday) noon ET. “Why You Shouldn’t Wait to Use Generative AI.” Sponsor: Orbita. Presenter: Bill Rogers, co-founder, president, and chairman, Orbita. The advent of generative AI tools truly represents a paradigm shift. And while some healthcare leaders embrace the transformation, others are hesitant. Invest 20 minutes to learn why you shouldn’t wait. When combined with natural language processing, workflow automation and conversational dialogs, generative AI can help leaders address a raft of challenges: from over-extended staff, to the rising demand for self-service tools, to delivering secure information to key stakeholders. You will learn where AI delivers the greatest value for providers and life sciences, how it can solve critical challenges faced by healthcare leaders, and how Orbita has integrated generative AI into its conversational platform so healthcare leaders can leverage its full capabilities safely and securely.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

The Idaho Health Data Exchange prepares to exit bankruptcy after filing for Chapter 11 last August. The nonprofit found itself facing insolvency after government funding dried up and business deals fell through, leaving it $4 million in debt and facing lawsuits from creditors. The exchange, which replaced its executive director several weeks ago, plans to achieve funding through user fees, which may be a challenge given that only 46 healthcare organizations are currently signed up for IHDE’s top tier of service.

Sales

• Ochsner Health (LA) selects Aidoc’s enterprise AI implementation and integration platform and imaging AI algorithms.

People

Cordea Consulting names Mike Blundell (Sharp HealthCare) VP of consulting and delivery.

Evelyn Daniels (2Morrow) joins Laguna Health as VP of business development.

Announcements and Implementations

Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center (IL) integrates Sonifi Health’s patient engagement and educational content with its interactive bedside television system.

Community Health Northwest Florida rolls out EClinicalWorks across its 19 locations.

Cleveland Clinic prepares to open a new hospital in Ohio that will offer patients in each of its 57 rooms the ability to access telehealth services from off-site specialists.

EMPI vendor 4medica announces GA of its new EZReg patient registration software.

AtlantiCare leverages Unite New Jersey, the care coordination and social services referral network developed by Unite Us.

Government and Politics

IHealth Solutions, doing business as medical coding, billing, and health IT services vendor Advantum Health, will pay $75,000 to settle potential HIPAA violations related to the 2017 unauthorized transfer of PHI from an unprotected server.

Sponsor Updates

• EClinicalWorks releases a new podcast, “Redesigned Dashboard: Transforming Safety & Compliance.”
• VisiQuate announces its selection as the number-one solution for hospital and health system financial IT revenue analytics by Black Book Research.
• Carson Medical Group (NV) successfully transitions to the EClinicalWorks Cloud EHR.
• Everest Group names AGS Health a leader in RCM operations for the third consecutive year.
• Pivot Point Consulting partners with HIMSS as part of the HIMSS Digital Health Technology Partnership Program.
• First Databank names Eddye Hernandez advanced software engineer, Paul Kuzma software test engineer, and C. Brett Smith business development representative.
• The Health Information Resource Center honors Healthwise with six digital health awards for its medical illustrations and health education videos.
• Cordea Consulting names Bill Smith (Affirm) director, Epic practice; Aubrey Sherffius (Cerner) senior revenue cycle consultant; Henry Jemiola (Meditech) HIS consultant; and Kendra Krauss (Krames) strategic account director.
• Interbit Data partners with Florie, bringing its connected communications application to Interbit’s Beacon Active downtime solution.

Blog Posts

• Is Driving Revenue Growth Your Top Priority? Spoiler: It Better Be (Get-to-Market Health)
• Technology integration is key to improving the patient experience (Wolters Kluwer Health)
• How Analytics Can Help in the Emergency Department (Dimensional Insight)
• The Power of RPA in Reducing Burnout in Healthcare (Divurgent)
• Solving the Top Reasons Patients LWBS: Wait Time (Experity)
• What Do Your Calls Look Like? (Five9)
• How health systems can reduce their attack surface with VTM (Fortified Health Security)
• Health Information Management Budgets: What You Need to Know (HealthMark Group)
• How to Prepare for Your Facility’s Next EHR Upgrade (HealthTech Resources)
• Nuvolo Implementation Prep: Getting the Data Right (Healthcare IT Leaders)
• Unlocking Testing Efficiency and Reliability: A Case Study Anthology on EMR Test Automation (Keysight)
• Longitudinal care records: How an EMPI can help make these a reality (Rhapsody)
• Linking People and Processes: IT Implementation for Community Hospitals (Medhost)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.

Healthcare AI News 6/28/23

News

Navina develops a generative AI assistant to help improve the workflows of primary care physicians.

Ballad Health will use MedAware’s AI-powered medication safety monitoring platform to identify and prevent medication-related safety errors.

Former Optum Health Chief AI Officer Dennis Chornenky joins UC Davis Health as its first chief AI advisor, tasked with establishing an AI strategy for the health system.

Nuance will make its Dragon Ambient EXperience Express solution available to select Epic users this summer. The AI-powered tool can automatically generate draft clinical notes after a patient visit, as well as quickly generate notes from real-time recordings of physician/patient interactions.

Business

Medical imaging data and AI company Flywheel raises $54 million in a Series D investment round.

BeeKeeperAI, a San Francisco-based AI development and deployment support startup, announces $12 million in funding.

Research

In an effort to even out workloads for cancer patient navigators, researchers at OSF Healthcare develop a smart algorithm that predicts upcoming navigator workloads and then distributes new patients to navigators accordingly. The health system plans to incorporate the algorithm within its OSF Community Connect automated workflow platform and pilot it when its new OSF Cancer Institute opens next year.

A new report from the World Economic Forum highlights the challenges and promises of using AI in healthcare, noting that provider shortages, an exponential growth in health data, and increasingly swift advances in AI technology make its adoption and utilization an almost foregone conclusion in the areas of diagnosis and risk stratification, outbreak prediction, and clinical trial optimization.

Researchers determine that large language models like ChatGPT may potentially assist primary care providers in making clinical decisions, evaluating patients, and ordering appropriate imaging tests for breast cancer screenings and breast pain.

Other

FedScoop reviews an ONC proposed rule, released in April, that would require EHRs that use predictive solutions like AI and algorithms to provide end users with an explanation of how that technology works, as well as a description of the data it uses. ONC is reviewing comments now and hopes to have a final rule published later this year.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) pushes forward with potential legislation regulating AI, highlighting national security, misinformation and bias, and transparency from AI developers.

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
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News 6/28/23

Top News

Amazon postpones the launch of its Amazon Clinic expansion by three weeks after lawmakers raise concerns about the company’s privacy practices, specifically its method of collecting and sharing customer health data.

Launched last November, Amazon Clinic offers a form-initiated, message-based telemedicine service in 33 states. Amazon had planned to expand it this week to all 50 states with the additional offering of video-based consults. 

Reader Comments

From NighttimeSleepAid: “Re: First-ever Meditech layoffs.” An internal email shared by NSA indicates the company has decided to “downsize the company by less than 2% of our staff” as it seeks ways to adjust expenses and compensate for overstaffing. Impacted roles will mainly include newer staff hired within the last year and niche roles that are no longer needed.

Webinars

July 12 (Wednesday) 2 ET. “101: National Network Data Exchanges.” Sponsor: Particle Health. Presenter: Troy Bannister, founder and CEO, Particle Health. It’s highly likely that your most recent medical records were indexed by a national Health Information Network (HIN). Network participants can submit basic demographic information into an API and receive full, longitudinal medical records sourced from HINs. Records come in a parsed, standardized format, on demand, with a success rate above 90%. There’s so much more to learn and discover, which is why Troy Bannister is going to provide a 101 on all things HIN. You will learn what HINs are, see how the major HINS compare, and learn how networks will evolve due to TEFCA.

July 27 (Thursday) noon ET. “Why You Shouldn’t Wait to Use Generative AI.” Sponsor: Orbita. Presenter: Bill Rogers, co-founder, president, and chairman, Orbita. The advent of generative AI tools truly represents a paradigm shift. And while some healthcare leaders embrace the transformation, others are hesitant. Invest 20 minutes to learn why you shouldn’t wait. When combined with natural language processing, workflow automation and conversational dialogs, generative AI can help leaders address a raft of challenges: from over-extended staff, to the rising demand for self-service tools, to delivering secure information to key stakeholders. You will learn where AI delivers the greatest value for providers and life sciences, how it can solve critical challenges faced by healthcare leaders, and how Orbita has integrated generative AI into its conversational platform so healthcare leaders can leverage its full capabilities safely and securely.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

UnitedHealth Group-owned Optum beats out Option Care Health in its bid to acquire home healthcare provider Amedisys in a deal valued at $3.3 billion. Amedisys will join home health and hospice provider LHC Group – acquired by UnitedHealth in February for $5.4 billion – under the Optum umbrella.

Home healthcare provider Signify Health, acquired by CVS Health earlier this year for $8 billion, opens a technology center in Galway, Ireland. It is the Dallas-based company’s first facility outside of the US.

Sales

• Temple University Health System (PA) selects DrFirst’s AI-powered medication history and real-time prescription benefit check solutions.
• The American Lung Association will leverage Azara Healthcare’s data reporting and analytics as a part of its Project Breathe NY asthma control program.
• Amstelland Hospital in the Netherlands will implement Sectra’s enterprise imaging subscription service.

People

Evangelical Community Hospital (PA) promotes Elizabeth Price to VP of information systems and CIO.

Erica Franko (AGS Health) joins Ventra Health as chief transformation officer.

Loyal names Austin Pauls (Stord) as its first CFO.

NHS England promotes John Quinn to CIO.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center (TN) names Vanderbilt professor Paul Harris VP for research informatics.

Announcements and Implementations

The US Virgin Islands Office of Health Information Technology will work with CRISP Shared Services to launch a pilot interoperability program that will serve as the initial infrastructure for its first HIE CRISP supports HIEs in six states and Washington, DC.

Mass General Brigham’s Newton-Wellesley Hospital implements Smart Placement transitions-of-care decision support software from Radial Analytics.

Government and Politics

VA Assistant Secretary for Congressional and Legislative Affairs Patricia Ross assures Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) that the VA “will spare no expense” to maintain services and staff at its hospitals in Spokane and Walla Walla, where budget constraints caused by the troubled Oracle Cerner roll out have led to talk of layoffs.

In England, the NHS mandates that 90% of its nearly 225 trusts should have EHRs by December of this year, while 95% should have them by March 2025; and that 75% of adults should be registered on the NHS app by March 2024.

Other

El Camino Health (CA) launches a healthcare technology innovation fund, initially focusing on investing in projects related to remote patient monitoring, contactless patient check-in, and AI-powered diagnostic imaging, among several others.

Sponsor Updates

• FQHC Mountain Park Health Center increases its number of available appointments using health IT solutions from EClinicalWorks.
• Fakeeh Care Group integrates Wolters Kluwer Health’s UpToDate clinical decision support solution with its YASASII EHR.
• Black Book survey-takers give AQuity top customer satisfaction marks for outsourced medical coding solutions.
• CHIME issues a statement of support for the CONNECT for Health Act.
• Arrive Health publishes a new whitepaper, “Technology’s Increasing Role in Unlocking Pharmacy Value.”
• The Tech Trek Podcast features Artera CTO Ashu Agte, “Inheriting an organization and its transformation.”
• Ernst & Young names Availity CEO Russ Thomas 2023 Florida Entrepreneur of the Year.
• Baker Tilly co-authors a clinical study in the Journal of Comparative Effectiveness Research demonstrating the value of risk assessment tools in managing women at risk for ovarian cancer.
• Bamboo Health names Jonathan Koenig (Numerated) implementation specialist and Sheila Sullivan (Humana) executive director.
• Biofourmis becomes a new Switchboard Health network partner.
• Nuance makes its Dragon Ambient EXperience Express solution available to Epic users.
• Hebrew SeniorLife in Boston implements Meditech Expanse.

