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Monday Morning Update 11/13/17

November 12, 2017 News No Comments

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In England, the Migrants’ Rights Network challenges a January 2017 NHS data-sharing agreement that allows the Home Office’s immigration enforcement teams to access confidential patient information.

The Home Office has made 8,000 data requests so far this year, using NHS patient information to target 6,000 people.

New regulations also require hospitals to check a patient’s ID and to verify their ability to pay for services.

Migrants’ Rights Network says the data-sharing agreement violates privacy guaranteed by the Human Rights Act, does not justify breaching the doctor-patient relationship, leaves migrants too scared to access healthcare services, and discriminates against non-citizens. Their challenge is supported by Kingsley Manning, former chair of NHS Digital.


Reader Comments

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From Jonathan Baran: “Re: Epic. This past week in Madison, Epic held its first App Orchard Conference and it was a great start to the program. The audience was approximately 300 people, split between  health systems and third-party app companies. Epic has been criticized for being ‘closed,’ but based on my experience this past week, Epic was the opposite. As an app company on the App Orchard, we had access to developers, our own technical service representative to answer any questions (similar to customers), and their roadmap spoke to us getting continued support.” Jonathan is co-founder and CEO of Healthfinch. Another reader who provided the graphic above said Epic announced an “FHIR First” strategy.

From LobbyWin: “Re: UnitedHealth Group. Lobbyists may have convinced the Department of Justice to drop the whistle-blower lawsuit claiming that it bilked Medicare of billions. Their DC team was able to score a similar victory with the previous administration’s DOJ.” A federal judge dismissed the Justice Department’s lawsuit in mid-October and the DOJ has elected not to re-file its complaint, which involved up-coding Medicare Advantage claims.

From Informatician: “Re: Craig Venter’s Human Longevity. Didn’t see this on HIStalk (or anywhere else), but on November 1 the company laid off its chief medical officer and his entire department of at least 15, which includes physician informaticists. The chief scientific officer is leaving as well (voluntarily?) The Health Nucleus thing is in trouble.” Unverified. The San Diego company, which has raised $300 million, offers Health Nucleus X, which collects data from whole genome sequencing, MRI, microbiome sequencing, and other tests that claim to allow consumers to “stay ahead of aging and illness.” The bio page of Chief Medical Officer Brad Perkins has been removed from the company’s website although his LinkedIn profile remains unchanged. The cached version of the executive webpage from June 2017 shows that eight of the 18 names listed aren’t included on the current version of the page.


HIStalk Announcements and Requests

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Around half of poll respondents have donated money to a hospital or health system.

New poll to your right or here: should the federal government review AMA’s licensing of CPT procedure codes as a possible monopoly? Vote and then click the poll’s Comments link to weigh in.


This Week in Health IT History

One year ago:

  • Cerner CEO Neal Patterson makes a surprise appearance at the Cerner Health Conference, expressing his frustration with the healthcare system from his experience as a cancer patient.
  • UCSF and GE Healthcare announce plans to work together to develop clinical diagnosis and management algorithms.
  • Cerner says in its earnings call that it expects that its DoD win will give the company a strong competitive advantage if and when the VA decides to replace VistA.
  • NTT Data completes its $3.1 billion acquisition of Dell Services.

Five years ago:

  • Allscripts CEO Glen Tullman admits in the company’s earnings call that its drastically reduced quarterly earnings were caused by rumors that the company is trying to sell itself.
  • PCP usage of EHRs increases to 69 percent.
  • WellStar Health System pays $20,000 for the intellectual property of the bankrupt Center for Health Transformation, the for-profit think tank started by Newt Gingrich.

Ten years ago:

  • Google releases the Android operating system for mobile devices.
  • Mediware retools the company by hiring a new CEO, restructuring, retiring products, and laying off employees.
  • Three Medquist board members quit over concerns about the company’s potential sale.
  • Sutter Health says its Epic project will cost at least $500 million vs. the initial estimate of $150 million.
  • AMIA announces an initiative to establish clinical informatics as a medical specialty.
  • IBM acquires Cognos for $4.9 billion in cash.