Blog Posts

• The digital transformation of healthcare organizations (Wolters Kluwer Health)
• Drowning in Technical Debt? Uncover Big Risks to Patient Care (CereCore)
• Revolutionizing Healthcare: The Shift to Include Mobile EForms in Hospitals (Access)
• Measuring the Value of Clinical Documentation Improvement (CDI) (AGS Health)
• ChatGPT in healthcare: evolution, revolution, or devolution? (Arcadia)
• Return data to hospitals and researchers FOR patients (Aridhia)
• 4 Signs You Need a Real-Time Prescription Benefit Checkup (Arrive Health)
• SDOH and Population Health? What’s Behind the Rise in Importance? (Clearsense)
• Top 10 Cyber Threats for Hospitals and How to Overcome Them (Clearwater)
• Prescribers More Likely to Choose Brands with Automated Processes for Buy-and-Bill Co-pay Assistance (ConnectiveRx)
• A Roadmap for Evaluating Care-at-Home Programmes: 6 Practical Tips to Get Started (Current Health)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.

Monday Morning Update 6/26/23

Top News

Struggling UK-based digital health company Babylon will merge with brain technology vendor MindMaze in a take-private transaction.

The companies say that their combination will create a digital-first, AI-driven business that will transform healthcare in moving to predictive and preventative services.

Shares in Babylon, which went public via a SPAC merger in October 2021 at a valuation of $4 billion, have since shed 99.8% in valuing the company at $20 million.

MindMaze has raised $341 million, including a 2017 investment by Leonardo DiCaprio as the company sought to expand its technology from patients regaining movement to adding interactivity to movies.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Most poll respondents don’t let a fear of getting fired compromise their work.

New poll to your right or here: In the 12 months, have you disagreed with a doctor who wouldn’t prescribe the drug or treatment you wanted? I’m fascinated by people who trust a doctor to guide their most important health decisions until that doctor’s well-considered logic conflicts with poorly sourced online advice or advertisements, which I’m sure annoys them to no end. On the other hand, I wouldn’t hesitate to choose a restaurant or movie that looks interesting despite critical disdain, so so if I’m paying and the risk is minimal (although neither are guaranteed in healthcare), I guess the customer gets to choose.

We have the usual summer-related travel and time off upcoming at HIStalk now that the longest day of the year is behind us, which fortunately coincides with the slowdown in industry news until Labor Day. We’ll be here as usual, but with less to write about, and that’s a nice break for writers and readers alike. As always, I guarantee that you won’t miss anything important even with skinnier updates.

Webinars

July 12 (Wednesday) 2 ET. “101: National Network Data Exchanges.” Sponsor: Particle Health. Presenter: Troy Bannister, founder and CEO, Particle Health. It’s highly likely that your most recent medical records were indexed by a national Health Information Network (HIN). Network participants can submit basic demographic information into an API and receive full, longitudinal medical records sourced from HINs. Records come in a parsed, standardized format, on demand, with a success rate above 90%. There’s so much more to learn and discover, which is why Troy Bannister is going to provide a 101 on all things HIN. You will learn what HINs are, see how the major HINS compare, and learn how networks will evolve due to TEFCA.

July 27 (Thursday) noon ET. “Why You Shouldn’t Wait to Use Generative AI.” Sponsor: Orbita. Presenter: Bill Rogers, co-founder, president, and chairman, Orbita. The advent of generative AI tools truly represents a paradigm shift. And while some healthcare leaders embrace the transformation, others are hesitant. Invest 20 minutes to learn why you shouldn’t wait. When combined with natural language processing, workflow automation and conversational dialogs, generative AI can help leaders address a raft of challenges: from over-extended staff, to the rising demand for self-service tools, to delivering secure information to key stakeholders. You will learn where AI delivers the greatest value for providers and life sciences, how it can solve critical challenges faced by healthcare leaders, and how Orbita has integrated generative AI into its conversational platform so healthcare leaders can leverage its full capabilities safely and securely.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Group messaging app IRL, which has raised $200 million from investors, shuts down when a board investigation following the dismissal of its founder-CEO finds that 95% of its claimed 20 million active users are bots.

AvoMD, whose no-code platform allows clinicians and hospitals to turn existing and new clinical evidence into their own point-of-care clinical pathway apps, closes $5 million in seed funding. Co-founder and CEO Yair Saperstein, MD, MPH is double-boarded in internal medicine and clinical informatics.

Medicare Advantage insurer Clover Health settles several investor lawsuits involving failing to disclose that the company was the subject of a federal investigation when it went public via a SPAC merger in January 2021. CLOV share have since lost 94%, valuing the company at $425 million.

Announcements and Implementations

UNC Health will launch an internal chatbot next month, powered by Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, that allows employees to access reference materials, documents, and training libraries by asking questions.

Government and Politics

Oklahoma’s governor rejects the formation of statewide HIE.

New York passes a bill that would prohibit any agreement that would prohibit or restrict an employee’s post-employment work, with language that goes further than the FTC’s proposed non-compete rule or California’s limitations. The bill has been submitted to the governor for signing.

Privacy and Security

The International Information System Security Certification Consortium will retire the HCISPP healthcare security certification credential as of December 1, 2026.

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.

News 6/23/23

Top News

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti requests information from Vanderbilt University Medical Center that includes patient referrals, email records, and copies of W9 and 1099 forms that detail its payments to physicians. His office is investigating possible billing fraud related to VUMC providing gender-affirming services to people who are covered by state insurance.

Tennessee law does not require the attorney general to obtain a subpoena or court order to compel VUMC to provide the requested information, although HIPAA supersedes state law.

VUMC has already provided the medical records of a list of specific patients that the AG provided from unspecified sources. VUMC notified those patients months after the fact.

Skrmetti said last fall that he would investigate VUMC after a political commentator claimed on social media that the hospital had punished employees who don’t agree with its gender-related treatments, which VUMC denied. A new Tennessee law takes effect on July 1 that criminalizes the provision of gender-affirming services to minors.

An updated statement from the AG’s office says that it launched an investigation almost a year ago, when it says a VUMC doctor publicly stated that she was manipulating billing codes to bypass insurer coverage limitations on gender-related treatment.

The AG’s office says it was surprised that VUMC recently notified patients, adding that it has no desire to turn a fraud investigation into a “media circus.”

Reader Comments

From Sebum: “Re: NEJM article. Extraordinarily good piece.” A perspective article titled “Ellipsis” by CU Medicine hospitalist Samuel Porter, MD describes the disconnect of receiving texted questions and requests from other caregivers that he mostly doesn’t know, where pager messages that were a “faceless voice” have progressed to phone messages that are a “voiceless face” of avatars. He says, “My avatar stretches its influence across a vast complex of specialized structures to dictate care from its pixelated mouthpiece.” He says that hospital physical sprawl and time pressure don’t allow seeing the patient directly, so the only constant is his computer, and the measure of his day’s work is counting icons rather than seeing facial reactions. It’s interesting to think about practicing medicine without even the visual feedback of a video visit, and I’m picturing doctors sitting in dark rooms “processing” requests and orders like a video gamer shooting aliens for dopamine jolts.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Linus Health. The Boston-based digital health company is dedicated to transforming brain health for people across the world, with a focus on Alzheimer’s and other dementias. By advancing how we detect and address cognitive and brain disorders – leveraging cutting-edge neuroscience, clinical expertise, and artificial intelligence – the company’s goal is to enable a future where people can live longer, happier, and healthier lives with better brain health. Its digital cognitive assessment platform provides a proven, practical solution for early detection; empowers providers with actionable clinical insights; and supports individuals with personalized action plans. The company is proud to partner with leading healthcare delivery, life sciences, and research organizations to advance cognitive care. Visit its website to learn more about its practical solutions for proactive brain health. Thanks to Linus Health for supporting HIStalk.

Here’s a Linus Health explainer video that I found on YouTube.

Webinars

July 12 (Wednesday) 2 ET. “101: National Network Data Exchanges.” Sponsor: Particle Health. Presenter: Troy Bannister, founder and CEO, Particle Health. It’s highly likely that your most recent medical records were indexed by a national Health Information Network (HIN). Network participants can submit basic demographic information into an API and receive full, longitudinal medical records sourced from HINs. Records come in a parsed, standardized format, on demand, with a success rate above 90%. There’s so much more to learn and discover, which is why Troy Bannister is going to provide a 101 on all things HIN. You will learn what HINs are, see how the major HINS compare, and learn how networks will evolve due to TEFCA.

July 27 (Thursday) noon ET. “Why You Shouldn’t Wait to Use Generative AI.” Sponsor: Orbita. Presenter: Bill Rogers, co-founder, president, and chairman, Orbita. The advent of generative AI tools truly represents a paradigm shift. And while some healthcare leaders embrace the transformation, others are hesitant. Invest 20 minutes to learn why you shouldn’t wait. When combined with natural language processing, workflow automation and conversational dialogs, generative AI can help leaders address a raft of challenges: from over-extended staff, to the rising demand for self-service tools, to delivering secure information to key stakeholders. You will learn where AI delivers the greatest value for providers and life sciences, how it can solve critical challenges faved by healthcare leaders, and how Orbita has integrated generative AI into its conversational platform so healthcare leaders can leverage its full capabilities safely and securely.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Outbound AI, which sells virtual agent technology for healthcare revenue cycle management, raises $16 million in a seed funding round.

Real-world data company Verana Health launches a subscription-based tool to help ophthalmology-related clinical trial sponsors and contract research organizations find potential trial sites.

Sales

• University Hospitals will implement Nuance’s patient engagement solutions, including virtual agents and AI-powered call routing.

People

Chilmark Research founder and CEO John Moore died Wednesday after a long battle with cancer.

Government and Politics

VA officials say despite last week’s layoffs in Oracle’s Cerner business that may have been driven by the VA’s own stalled implementation, it expects the company to provide the talent and expertise that is needed to fulfill its contractual commitments.

Privacy and Security

UK physician groups urge NHS England to pause its tender for a $600 million contract for a federated data platform, predicting that nearly half of NHS patients will opt out if the government choose analytics firm Palantir – which has ties to US security agencies – as its vendor. They propose alternatives based around the open source platform Open Safely and OneLondon, which they say are more transparent. Meanwhile, Palantir – which the physician groups say spending big dollars on lobbying to win the bid – is awarded a 12-month, $32 million contract to transition existing NHS projects into the new platform, which critics say raises concerns about the procurement program’s transparency and scope.

Other

A NBC News investigation finds that publicly traded hospital operator HCA Healthcare used an algorithm to identify hospitalized inpatients who were likely to die, then pushed them into palliative or hospice care to improve hospital performance measures that are tied to executive bonuses.

ChatGPT passes a simulated clinical informatics board examination, raising questions about the future of unproctored, at-home certification testing.

Sponsor Updates

• CereCore publishes an e-book titled “Technical Debt and the Patient.”
• Nordic posts a podcast titled “Designing for Health: Interview with Denise Worrell.”
• Roni Jamesmeyer, senior healthcare manager at Five9, authors an article titled “TLC, not A&E: Reducing Emergency Situations through Proactive Communications.”
• Medhost’s Meadteam Solutions launches a security operations center for its community hospital customers.

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.

News 6/21/23

Top News

Healthcare shift-bidding platform vendor CareRev will reportedly lay off one-third of its corporate workforce, about 100 employees, following the departure of founder and CEO Will Patterson, RN. He resigned after admitting to colleagues that he delivered an investor Zoom pitch – which resulted in a $50 million Series A round — while taking LSD.

Patterson announced in January 2023 that the company would focus on expanding its technology platform, which would require laying off an unstated number of employees. 

Reader Comments

From Amicus Briefly: “Re: Oracle Cerner layoff. A physician says in a private member group that its whole clinical team was eliminated, including nurse and physician executives.” Unverified since the company hasn’t said a word on that topic, but I haven’t seen that claim elsewhere. Layoffs in big, far-flung companies are often hard to quantify otherwise since those involved don’t have easy ways to compare information. It’s easier in a one-office business because you see the empty cubes or watch out the window to see who’s being marched out. Those who should eventually notice are the company’s customers, whose interests are not necessarily aligned with those of shareholders.

Webinars

June 22 (Thursday) 2 ET. “The End of COVID Public Health Emergency is Here. Is Your Rev Cycle Ready?” Sponsor: Waystar. Presenter: Vanessa L. Moldovan, commercial enablement + insights program manager, Waystar. This webinar will describe the proactive steps that are needed to avoid increased rejections and denials. It will cover regulatory waivers and flexibilities, major shifts in telehealth, changes to reimbursement, and the impact of the end of the PHE on Medicaid coverage.

July 12 (Wednesday) 2 ET. “101: National Network Data Exchanges.” Sponsor: Particle Health. Presenter: Troy Bannister, founder and CEO, Particle Health. It’s highly likely that your most recent medical records were indexed by a national Health Information Network (HIN). Network participants can submit basic demographic information into an API and receive full, longitudinal medical records sourced from HINs. Records come in a parsed, standardized format, on demand, with a success rate above 90%. There’s so much more to learn and discover, which is why Troy Bannister is going to provide a 101 on all things HIN. You will learn what HINs are, see how the major HINS compare, and learn how networks will evolve due to TEFCA.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Gradient Health, which offers AI developers a library of 350 million raw and labeled medical images from 1,000 partner hospitals for system training, raises $2.75 million.

The founders of India-based vanity drug telehealth vendor Mojocare admit — following an investor-commissioned forensic audit after the company laid off 80% of its employees — that they were falsifying sales. A report says that the “judgment-free wellness platform” vendor was selling products to companies that were owned by the relatives of the founders, then restocking the delivered products, inflating its gross merchandise value. The money-losing company raised $21 million in a Series A funding round in August 2022 after reporting that its revenue had increased 38-fold. The two founders have no healthcare experience.

Sales

• In England, Leeds Teach Hospitals NHS Trust will implement Flatiron Health’s real-world data for oncology research.

People

Evergreen Healthcare Partners promotes John Evans to SVP of operations.

Announcements and Implementations

Malaysia’s Health Ministry will implement an expanded, cloud-based EHR nationwide in 2026.

Silver Cross Hospital expands its use of Kyruus ProviderMatch to include scheduling of primary care, gastroenterology, and cardiology.

Microsoft opens a public preview of Azure OpenAI Service that allows running models on client-owned data, eliminating the need for training.

Government and Politics

A Tennessee news site reports that Vanderbilt University Medical Center has notified some of its patients that it has sent their medical records to the state’s attorney general, who it says is investigating VUMC’s billing for transgender care services for patients who are covered by state-sponsored insurance. Commenters question the legality of providing the records under HIPAA and how VUMC chose the patients whose records it sent. HHS advises under its HIPAA “Court Orders and Subpoenas” guidance that providers can share PHI under a court order, or in the case of a subpoena, if the patient has been notified in advance to give them the chance to object or seek a protective order. The cited VUMC communication refers to a “civil investigation” in which the patient records were “requested.” The AG’s chief of staff says that the office is “surprised that VUMC has deliberately chosen to frighten its patients like this,” adding that its billing investigation involves only VUMC and certain providers, not patients.

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.

Monday Morning Update 6/19/23

Top News

Oracle has declined to comment about its layoffs in the former Cerner business last week, but affected employees have cited numbers ranging from 500 to 1,200.

Reddit commenters said that recently hired managers were targeted, along with the HealthIntent and CommunityWorks teams, support service owners, and employees who were assigned to the VA’s stalled implementation.

Reader Comments

From Innit: “Re: [cancer screening technology vendor name omitted.] Fired the CEO and two of four salespeople after missing financial goals.” I left the name out pending a company response. Its leadership page and the LinkedIn profiles of the CEO and salespeople have not changed.

From Staffer: “Re: Children’s Mercy KC. Brought in expensive consultants to train the entire workforce on culture. Executive leadership talks the talk, but some are not changing or are almost weaponizing the culture concepts against staff. I’m curious about reader experience – how is the perception of your organization, has it run a culture initiative, did leaders change or did they get swapped out, and did the organization change following the initiative?” My only experience with this was in my short, long-ago stint with a for-profit company, but I suspect the same challenges remain:

• The organizations that undertake these projects are already in trouble and expect consultants to fix their most pressing problems.
• Executives who created the problems pretend to participate, but don’t actually plan to change their own behavior.
• Hiring a bunch of expensive consultants creates pressure to deliver ROI quickly, but culture change is slow and uncertain.
• Companies are paying consultants to ask their employees what they think instead of talking to them directly, which pretty much says it all with regard to the disconnect between management and employees.
• It’s a big de-motivator to ask for opinions that are then ignored.
• It’s easier to recognize a good or bad culture than to turn one around.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Nearly half of poll respondents have experienced a negative impact of a previously signed non-compete agreement. A couple of folks mentioned that non-competes should include compensation – either the old company pays you while your time-out ticks away or gives you vesting or other benefits to offset your potential lost earnings – but the Epic model of pushing the non-compete onto providers and consulting firms means that you might not get offers and won’t know why.

New poll to your right or here, as suggested by a reader: does the fear of losing your job force you to work in a suboptimal or unethical way?

Listening The Descendents (that’s how they spell it), inserted into my YouTube feed because I’ve been listening to the Hives. An HIStalk search finds that I mentioned them in 2017, where I noted that the lead singers of at least three punk rock bands have earned PhDs – Bad Religion, The Offspring, and The Descendents. They look like Walmart-fashioned grandpas waiting for the Applebee’s early bird special, but then they just rip into blazing fast and highly skilled punk rock that sends youthful moshers flinging themselves off the stage. The band formed in 1977, with Milo Aukerman stepping down temporarily to earn a UCSD PhD in molecular biology followed by postdoctoral research. Also on my playlist: the reader-suggested collaboration between Dolly Parton and Judas Priest’s Rob Halford, in which Parton’s warbling pairs surprising well with Halford’s growl as collaborators whose combined age is 148.

Lorre always offers Summer Doldrums incentives to new HIStalk sponsors this slow time of year, along with some first-year perks for small startups that need a boost. Contact her.

Webinars

June 22 (Thursday) 2 ET. “The End of COVID Public Health Emergency is Here. Is Your Rev Cycle Ready?” Sponsor: Waystar. Presenter: Vanessa L. Moldovan, commercial enablement + insights program manager, Waystar. This webinar will describe the proactive steps that are needed to avoid increased rejections and denials. It will cover regulatory waivers and flexibilities, major shifts in telehealth, changes to reimbursement, and the impact of the end of the PHE on Medicaid coverage.

July 12 (Wednesday) 2 ET. “101: National Network Data Exchanges.” Sponsor: Particle Health. Presenter: Troy Bannister, founder and CEO, Particle Health. It’s highly likely that your most recent medical records were indexed by a national Health Information Network (HIN). Network participants can submit basic demographic information into an API and receive full, longitudinal medical records sourced from HINs. Records come in a parsed, standardized format, on demand, with a success rate above 90%. There’s so much more to learn and discover, which is why Troy Bannister is going to provide a 101 on all things HIN. You will learn what HINs are, see how the major HINS compare, and learn how networks will evolve due to TEFCA.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Optum dissolves its Startup Studio incubator after three years and 100 health companies incubated.

Sales

• The VA awards Sierra7 and partner AvaSure a contract to provide a TeleCare Companion solution to seven VA medical centers in VISN 9, powered by AvaSure’s TeleSitter solution.

People

John Noseworthy, MD (Mayo Clinic) joins Northwell-created virtual-first care ecosystem vendor Caire as executive chair.

Brent Averette (Komodo Health) joins Transcarent as SVP of enterprise sales.

Damo Consulting founder and CEO Paddy Padmanabhan, MBA died Thursday of cancer.

Privacy and Security

Politico reports that Senators Peter Welch (D-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) have expressed concern to Amazon President and CEO Andy Jaffy that the company’s virtual Amazon Clinic may be collecting and sharing health data from customers. They ask in a letter that Amazon provide its patient authorization form, which they have heard requires prospective patients to consent to data disclosure that waives HIPAA protections. They also want to review sample provider contracts and how collected is shared.

A newly declassified report confirms that US spy agencies routinely purchase commercially available data on US citizens that includes their browsing history and cell phone location.

Other

Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield — noting that 60% of the claims it receives for Ozempic suggest that it is being prescribed for weight loss rather than diabetes — sends letters to prescribers warning them that it will alert law enforcement and state licensure boards when it suspects inappropriate use or fraudulent activity. The letter provides few details, but since prescribers can legally order drugs for off-label uses, it seems likely that the insurer is going after doctors who improperly claim that patients have diabetes in getting insurance to pay.

A New York Times report says that the corporatization of healthcare has alienated physicians whose bosses order them to behave in profit-seeking ways that don’t align with their values. It notes that some doctors have been fired for raising issues related to patient safety or poor working conditions and are forced to hit productivity targets that preclude showing empathy or support. They also have to manage patients whose don’t have the insurance or cash to afford potentially beneficial treatments.

A TV station in Australia profiles the country’s first standalone, nationally accredited virtual hospital.

Sponsor Updates

• CereCore publishes a case study titled “Epic Advisory Services: An Acquisition and Install Story.”
• Experity celebrates a successful investment cycle with an employee trip to Orlando.
• Meditech publishes a new e-book, “A strong revenue cycle begins and ends with a satisfied patient.”
• Nordic releases a new Making Rounds Podcast, “Turning data into insights with managed services.”
• OmniSys parent company XiFin names Kyu Rhee, MD senior strategic advisor.
• Surescripts publishes a podcast titled “Bringing Healthcare to the People: How Dr. Brett Giroir Serves His Nation.”
• Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU, and Virginia Children’s Care Network join Premier’s Kiindo pediatric-focused collaborative and purchasing alliance.
• Verato publishes a new white paper, “What Is Referential Matching?”
• Waystar customer Alivi Health announces that it has achieved a 99.89% clean claim rate.

Blog Posts

• Vyne Medical Introduces Fax Complete (Vyne Medical)
• Building a Data-Driven Culture: A Conversation with NeuroFlow Senior Director of Data Science Bill Lynch (NeuroFlow)
• How AI helps healthcare organizations achieve the Quintuple Aim (Nuance)
• Getting to grips with chronic disease management (Nordic)
• ChatGPT, Telehealth, and Financial Burdens: Is It Here to Stay? (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• The Journey of an Electronic Prescription (Surescripts)
• EHR-Based Targeting Strategies for Medical Device Marketing (OptimizeRx)
• Do Doctors Still Use Pagers? (PerfectServe)
• What is Revenue Integrity in Healthcare? (PMD)
• Lessons from a Top-Performing Health System on Lowering Mortality Rates (Premier)
• 2023 HL7 FHIR DevDays Top 3 Takeaways (Redox)
• The Joint Commission’s new emergency management guidelines: What they mean for your organization (Spok)
• CMS Introduces Prior Authorization Regulations for Medicare Advantage (WebPT)
• Three key strategies to harmonize digital health data and improve health equity (Wolters Kluwer Health)
• How Population-Based Clinical Decision Support Encourages Holistic Patient Care (Zynx Health)
• Healthcare CIO Advice on Leading through the Complexities of Change (CereCore)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.

News 6/16/23

Top News

Oracle conducts another round of layoffs in the former Cerner business, according to employee reports on Reddit and LinkedIn. Federal business groups, specifically teams involved in the VA’s now-paused implementation, were most often mentioned.

The company also reportedly rescinded some job offers.

Oracle CEO Safra Catz said of the Cerner business in this week’s earnings call, “You will be seeing some more significant changes, and we have legal entity combination imminently and that actually gives us a lot more flexibility regarding the way we operate the business. We are just at the very beginning of it. Their margins are nowhere close to the way we run our company.“

Oracle has reportedly laid off 3,000 of Cerner’s 28,000 employees in the year since the $28 billion acquisition.

Meanwhile, the stock market likes what it heard this week and has pushed ORCL shares to record highs, valuing the company at $342 billion and the wallet of CTO and Chairman Larry Ellison at nearly $150 billion. Shares rose another 3.5% on Thursday.

Webinars

June 22 (Thursday) 2 ET. “The End of COVID Public Health Emergency is Here. Is Your Rev Cycle Ready?” Sponsor: Waystar. Presenter: Vanessa L. Moldovan, commercial enablement + insights program manager, Waystar. This webinar will describe the proactive steps that are needed to avoid increased rejections and denials. It will cover regulatory waivers and flexibilities, major shifts in telehealth, changes to reimbursement, and the impact of the end of the PHE on Medicaid coverage.

July 12 (Wednesday) 2 ET. “101: National Network Data Exchanges.” Sponsor: Particle Health. Presenter: Troy Bannister, founder and CEO, Particle Health. It’s highly likely that your most recent medical records were indexed by a national Health Information Network (HIN). Network participants can submit basic demographic information into an API and receive full, longitudinal medical records sourced from HINs. Records come in a parsed, standardized format, on demand, with a success rate above 90%. There’s so much more to learn and discover, which is why Troy Bannister is going to provide a 101 on all things HIN. You will learn what HINs are, see how the major HINS compare, and learn how networks will evolve due to TEFCA.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Nasdaq gives Veradigm another extension to submit its annual and quarterly reports, with the company expecting to file Form 10-K on September 18, 2023 rather than June 14. The former Allscripts announced at the end of February that audits internal had uncovered revenue recognition problems that would force a 15-day delay in filing its report that was due March 1. The company then announced on March 22 that it had fallen out of Nasdaq compliance by failing to file its 10-K by the revised date. It was given another 60 days to file the report. Nasdaq issued a delisting notice for MDRX shares on May 18 for failing to file its reports on time. MDRX shares have lost 35% since January 1 versus the Nasdaq’s 30% gain, valuing the company at $1.3 billion. 

Nasdaq retracts its delisting warning for shares of Healthcare Triangle, determining that it made a mistake in calculating the company’s per-share value following its May 26 reverse stock split.

Healthcare staffing company Aya Health acquires Flexwise Health, whose software forecasts hospital staffing needs.

BurstIQ acquires the business intelligence solution of Olive AI.

Sales

• Health risk management firm Captive Health will offer its covered members KeyCare’s virtual care services, accessed from MyChart and Captive Health’s mobile app.

Announcements and Implementations

A new KLAS report on population health management technology vendors finds that Epic and Innovaccer stand out, and along with Arcadia, are most often considered. Customers give high partnership marks to Azara Healthcare, Relevant Healthcare, and Salient Healthcare.

Government and Politics

Human Rights Watch calls for the US government to protect Americans from aggressive billing and debt collection by non-profit hospitals, which the organization says is interfering with their other human rights such as housing, food, and education. It concludes that the US model of giving tax breaks to privately operated hospitals and hoping they will reciprocate by delivering charity care isn’t working, making the US a big outlier in medical debt. The report says the government should require hospitals to provide as much charity care as they receive in tax subsidies, for the IRS to set national standards for hospital financial assistance, and for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to require debt collectors to make sure that patients have been screened for financial assistance eligibility before pressing them for payment. 

Sponsor Updates

• Team Ellkay raises over $35,000 for the Alpine Learning Group during its annual Go the Distance for Autism cycling event.
• Vyne Medical publishes a new case study, “How to Establish Proof of Patient Authorizations to Overturn Denials.”
• A new report from Forester recognizes InterSystems as a strong performer among top data management and analytics vendors.
• Redox publishes a new report, “Uncovering hidden data roadblocks of cloud and AI adoption in healthcare.”
• Black Book lists the top-ranked payer technologies category leaders exhibiting at AHIP this week. HIStalk sponsors include Wolters Kluwer Health (member and consumer education solutions) and Optum (end-to-end payer RCM outsourcing, payer analytics outsourcing).
• Wolters Kluwer Health and Laerdal Medical launch VRClinicals for Nursing to enhance nurse training with realistic, multi-patient scenarios using virtual reality.
• Konza National Network’s interoperability platform earns certified status by HITRUST for information security.
• Direct Recruiters parent company Starfish Partners acquires Global People and cybersecurity-focused NinjaJobs.
• Fortified Health Security names Katarzyna Parzonka conference and event coordinator.
• Healthwise wins six Digital Health Awards.
• Loyal names Matt Gove (Summit Health/CityMD) senior advisor.

Blog Posts

• How to Maintain a Thriving Healthcare System Despite Inflating Costs (Vyne Medical)
• How Analytics Can Transform Interoperability (Dimensional Insight)
• The Hidden Benefits of Staff Augmentation in Healthcare (Divurgent)
• EClinicalWorks Day is Back – and Coming to Your Area (EClinicalWorks)
• Doctor’s Urgent Care Sees Immediate Improvement to Revenue Potential by Switching EMR (Experity)
• EHR Implementation: How to Achieve Successful Change Management (HealthTech Resources)
• Proceed with caution: Why code crosswalks are built to fail (Intelligent Medical Objects)
• Unique Challenges of Healthcare Application Testing: Why It Is So Different (Keysight)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.

News 6/14/23

Top News

Oracle reports Q4 results: revenue up 17%, adjusted EPS $1.67 versus $1.54, beating Wall Street expectations for both and sending shares to an all-time high. From the earnings call:

• Total cloud revenue was up 55%.
• The Cerner business contributed $1.5 billion to the company’s $13.8 billion of total revenue that was up 18%.
• The company is partnering with Nvidia to build the world’s largest high-performance computer, which will run AI at 16,000 GPUs.
• CTO and Chairman Larry Ellison says that cloud usage is charged by the minute, making Oracle half the price of competitors because it runs twice as fast. He adds that a new Oracle version of MySQL is 1,000 times faster than Amazon Aurora.
• Ellison says Oracle loves Java for building applications, but the company uses Apex for a tenfold developer productivity gain, which he says is why the company believes that it can rewrite Cerner’s entire suite in a “very, very short period of time.”
• Ellison says that the company will earn many healthcare wins because of Oracle’s application breadth, also noting that competitors say they are “cloud” when they are actually “hosted.”
• Ellison adds, “We not only have all the Cerner healthcare apps for hospitals, we’ve specialized our ERP system for hospitals, we’ve specialized our HCM for managing the hospital workforce. We’ve done a bunch of things around the healthcare industry. One of the things we want to do is, you know, we’re the largest provider of clinical trial software. But the clinical — the results of the clinical trial goes to a government regulator. And we’re now working with the government regulators to develop the software that allows them to take the clinical trial output in digital form and get it through the regulatory process much faster at a much lower cost. So, we’re looking at the entire healthcare ecosystem and trying to automate both sides of the transaction.”
• CEO Safra Catz says “we’re still at the beginning” with the Cerner business, as Oracle has been focused on stabilizing the operation, but work remains to increase Cerner’s profit margins and to move its products to Oracle Cloud.

Reader Comments

From Apex: “Re: Elation Health. We were notified that our implementation manager is no longer with the company, apparently part of a structured RIF. Not sure how big, but it was a sign of companies hunkering down for the recession and the lack of non-AI investor capital.” Unverified, because I couldn’t find a press contact on their site to confirm the non-anonymous report.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Ronin. The San Mateo, CA-based company’s advanced data science and human-centered interfaces embedded in the EHR help clinicians make more precise, confident, and personalized patient care decisions while enhancing the patient and care team experience. Intuitive display of the patient journey: More efficiently and more confidently guide patient care using a reimagined dashboard within the EHR that presents all available patient data in a single click. Efficiently rendered data reduces clinicians burden and supports data-driven decisions. Actionable data insights for personalized care: Preempt adverse events and improve treatment effectiveness using predictive insights delivered at the point of care in the patient chart to accelerate informed, individualized decisions about patient care. Real-time symptom monitoring for effective intervention with PROs: Identify and proactively course-correct at-risk patients for fewer adverse events and emergency department visits through EHR-integrated capture of patient reported outcomes, remote monitoring, effective patient management, and intelligent alerting. Thanks to Ronin for supporting HIStalk.

Webinars

June 22 (Thursday) 2 ET. “The End of COVID Public Health Emergency is Here. Is Your Rev Cycle Ready?” Sponsor: Waystar. Presenter: Vanessa L. Moldovan, commercial enablement + insights program manager, Waystar. This webinar will describe the proactive steps that are needed to avoid increased rejections and denials. It will cover regulatory waivers and flexibilities, major shifts in telehealth, changes to reimbursement, and the impact of the end of the PHE on Medicaid coverage.

July 12 (Wednesday) 2 ET. “101: National Network Data Exchanges.” Sponsor: Particle Health. Presenter: Troy Bannister, founder and CEO, Particle Health. It’s highly likely that your most recent medical records were indexed by a national Health Information Network (HIN). Network participants can submit basic demographic information into an API and receive full, longitudinal medical records sourced from HINs. Records come in a parsed, standardized format, on demand, with a success rate above 90%. There’s so much more to learn and discover, which is why Troy Bannister is going to provide a 101 on all things HIN. You will learn what HINs are, see how the major HINS compare, and learn how networks will evolve due to TEFCA.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

A new survey of C-level health system executives by marketing intelligence firm Panda Health looks at the “Churn Index,” as digital health contracts that health systems signed during the pandemic will start expiring, forcing customers to evaluate whether their renewal is cost effective. Telehealth and remote patient monitoring solutions have a potentially high Churn Score due to moderate levels of dissatisfaction.

Forbes questions why Andreessen Horowitz led a recent $50 million seed funding round in healthcare startup Hippocratic AI even though its founder came from a Medicare Advantage broker with a history of debt, laid-off employees, and unpaid invoices.  Several Health IQ co-founders and executives, including CEO Munjal Shah, MS, moved to Hippocratic AI, angering the small companies – mostly lead generators and call center operators — that are stilled owed millions by Health IQ.

People

Will Weider, MS (PeaceHealth) joins Aspirus Health as SVP/CIO.

UCSF promotes Julia Adler-Milstein, PhD as chief of its clinical informatics and digital transformation division.

Spencer Korn (Salesforce) joins League as SVP of sales and business development.

PatientNow hires Bethany Little, MA (Community Brands) as CEO.

Curt Thornton, MHS, MBA (Anatomy IT) joins Linus Health as chief growth officer.

AvoMD hires Mark Citrone (Doximity) as chief commercial officer.

Announcements and Implementations

Artera launches Artera Harmony to unify and streamline patient messaging from across the enterprise.

KLAS reports that as health system acquire independent oncology practices and care centers, more are being moved to Epic and Oracle Health, with Epic users reporting satisfaction with the company’s development roadmap but noting that the system’s complexity creates a user learning curve. Oracle Health users say that PowerChart Oncology is customizable and well integrated, but development is slow and the system is hard to learn.

Government and Politics

Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes says she can’t afford to pay $250 per month toward the $452 million that she and former COO Sunny Balwani have been ordered to pay as restitution to defrauded investors. Holmes says she will spend the rest of her working life trying to pay her legal bills, although her attorneys did not object to starting a payment plan from prison at $100 per year. 

Privacy and Security

St. Margaret’s Health (IL) will cease operations this week after failing to overcome staff shortages, the lingering effects of the pandemic, and a 2021 ransomware attack on parent organization SMP Health that prevented it from submitting claims to payers for nearly three months.

Other

Bon Secours Mercy Health (OH) develops a Community Health Data Hub for public health research.

Allina Health will re-examine its recently exposed policy of withholding services from patients who have accrued $4,500 in medical debt. The Minnesota-based nonprofit will not, however, restore care for those who are already flagged as debtors.

Sponsor Updates

• Five9 publishes a demonstration video titled “Five9 Helps with Medicaid Redetermination.”
• AssociatesMD (FL) increases patient engagement after implementing Healow technology from EClinicalWorks.
• Waystar enhances its healthcare payments platform for improved transparency, efficiency, and accuracy.
• Baker Tilly releases a new Healthy Outcomes Podcast, “Navigating challenges in 2023 and beyond for healthcare provider organizations.”
• Nordic releases an episode of its In Network podcast titled ““Making Rounds: Turning data into insights with managed services”
• Bamboo Health names Amelia Burnett and Laura Reese software engineers, David Antosh cloud engineer, and Bill Alderson senior payroll specialist.
• The local business paper honors Care.ai with a 2023 Fire Award in the Fresh Faces category.
• CHIME releases a new Trailblazers Podcast, “Digital Future Optimization, Efficiency, Process – Where Do We Start?”
• AGS Health, Amenities, Arcadia, Availity, CereCore, Current Health, Medhost, Nordic, Nym Health, Optum, Sphere, VisiQuate, and Waystar will exhibit at HFMA June 25-28 in Nashville.

Blog Posts

• How to Transition from Meditech Legacy EHR to Expanse (CereCore)
• Rising costs of prescription drugs could drive alternate options (Wolters Kluwer Health)
• We Surveyed Our Customers on Mental Health Issues. Here’s What We Learned. (AdvancedMD)
• Preventing Revenue Leakage with Integrated Financial Clearance and Patient Access (AGS Health)
• Value-based care and ROI: Connecting an Allen wrench to healthcare analytics (Arcadia)
• The Top 5 Takeaways from Artera’s First-Ever Customer Conference, Heartbeat. (Artera)
• Getting to grips with chronic disease management (Nordic)
• Improving the Patient Experience Through Technology (Ascom)
• From Challenge to Opportunity: Exploring Clinical Data Acquisition and Integration in the Healthcare Ecosystem (Availity)
• Utilizing DRVS Tools to Address Social Drivers of Health in Your Community (AGS Health)
• 5 ways patient engagement can improve outcomes (CarePort)
• FHIR-side Chats with Clearsense (Clearsense)
• Recent OCR and State Attorney Generals’ HIPAA Enforcement Actions Stress the Critical Importance for Asset-Based Risk Analysis of All Systems with EPHI (Clearwater)
• The Danger Within: How Unpatched Vulnerabilities Leave Your Hospital Open to Cyberattacks (CloudWave)
• A Roadmap to Successful Application Modernization (CTG)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.

Monday Morning Update 6/12/23

Top News

Madison, WI-based news site Isthmus questions whether Epic’s non-compete agreements limit Dane County’s entrepreneurial growth as compared to Microsoft’s startup influence in the Seattle area.

A former Epic employee says that it’s nearly impossible for people like him to launch a startup given the two-year non-compete that involves the 4,500 banned companies that Epic lists as competitors and its “all efforts” pledge that prohibits part-time, professional, or teaching work while working for Epic.

The article also notes that Epic requires independent consulting firms, vendors that are listed in its app marketplace, and its customers to incorporate the same two-year non-compete terms.

Some of the former employees who were interviewed say they took jobs that seemed unrelated to Epic, but were terminated by their new employers when Epic inquired.

The FTC is reviewing its proposed ban on non-compete agreements, which is almost certain to be legally challenged.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

A surprising number of poll respondents say their phone has driven life-changing improvements, with some examples being Pokémon Go leading to exercise, Reframe for sobriety, Apple Watch’s three-ring activity tracker, Strava for exercise, exercise trackers and monitoring, and calorie tracking.

New poll to your right or here: Has a non-compete agreement that you previously signed ever had a negative impact on your search for a new job?

My fascination with ChatGPT has been replaced by annoyance at the hucksters who are carpet-bombing LinkedIn and Twitter with dull, formulaic, and probably ChatGPT-generated drivel that practically begs for followers and newsletter sign-ups. They will disappear in a few months as they fight each other to be top-of-mind for short attention span crumbs, but meanwhile it’s getting tedious being swamped with repetitive content from self-proclaimed experts:

• Pithy “ChatGPT for business” editorializing from people who have never held a real job beyond self-promotion and who have no documented education, experience in AI, or success in running a company.
• Soulless, pointless one-sentence-per-paragraph eye-rolling insight haikus on LinkedIn.
• Recirculating low-value lists of ChatGPT tools, prompts, and screenshots.
• Making lists of predictions of companies or industries will be rendered obsolete by ChatGPT.
• Posting the non-clever results of the “I asked ChatGPT and here’s what it said” type.
• Folks, many of them in marketing and writing, who don’t realize that any leverage they get from ChatGPT will be quickly adopted by everyone else, erasing any temporary competitive advantage.

Webinars

June 22 (Thursday) 2 ET. “The End of COVID Public Health Emergency is Here. Is Your Rev Cycle Ready?” Sponsor: Waystar. Presenter: Vanessa L. Moldovan, commercial enablement + insights program manager, Waystar. This webinar will describe the proactive steps that are needed to avoid increased rejections and denials. It will cover regulatory waivers and flexibilities, major shifts in telehealth, changes to reimbursement, and the impact of the end of the PHE on Medicaid coverage.

July 12 (Wednesday) 2 ET. “101: National Network Data Exchanges.” Sponsor: Particle Health. Presenter: Troy Bannister, founder and CEO, Particle Health. It’s highly likely that your most recent medical records were indexed by a national Health Information Network (HIN). Network participants can submit basic demographic information into an API and receive full, longitudinal medical records sourced from HINs. Records come in a parsed, standardized format, on demand, with a success rate above 90%. There’s so much more to learn and discover, which is why Troy Bannister is going to provide a 101 on all things HIN. You will learn what HINs are, see how the major HINS compare, and learn how networks will evolve due to TEFCA.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

A Business Insider article predicts a startup “mass extinction event” for startups in late 2023 through 2024 that may have already started, although with low visibility since “most startups die quietly and slowly” since they aren’t publicly traded. The result could be asset sales, recapitalization at lower valuation, acqui-hires in which companies are bought simply to poach their employees, and low-visibility shutdowns.

A researcher in Australia says that employees value work-from-home options because of – in addition to time spent commuting — poorly designed corporate offices that stifle inspiration and creativity with cookie-cutter furnishings, high noise levels, and interruptions, also noting that companies tout serendipitous conversations and collaboration that usually doesn’t happen just because employees are forced to sit in a room together. She says the return-to-office push is being driven by Theory X managers who think lazy employees need to be observed and controlled as well as economic concerns about commercial property values.

Sales

• The New York State Office of Mental Health chooses NTT Data to provide Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) services for the Child Support Workstream of the Integrated Eligibility System (IES) Program.

People

Cedars-Sinai hires James Jones, MHA, MSN, RN (UW Medicine) as its first CNIO.

Bridget Bell (Nordic Consulting Partners) joins Cardamom Health as VP of business development.

CommonSpirit Health promotes Karen Hunter, DNP, RN to system VP of clinical informatics.

Industry long-timer Michael Kendzierski died May 26 at 61. He retired a few months ago from DrFirst and had held executive sales jobs with Spok, Vocera, CareFusion, Initiate Systems, Eclipsys, and Spacelabs.

Announcements and Implementations

Orbita launches CallDeflectAI, a conversational virtual assistant for provider websites that answers common patient questions using only provider-approved documents and web pages. The company offers a 30-day free trial and promises a one-day launch.

Medhost will offer its partners the Sentri7 antimicrobial and sepsis surveillance suite of Wolters Kluwer Health.

Sponsor Updates

• EClinicalWorks releases a new podcast, “Prisma: Enhancements & Benefits for Clinicians.”
• Tegria will host a LinkedIn Live discussion June 21, “Demystifying Cloud Misconceptions for Healthcare.”
• AdvancedMD publishes a new e-book, “The Private Equity M&A Playbook: A Guide for Private Practices.”
• Meditech publishes a new whitepaper, “Insights on the evolution and implications of healthcare workforce challenges.”
• NeuroFlow releases a new Bridging the Gap Podcast featuring Stephen Klasko, MD of General Catalyst.
• Nuance will present at AHIP 2023 June 14 in Portland, OR.
• Netsmart will present at the I2I Center for Integrative Health Spring Conference June 12 in Raleigh, NC.
• A new KLAS report highlights the success PerfectServe’s customers have experienced with its clinical communication solutions.
• Sectra will exhibit at SIIM 2023 June 14-16 in Austin, TX.
• Volpara Health issues a statement on the new USPSTF breast cancer screening recommendations.
• Waystar will exhibit at the FL AAHAM Annual Conference June 21-23 in Daytona Beach Shores.
• Optum, Availity, Bamboo Health, Surescripts, West Monroe, Ellkay, First Databank, Intelligent Medical Objects, InterSystems, Trualta, and Wolters Kluwer Health will exhibit at AHIP 2023 June 13-15 in Portland, OR.
• Medhost offers customers access to Wolter Kluwer Health’s Sentri7 surveillance suite with turnkey regulatory reporting.
• Zen Healthcare IT’s Stargate IHE Gateway achieves EHealth Exchange Validated Product designation.

Blog Posts

• EHR Implementation: How to Achieve Successful Change Management (HealthTECH Resources)
• Mount Sinai South Nassau (MSSN): One Teaching Hospital’s Journey to Adopting a CC&C Solution (Mobile Heartbeat)
• What You Need to Know: Revolutionize Your Rehab with Digital MSK (Net Health)
• Addressing the Rising Risk of Complex Behavioral Health Care on Our Healthcare System (NeuroFlow)
• A Window Into the State of Medical Coding in the US (Nym Health)
• Nurses of Note 2023: The Interim Director and Nurse Development Leader (PerfectServe)
• The Advantage of a Revenue Cycle Management Partner in Claims Denial Management (PMD)
• Honoring Breakthrough Healthcare Technologies at Premier’s Annual Innovation Celebration (Premier)
• Revenue Cycle Company Brings Medical Practices Live 66% Faster While Continuing to Grow Their Revenue (RCxRules)
• Proprietary new research is live – how Redox is exposing some of the hidden data roadblocks of cloud and AI adoption in healthcare (Redox)
• The Didi Davis Clinical Interoperability Showcase (Surescripts)
• Bringing generative AI to healthcare through the contact center (Talkdesk)
• Demystifying Cloud Misconceptions for Healthcare (Tegria)
• Leveraging Cerner Millenium EHR for a comprehensive Well Baby Program in Qatar: Integrating care processes and promoting early intervention (Oracle Cerner)
• Top 5 Reasons Caregivers Call Healthcare Providers: Insightful Guide for Health System Executives (Trualta)
• How to Purchase Therapy Equipment on a Budget (WebPT)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.

News 6/9/23

Top News

Primary and urgent care chain Carbon Health launches hands-free, AI-powered EHR charting across all of its clinics and providers.

Audio recordings of patient visits are analyzed with AWS Medical Transcribe, then processed with GPT-4 to generate an EHR-ready notes document. The company say that chart completion time is reduced from 16 minutes to four.

Carbon Health  is reviewing options to license the technology. It cut 200 jobs and ended several key initiatives in January 2023, shortly after opening conversations about licensing its EHR and days before announcing a $100 million Series D funding round led by CVS Health Ventures.

Reader Comments

From CTDeveloper: “Re: [company name omitted]. Fired 450 employees over the last three weeks. Was acquired by a private equity firm last year.” I’ve left off the company’s name while waiting on a response to my inquiry. The company and most of its employees are based in India.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Wolters Kluwer Health acquires Invistics, which offers AI-enabled software to detect drug diversion in hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers.

Carta Healthcare, which offers registry data abstraction and analytics, closes a $25 million Series B funding round.

Sales

• Curana Health, which offers primary and post-acute care to senior living communities, chooses Netsmart’s CareFabric for consumer engagement, value-based care, and management of high-risk populations.

People

William Crawford, MS, MBA (Medically Home) joins Newfire Global Partners as CTO.

Announcements and Implementations

HIMSS will move its global headquarters to Rotterdam, Netherlands this summer, after which its Chicago facility will be known as its Americas headquarters. HIMSS first announced the opening in September 2022.

A new KLAS report on clinical communication platform adoption finds that PerfectServe Telmediq and Stryker Vocera are closest to having comprehensive deployments that address customer strategies.

Epic will build a campus in Bristol, England to house its 350 employees there along with others in the UK.

University of Pennsylvania receives a $10 million gift to establish a fund for student healthcare entrepreneurship.

Bankrupt weight loss center operator Jenny Craig will sell its Australia and New Zealand online business to Eucalyptus, which sells medical products online for weight and hair loss, erective dysfunction, menopause, fertility, and skincare. The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners has raised concerns that Eucalyptus may be illegally advertising drugs directly to consumers and allowing its doctors issue prescriptions from questionnaires rather than real-time consultations as the law requires.

Mayo Clinic will use Google’s low-code Enterprise Search in Generative AI App Builder to combine Google search with generative AI to provide information to clinicians and employees.

Government and Politics

The VA’s Northwest regional director says that Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center won’t be required to reduce staffing or services to address its expected $35 million budget shortfall that was mostly caused by its problematic implementation of Oracle Cerner.

Sponsor Updates

• Lumeon publishes an infographic titled “Healthcare Is in Crisis: Is It About to Get Much Worse?”
• HFMA awards Premier’s Pinc AI InflowHealth solution its Peer Reviewed by HFMA designation.
• Care.ai’s Smart Care Facility platform integrates with Samsung’s healthcare-grade display.
• Divurgent releases a new episode of The Vurge Podcast, “Using Data in HIT.”
• Nordic publishes a new episode of DocTalk titled “An asset-based approach to health IT.”

Blog Posts

• Five Effective Urgent Care Marketing Strategies (Experity)
• Healthcare Cloud Migration Benefits and Lessons Learned (Healthcare IT Leaders)
• Navigating the data maze: The significance of value sets in healthcare (Intelligent Medical Objects)
• Vital Signs: The Rise of Automated Healthcare Software Testing (Keysight)
• Meet Anamika Patel, Optimum CareerPath Graduate and Ambulatory Analyst (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• Consensus Conductor Can Do… What? Yep, Integrate All Your Communication Workflows in One Place (Consensus Cloud Solutions)
• Preventive Healthcare with AI: A Smarter Approach to Disease Prevention (Lucem Health)
• Addressing Cybersecurity in Rural Healthcare (Medhost)

The following HIStalk Sponsors achieve top user ratings in Black Book’s analysis of financial and RCM solutions:

• Optum – chargemaster and price transparency solutions.
• AdvancedMD – end-to-end RCM outsourcing, small physician practices.
• AGS Health – end-to-end RCM outsourcing, hospitals under 100 beds.
• Rhapsody – enterprise master patient identifier solution.
• Meditech – patient accounting, community hospital.
• Upfront Healthcare – patient communications and financial RCM satisfaction solutions.
• VisiQuate – revenue analytics solutions.
• Waystar – inpatient claims management systems; end-to-end RCM software and technology, large hospitals and medical centers 250+ beds; end-to-end RCM software, large hospital chains, systems, corporations, IDNs; end-to-end RCM software, small to mid-size hospital chains, systems, corporations, IDNs; patient payment technology.

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.

News 6/7/23

Top News

A science advisory group of the American Heart Association says that digital technology can address many of the challenges that are faced by center-based cardiac rehabilitation and care programs.

The authors list available technologies for patient assessment, nutritional counseling, risk factor management, exercise training, and digital  monitoring tools.

They predict that data from digital technology systems will be merged with clinical data to support integrate biomarker-directed risk identification, medication adherence, risk factor modification, and fully virtual cardiac rehab programs and AI-powered training plans.

Reader Comments

From Pilsner: “Re: HIStalk’s 20th birthday. How about the tenure of the rest of the crew?” I’m winging it from memory, but I think Dr. Jayne started 12 years ago, Lorre 10, and Jenn nine.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Fuse Oncology, a Cone Health spin-off specializing in radiation oncology software, closes a $9 million Series A funding round.

RxLightning, which specializes in digital specialty medication enrollment solutions, raises $17.5 million in a Series A funding round.

UnitedHealth Group makes an unsolicited cash offer of $3.3 billion to acquire home care provider Amedisys, which has already agreed to be acquired by Option Care Health for a slightly lower sum, for its Optum business.  UnitedHealth acquired home health and hospice provider LHC Group for $5.4 billion in February 2023, which is also operating under Optum.

Cardinal Health sells its Outcomes business to pharmacy software vendor Transaction Data Systems. Cardinal launched the business in April 2021 by combining its medication therapy management, patient engagement, telepharmacy, and vaccine administration scheduling products.

Sales

• Renovis Health (MI) selects Innovaccer’s ACO REACH Solution Suite.

People

LSU Health Shreveport (LA) names Viola Sprague, MBA (Kettering University) CIO.

Reperio Health hires Nicole Brooks (Innsena Communications) as VP of marketing and communications.

Tom Gregorio (Tufts Medicine) joins Care New England as SVP/CIO.

University of South Alabama Health names Tyler Whetstine (Adventist Health) CIO.

Newfire Global Partners hires Sonali Damle, MS, MBA (Innovaccer) as chief people and transformation officer.

Sam Zebarjadi (Amazon) joins Moderna as VP of strategy and go-to-market innovation.

Announcements and Implementations

Startup Remission Medical will work with the Mayo Clinic (MN) to further develop its virtual rheumatology clinic software, incorporating AI and machine learning to reduce time between diagnosis and treatment, and to predict flare-ups.

Emerus Holdings implements Orchard Software’s Point-of-Care LIS software at its eight hospitals in the Dallas-Forth Worth area.

In California, Seneca Healthcare District, Plumas District Hospital, and Eastern Plumas Health Care go live on Oracle Cerner through its CommunityWorks model.

Bellevue Hospital in Ohio implements Meditech Expanse.

CloudWave rolls out a fully managed patching service.

Government and Politics

Politico reports that HHS is accepting proposals from organizations that are interested in managing its TEFCA data-sharing initiative. The non-profit Sequoia Project has managed the framework since 2019 through a four-year contract and has applied to continue that work. Proposals are due June 27 and ONC expects to name the coordinating entity by September.

KFF Health News questions whether a federally created, independent National Patient Safety Board, similar to the National Transportation Safety Board, can succeed in helping hospitals learn from medical errors. The hospital industry’s influence will be hard to overcome given the $220 million it spent lobbying Congress last year and its role as the leading employer in 47 states. Proposed bills would allow the proposed group to investigate only when invited by the organization involved and would prohibit it from naming organizations or individuals, making it likely that it will be able to use only de-identified, voluntarily submitted data that is protected from public view.

Other

Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (NH) uses $2 million in initial funding to launch the Center for Precision Health and Artificial Intelligence, which will offer researchers and developers the means to evaluate new AI-powered digital tools in clinical settings.

Australia’s general practitioner professional group wants doctors to be paid for the time they spend referring patients to hospitals, a process that it calls “exporting hospital bureaucracy into general practice.” RACGP urges adoption of standardized digital referral forms, observing that while general practices have progressed past PDF forms and faxes, “hospitals are using not just unique forms, but archaic systems.”

Sponsor Updates

• Horizon Health Care (SD) expands its use of EClinicalWorks to include the company’s behavioral health module.
• Biofourmis, Current Health, and Volpara Health join The White House’s CancerX national accelerator.
• Nordic publishes an episode of its Designing for Health podcast that features an interview with Allison McCoy, PhD.
• Bamboo Health completes its SOC 2 examination, validating its commitment to critical security standards.
• Remedi Health Solutions sponsors the CHIME Innovation in Clinical Informatics Summit in San Diego.
• CloudWave will exhibit at the New England Spring HIMSS Annual Conference June 8 in Norwood, MA.
• CTG publishes a new case study, “CTG Improves Healthcare System’s Patient Portal Support with Amazon Connect.”
• Netsmart will integrate NVoq’s speech recognition software with its MyUnity EHR for post-acute care.

Blog Posts

• Good, Better, Best: 8 Questions to Challenge Your Network Management Strategy (CereCore)
• Google’s Material Design Explained the Impact on Digital Design and Why You Should Care (Access)
• Why and How to Build a Successful Clinical Documentation Improvement (CDI) Program (AGS Health)
• History of Healthcare Technology Regulations: What You Need to Know (Consensus Cloud Solutions)
• What are the new RADV guidelines, and how will they impact healthcare? (Arcadia)
• 5 Key Facts About Workplace Injury Prevention (Bardavon)
• Healthcare Provider’s Guide to Value-Based Care (ChartSpan)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.

Morning Headlines 6/6/23

General Electric to sell over $2 bln stake in GE HealthCare

General Electric plans to divest $2 billion worth of common stock in GE Healthcare Technologies, which spun off from GE earlier this year.

HHS Office for Civil Rights Reaches Agreement with Health Care Provider in New Jersey That Disclosed Patient Information in Response to Negative Online Reviews

New Jersey-based Manasa Health Center will pay $30,000 to settle HIPAA violations stemming from a response it posted to a patient’s negative online review.

New Dartmouth Center Applies AI to Improve Health Outcomes

Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (NH) uses $2 million in initial funding to launch the Center for Precision Health and Artificial Intelligence, which will offer researchers and developers the means to evaluate new digital tools in clinical settings.

Monday Morning Update 6/5/23

Top News

The National Eating Disorder Association shuts down its chatbot after users report that it gave them inappropriate advice for managing eating disorders, such as advising them to diet.

The association closed its human-staffed help line in May 2023, a few days after its employees unionized. Help line employees and volunteers fielded 70,000 calls per year.

The medical school team that created the chabot says it was never intended to be a replacement for the help line. They also suspect that the organization introduced bugs in trying to make the chatbot look like ChatGPT even though it is a rules-bases system that can’t generate unique responses. 

Reader Comments

From Smidge: “Re: HIE. I saw a new doctor who downloaded my health and demographic information from an HIE and some of it was outdated or truncated. I’m wondering if others have seen this. It may have been caused by another provider’s system merge.”

From Another Dave: “Re: Scanadu Scout. Remember that? Mine still works on those occasions where I find it in my drawer of broken dreams. This one might make it to the marketplace.” Scanadu’s so-called Tricorder system died in a big cloud of hype dust when it gave up on bringing the Scout to market in mid-2017. Meanwhile, smartphones are slowly adding Scout-like technologies, and UCSD engineers have developed a 10-cent phone clip that allows measuring blood pressure using the phone’s camera and flash.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Most readers aren’t making big money via side jobs.

New poll to your right or here: Has your cell phone ever been a key driver of a life-changing improvement to your health? Feel free to click the Comment link after voting to provide details.

Thanks to the following companies that recently supported HIStalk. Click a logo for more information.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

India-based Apollo Hospitals will sell a 6% stake in its online platform for $200 million, valuing the business at up to $3 billion. Apollo HealthCo was launched in June 2021, merging the company’s digital health and telehealth products with the intention of raising investor capital to expand.

Sales

• Belgian hospitals AZ Sint Jan and AZ Sint Lucas select Sectra One Cloud for enterprise imaging.

Privacy and Security

Molecular diagnostic company Enso Biochem announces via an SEC filing that the clinical test information of 2.5 million people was exposed in an April 2023 ransomware attack.

Other

Microsoft researchers train a GPT-4 model using a PubMed Central dataset extract of diagnostic images and their captions to inexpensively create a conversational assistant for biomedicine in one day.

Cancer screening company Grail blames third-party telemedicine vendor PWNHealth for sending 400 people letters inappropriately warning them that they may have cancer.

South Australia Health has failed to deliver on its promise of implementing a crucial result tracking and notification feature within its Altera Digital Health Sunrise EHR system, three years after the death of a patient whose adenocarcinoma diagnosis was delayed by three months. SA Health says a Sunrise upgrade later this year is required before introducing Compass, a task tracking function that reminds doctors when they don’t review test results promptly.

Where would you start if you were CEO of this major ambulatory EHR vendor as profiled in a new KLAS report?

Sponsor Updates

• Be Well Primary Care (TX) transitions to EClinicalWorks V12.
• Azara Health publishes a new resource and strategy guide, “Leveraging Social Drivers of Health Data to Promote Health Equity Advancement.”
• AvaSure adds AI enhancements to its TeleSitter virtual care platform, including augmented alerts for patient falls and elopement, and predictive fall risk identification.
• NeuroFlow publishes a new whitepaper, “Navigating the Integrated Behavioral Health Landscape: A Roadmap for Providers and Organizations.”
• Orbita will present at the Healthcare Contact Center Conference taking place June 7-9 in Atlanta.
• Nuance publishes a new case study, “DAX expands access to care at WellSpan Health.”
• Wolters Kluwer Health partners with Ariadne Labs and its Better Evidence program to donate over 100,000 UpToDate subscriptions.

Blog Posts

• Effective HCP engagement: Timely, Relevant, and Personalized (OptimizeRx)
• Optimizing the Transfer and Call Centers – Methodist Le Bonheur + Call Center (PerfectServe)
• Premier Survey Reveals Key Insights on Workplace Violence Incidents in Healthcare* (Premier)
• How Does Your Access Center Measure Up? (Tegria)
• What healthcare gets wrong about patient engagement (Hint: Sending a text message isn’t enough.) (Upfront Healthcare)
• Delivering better patient financial care: 3 takeaways from Renown Health’s success (Waystar)
• FAQ: Double Your Reach: Marketing Hacks for Inside and Outside Your Practice (WebPT)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.

News 6/2/23

Top News

CMS announces that Medicare Part B will cover the use of FDA-approved monoclonal antibodies to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, but will require doctors to populate patient registries for real-world tracking of the performance of those treatments.

The Alzheimer’s Association says that requiring patient registries for coverage should be reconsidered because of the clinician data entry workload that is required. The association wants to know more about how data will be submitted, how the CMS-facilitated portal or other registries will work, and how patients and physicians can enroll.

Reader Comments

From Zippydoodle: “Re: non-existent HIPAA certifications. HIPAA compliance is a process, not an event, and there is no single body that certifies a company as being HIPAA compliant. Startups in particular that should be saying ‘we will sign BAAs’ instead declare that they are HIPAA compliant or HIPAA certified.” Companies need to be HIPAA compliant, not HIPAA certified,  and HHS has been clear that it requires the former and doesn’t recognize the latter. 

From Austin Keeping Weird: “Re: Founder Wellness and Blood Draw Party. Some influencer who isn’t affiliated with healthcare is promoting a digital health startup event. So many things wrong: the free blood draw panel for folks who are likely amply insured while much of Texas isn’t, the IV bar that has nothing to do with wellness, and the ice baths that create images of attendees in Speedos. Digital health companies who attend will soon discover that their sustainability is associated with payers or prescribers, not vanity faux medicine.” Maybe the unnamed company should launch a TikTok challenge.

From Laff Riot: “Re: Florida patient data law. I’m surprised that few comments have been made given the number of health IT companies that use offshore resources for support, development, or billing services. Florida providers and their vendors have little time to review or modify contracts to ensure that offshore resources do not have access to PHI.” The newly modified Florida Electronic Health Records Exchange Act, which takes effect July 1, prohibits providers from storing patient records offshore or allowing access to US-stored data to anyone who is outside the US or Canada. Providers must also ensure that patient data that is stored in the cloud is physically housed in the US.  A couple of websites mentioned of the law a few days after reading about it on HIStalk, but otherwise it has drawn little attention. Given that compliance will be far from universal by the due date, it’s all about enforcement and penalties.

From Billie Gene: “Re: gene editing to reverse/stop a hereditary condition. Laudable R&D to advance precision medicine or another over-reach by pharma?” Genetic telehealth provider Genome Medical will offer genetic counseling to participants in a company’s clinical trial of a gene editing process for treating sickle cell disease. Much of medical research isn’t laudable since profit is the intention and the reward, but I would have good feelings about the company if their treatment alleviated my SCD symptoms.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Are you Rockies-bound next week for MUSE Inspire? Some of my sponsors are, and here’s what they will be doing there.

I have some very slightly overlapping background with someone I was interviewing today and they asked if I knew Brad Dodge. I instantly said yes, recalling that his company back in the day, Dodge Communications and specifically Brian Parrish, designed the HIStalk logo you see at the top of this page that has served me well for more than 10 years (I am obviously from the “ain’t broke” school of rebranding). Thanks to Brad and Brian for volunteering to create what turned out to be a long-lasting graphic.

Listening: WITCH (We Intend To Cause Havoc), a Zamrock band from 1970s Zambia, where bands emulated the psychedelic sounds they heard from the US. The band’s (and the country’s) rough history left it with just one surviving member, 72-year-old Emmanuel “Jagari” Chanda, whose day job is gemstone miner. They are releasing a new album this week and are on a long US tour.

HIStalk turns 20 years old this week. I was bored over the Memorial Day weekend of 2003 and decided to jot down a few temporary thoughts about my health system IT job to help me keep things straight in my head. I didn’t expect or necessarily even want anyone to read it, and given my limited attention span and lack of interest in hobbies in general, I definitely didn’t plan to still be doing it 20 years later.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

BJC HealthCare and Saint Luke’s Health System will merge to form a 28-hospital system with $10 billion in annual revenue.

Sales

• Ardent Health Services will deploy Loyal’s consumer engagement solutions.

People

Leadership Development Worldwide hires Shane Danaher, MBA (Divurgent) as COO.

Government and Politics

President Biden will reportedly choose Aledade executive and former North Carolina health secretary Mandy Cohen, MD, MPH as director of the CDC.

Other

UnitedHealth cancels its plan to require prior authorizations for colonoscopies, instead requiring physicians to submit patient information before performing a procedure to quality for a “gold card” expedited approval process that will be rolled out next year. Three provider groups say the new plan is just as laborious for practices as the PA process would have been.

A New York Times report says that doctors at the “wealth nonprofit” Allina Health System aren’t allowed to see patients who have unpaid medical bills. Reporters found a document in which employees were told to cancel appointments for patients who own $4,500 or more and to lock their EHR records so that appointments can’t be scheduled. Doctors say they are used to seeing EHR messages that a patient “will no longer be eligible to receive care because of unpaid medical balances.” Patients with unpaid bills can continue to be seen only if they obtain a loan from the hospital or file bankruptcy.

Sponsor Updates

• Careport Health staff volunteer with Cradles to Crayon, which provides children with the resources they need to thrive.
• University Health (TX) upgrades to Agfa Healthcare’s Enterprise Imaging 8.2, and adds Enterprise Imaging for Cardiology.
• Arrive Health publishes a new whitepaper, “The Terrifying Truth About America’s Healthcare Affordability Crisis.”
• Baker Tilly releases a new Healthy Outcomes Podcast, “Key insights for not-for-profit leaders in behavioral health.”
• ChartSpan partners with HAPevolve, a subsidiary of The Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania, to offer preventative care programs to Medicare patients.
• CHIME launches its Trailblazers Podcast, with the first episode focused on “Developing the HIT Leaders of Tomorrow.”
• Divurgent releases a new episode of The Vurge Podcast, “Tips for Managing Cyber Risks in Healthcare.”
• Azara Healthcare releases a resource and strategy guide titled “Leveraging Social Drivers of Health Data to Promote Health Equity Advancement.”
• Ellkay will exhibit at AHIP June 13-15 in Portland, OR.
• The VA’s Veterans Data Integration and Federation Enterprise Platform, which supports longitudinal patient records using InterSystems HealthShare, wins a 2023 Forum Innovation Award.
• Rhapsody publishes a new case study, “From data ingestion to production in less than 30 days: How Zephyr AI uses Rhapsody Semantic to create precise AI models at scale.”

Blog Posts

• 4 Business Insights to Help Your Healthcare Practice Grow in 2023 (AdvancedMD)
• Robotic Process Automation Nets Multiple Benefits for Tidewater Physicians Multispecialty Group (AGS Health)
• How Southwestern Health Resources uses quality data to transform care delivery (Arcadia)
• Helping Intensive Care Teams at Great Ormond Street Hospital to Navigate Data (Aridhia)
• 4 Steps to Streamline Your Revenue Cycle Tech Stack (Availity)
• Building Board Engagement to Mature Your ECRM Program (Clearwater)
• Consensus Cares: The DEI Council and the #DoGoodChallenge (Consensus Cloud Solutions)
• Building the Future of Data: Dimensional Insight’s Mentorship Initiative (Dimensional Insight)
• Empowering Healthcare Excellence: Vital Role of Clinical Asset Management (Optimum Healthcare IT)
• How to build organizational resilience: six proven steps (Everbridge)
• 3 Elements for Successful Workforce Management: Embracing a New Way of Thinking in Health Delivery (Impact Advisors)
• Figure it out or fail: Extracting the value from unstructured data (Intelligent Medical Objects)
• 4 Strategies to Help a Multigenerational Workforce Thrive (Keysight)
• Guide Patients to the Right Care With Your Find Care Experience (Kyruus)
• 3 Tech Considerations for Painless Anesthesia (Medhost)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.

Readers Write: Ineffective TCM Programs are Keeping Patients in the Hospital

Ineffective TCM Programs are Keeping Patients in the Hospital
By Briana Rodriguez, RN

Briana Rodriguez, RN is director of clinical services of LIghtbeam Health Solutions of Irving, TX.

The healthcare industry is facing an uphill battle, as staffing shortages persist while the demand for clinical professionals continues to increase. With fewer skilled workers to perform necessary care delivery tasks, healthcare organizations must be thoughtful with their clinical resources. One area that is causing clinical and financial strain on organizations due to limited resources is transitional care management (TCM) programs.

According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), nearly 20% of all Medicare patients discharged from a hospital will be readmitted within 30 days, driving over $26 billion in additional costs each year. There are a multitude of reasons, both preventable and unpreventable, that a patient may be readmitted to the hospital. Chief among them is being enrolled into an inefficient, uncoordinated transitional care management program that fails to maintain engagement and make timely contact.

Understanding how and why your organization’s TCM program is insufficient is the first step to make meaningful process changes that demonstrate success in reducing readmission rates, lowering healthcare costs, and improving patient outcomes.

The goal of any TCM program is to perform timely and thorough patient follow-ups within crucial post-discharge windows to ensure quality of care and reduce patient complications. A standard transitional care management program comprises three main elements:

• Interactive contact. Initial patient outreach is performed within 48 hours post-discharge by a supervised staff member with the skills to address the patient’s status.
• Coordinating care behind the scenes. Care teams provide non-face-to-face services, such as clinical education, addressing follow-up needs, provider communication, referrals, and scheduling assistance.
• Follow-up visit. A face-to-face visit is scheduled with a provider within 7-14 days post-discharge, depending on medical severity

However, staffing shortages and insufficient resources can make even the three basic components of a TCM program difficult to accomplish. What sets a successful, effective TCM program apart is the ability to provide regular outreach, keep patients engaged, and identify issues before they require inpatient stay. These processes begin long before a patient is discharged from a hospital.

In today’s digital age, healthcare organizations have options that have only emerged within the last decade. Solutions like remote patient monitoring and telehealth garnered attention following the social distancing periods that took place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ever since, the healthcare industry at large has seen how beneficial similar strategies can be when it comes to reaching more vulnerable patients. When given the right capabilities, clinical professionals can work at the top of their license and provide the highest quality care to patients, wherever they are.

Leveraging these tools and resources, transitional care management teams can automate repetitive tasks, streamline workflows, and reach more patients by engaging them at home. Some key aspects that can be further built into an efficient TCM program to increase patient engagement and reduce costs include:

• Coordinating with hospitals to notify care teams of discharges.
• Making the initial patient contact within 48 hours of discharge.
• Reviewing the discharge process and medication schedule with the patient.
• Scheduling a face-to-face visit within 1-2 weeks.
• Confirming all patient appointments to ensure continuity of care.
• Performing follow-up calls.
• Providing support for barriers to care by leveraging local, available resources.
• Supporting patients in the 30-day period post-discharge.
• Documenting all services throughout the patient’s TCM journey.

There are several reasons that transitional care management programs can fail. If providers are not able to identify high-risk patients with co-morbidities before they are discharged, these patients have a higher chance of developing complications that could result in further inpatient stay. TCM programs can also fail if clinical staff is not able to contact patients during crucial follow-up windows, especially the initial 48 hours post-discharge.

Noticing an increase in readmissions, post-discharge complications, and delays in interactive contact with patients may indicate that care teams are not reaching patients in a timely manner. If you notice these issues, it is important to find out the cause of the gap and to pinpoint the right solution, workflow, or strategy to close it.

Ineffective TCM programs cause patients to return to the hospital and drive avoidable costs into the billions. The first step to improve an inefficient TCM program is to arm healthcare staff with the tools and resources they need to reach out to patients, make an impact, and maintain engagement throughout their care journey. This can include investing in technology to streamline communication, leveraging analytics to identify high-risk patients, and enabling staff to work at the top of their license.

With the technology of today, healthcare organizations have access to solutions that weren’t available ten years ago. Outsourcing care coordinators extends the capabilities of care teams, while adopting tools like remote patient monitoring expands their reach.

Even when a TCM program possesses all these elements, it’s essential to assess their performance regularly, make process updates, and assess patient feedback and satisfaction. This can be done by tracking certain metrics, such as readmission rates, acute events, skilled nursing facility data, and more.

By understanding the elements of an efficient TCM program, identifying where gaps exist, and making necessary process changes, healthcare organizations can reduce readmissions, lower costs, and improve outcomes.

HIStalk’s Guide to MUSE Inspire 2023

Access EForms

Booth #413
Contact: Landon Light, national sales representative for Meditech accounts
landon.light@accesseforms.com
972.897.2877

Access is the preferred ESignature partner for Meditech hospitals, and for good reason. Our relationship with Meditech goes beyond just being a “partner” – it’s a deep integration that enables our solutions to seamlessly integrate with Meditech’s ecosystem. By expanding Meditech’s capabilities, we empower hospitals to provide patients with convenient ESignature solutions on their own devices anywhere, anytime. With Access, Meditech hospitals can streamline their workflows, reduce errors, and improve the overall patient experience. Join the many Meditech hospitals that have already chosen Access as their trusted ESignature partner and revolutionized their patient ESignature solutions. And, discover Focus by Access, the solution that simplifies patient intake by extending ESignature and intake capabilities directly to your patients’ devices, providing the experience and convenience they expect in today’s modern world.

CereCore

Booth #418
Contact: Jillian Whitefield, business development manager
Jillian.Whitefield@CereCore.net
248.891.5557

Your top priorities at MUSE are ours, too. Visit to see all the ways you can connect with CereCore about providing an EHR that best supports patient care, including educational sessions and career opportunities. Our team is ready to connect. Making the move to Meditech Expanse? Let’s talk about your journey to one EHR, navigating a multi-EHR health system, and more. Optimizing Meditech one of your priorities? Help us understand your goals, because we have helped health systems across the nation 0improve efficiency from clinical operations to revenue cycle. Looking for secure Meditech hosting and backup solutions? Sometimes this needs to be your first step. Let us help you determine the most cost-effective solution by comparing your options. Wanting to grow in your career? Career-changing, industry-shaping job opportunities are on our horizon, and possibly yours. Talk with us about your career plans.

CloudWave

Booth #512
Contact: Christine Mellyn, VP of marketing
cmellyn@gocloudwave.com
781.636.8169

Visit us in booth #512 to learn how CloudWave can help with your cloud strategy or how to advance your cybersecurity readiness. The company will also be sponsoring the Charging Station. Also at the event, members of CloudWave’s team will be presenting the following educational and showcase sessions:  

• “Best Practices for Securing Healthcare IT Across Public, Private, and Cloud Edge Environments.” Thursday, June 8 3:10 p.m. MT. Moderated by Tim Quigley, chief client officer, CloudWave. Presenters include Matt Donahue, chief technology officer, CloudWave; John Gomez, chief security and engineering officer, CloudWave; and Eric Gasser, RN, CHCIO, vice president and CIO, information systems, Wooster Community Hospital Health System.
• “Take Advantage of Emerging Healthcare Cybersecurity Trends to Advance Your Security Strategy.” Saturday, June 10, 8:30 a.m. MT. Presented by John Gomez.
• “Product Showcase: Cybersecurity-as-a-Service – Advance Your Cybersecurity Program and Remove the Burden from Your IT Team.” Thursday, June 8, 1:30 p.m. MT. Presented by John Gomez.

Elsevier

Booth # 609
Contact: Clint Jones, senior director of partnerships
w.jones.2@elsevier.com
816.262.6634

As a global leader in information and analytics, Elsevier helps physician and nurse professionals advance science, reduce care variability, engage patients, and improve health outcomes for the benefit of society. For over 140 years, healthcare professionals have trusted our content to support education, training, development, and decisions about patient care. We offer solutions and services that help customers utilize and integrate content to improve practice, reduce care variability, engage patients, and promote a culture of quality, safety, and satisfaction.   

We invite MUSE attendees to stop by our booth #609 to discuss how Elsevier’s advanced clinical knowledge solution, ClinicalKey, streamlines access to consistent, evidence-based information to help clinicians, as well as hear your thoughts and input on future development, your needs, skills learning, and integration. Let’s talk about where you want to expand your own Meditech relations and where we can offer help. Elsevier is participating in the MUSEO prize drawings, so bring your game card with you when you come to visit us, and we’ll give you a MUSEO sticker to help you become eligible to win great prizes!

Fortified Health Security

Booth 218

Contact: Rob Pullins, growth manager
rpullins@fortifiedhealthsecurity.com
615.600.4002

Fortified Health Security provides a wide variety of purpose-built services to help healthcare organizations evaluate their unique risk appetite, strengthen their cybersecurity posture, and improve operations throughout their security journey. The company is committed to creating a stronger healthcare landscape that benefits more clients, protects more patient data, and reduces more risk.   

Fortified activities and team member talks: 

• “Incident Response Program Maturity: How to Prepare for the Worst Day Ever,” Thursday, June 8 at 2:20 pm with Russell Teague, VP, advisory services and threat operations.
• Networking event and cocktail hour at the Après Ski section of the Pinyons Lobby Bar, Thursday, June 8, from 6-9 pm.   
• Stop by our booth to play MUSEO.

Tegria

Booth #409
Contact: Mark Valutkevich, senior account executive
mark.valutkevich@tegria.com

Tegria is a full service, READY-certified consulting and technology services firm. We offer comprehensive end-to-end solutions including advisory, consulting, and managed services to help clients maximize technology, transform operations, improve financials, and optimize care. Please stop by Booth #409 to say hello and speak with our Meditech experts.  

Tegria is hosting a subterranean happy hour at the Rockies Grotto in the Grand Lodge on Wednesday, June 7 from 4:30 to 7:00 p.m. MT. The event will feature an open bar and a variety of light bites. Prepare to unwind and connect with fellow MUSE attendees in this unique space. Tegria team members will be mingling and are ready to chat all things Meditech, including how you can best navigate the road to Expanse. We hope to see you there! RSVP here.

Tegria team members will be participating in two educational sessions:   

• “Hardware Planning – Do’s and Don’ts When Moving to Expanse.” Thursday, June 8, 1:30 – 2:10 p.m. MT. Presenters: Priscilla Sandberg (Pure Storage), Nassim Abouzeid (Meditech), and Frank Tollefson (Tegria). Room: Red Rock 8. If you are planning on going to Expanse from Magic, Client/Server, or 6.x, there are few challenges you need to understand about the new infrastructure you will be running. Join us to discuss the major differences in platform infrastructure and some of the adjustments that customers can anticipate making when moving to Expanse. We will also be discussing the best practices behind the infrastructure design, data protection, and ongoing system support.   
• “A Study in Moving to Expanse – Pre, Intra, and Post-LIVE.” Friday, June 9, 1:20 – 2:05 p.m. MT. Presenters: Mike Bartman (Tegria), Mark Valutkevich (Tegria), Todd Prellberg (RML). Room: Red Rock 8. This session aims to provide attendees with a comprehensive understanding of the key principles and best practices involved in successfully implementing Meditech Expanse in a hospital setting. By the end of the session, attendees will be able to apply these principles and practices to their own healthcare organizations, identifying opportunities for improving their current EMR systems or adopting new ones.