Last Week’s Most Interesting News

  • Insiders say the VA will sign its contract with Cerner this month at a total cost of $10 billion, much less than originally estimated.
  • Major investors in Outcome Health sue the company, claiming fraud.
  • Saint Anthony Hospital (IL) sues the Leapfrog Group, saying that the quality organization lowered its patient safety grade based on incorrect data.
  • UPMC (PA) announces plans to spend $2 billion to build three technology-focused specialty hospitals in Pittsburgh.
  • A former employee of WakeMed (NC) files a whistleblower False Claims Act lawsuit claiming that Epic’s software defaults to double billing for anesthesia.

Webinars

November 15 (Wednesday) 1:00 ET. “How Hospitals and Practices Can Respond to Consumerism by Better Engaging Patients Through Price Transparency and Payment Options.” Sponsored by: Change Healthcare. Presenters: Kathy Moore, president, Moore Martini Medical; Linda Glidewell, VP of business development, consumer payment solutions, Change Healthcare. Healthcare consumerism and high-deductible health plans require providers to offer upfront estimates and payment options throughout all points of service. In his webinar, we’ll discuss consumerism as a critical area of opportunity in revenue cycle management and review numerous areas across the revenue cycle where your staff interacts with patients and leaves lasting impressions. From your first interaction with patients on the phone to discuss financial responsibility; to collecting payments at all points of service; to offering payment plans and various payment options — these are all areas that can be game-changing. With the right approach to consumerism, you can improve patient collections and optimize revenue from the start while also improving the overall patient experience.

November 30 (Thursday) 1:00 ET. “Making Clinical Communications Work in Your Complex Environment.” Sponsored by: PatientSafe Solutions. Presenters: Steve Shirley, VP/CIO, Parkview Medical Center; Richard Cruthirds, CIO, Peterson Health. Selecting, implementing, and managing a mobile clinical communications platform is a complex and sometimes painful undertaking. With multiple technologies, stakeholders, and disciplines involved, a comprehensive approach is required to ensure success. Hear two hospital CIOs share their first-hand experience, lessons learned, and demonstrated results from deploying an enterprise-wide mobile clinical communications solution.

December 5 (Tuesday) 2:00 ET. “Cornerstones of Order Set Optimization: Trusted Evidence.” Sponsored by: Wolters Kluwer. Updating order sets with new medical evidence is crucial to improving outcomes, but coordinating maintenance for hundreds of order sets with dozens of stakeholders is a huge logistical challenge. For most hospitals, managing order set content is labor intensive and the internal processes supporting it are far too inefficient. Evidence-based order sets are only as good as their content, which is why regular review and updates are essential. This webinar explores the relationship between clinical content and patient care with an eye toward building trust among the clinical staff. Plus, we will demonstrate a new evidence alignment tool that can easily incorporate the most current medical content into your order sets, regardless of format, including Cerner Power Plans and Epic SmartSets.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre for information.


Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

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NantHealth announces Q3 results: revenue up 5 percent, EPS –$0.20 vs. –$0.22, beating earnings expectations but falling short on revenue. The company said in the earnings call that its previous sale of its provider / patient engagement solutions to Allscripts will reduce annual operating losses by $50 million.


Sales

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Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (NY) chooses Cota to create optimized clinical and genomic datasets from anonymized patient data, allowing it to map EHR data into a structure that can be used for analytics and precision medicine.


People

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Great River Health Systems (IA) names Matt Wenzel (St. Luke’s Health System) as president and CEO. He’s a former Cerner marketing manager with master’s degrees in health administration and healthcare informatics.


Other

In India, a government hospital suspends a doctor who posted on Facebook that the hospital is overwhelmed with dengue fever cases, an outbreak the government has downplayed. The opposition party says the government has asked doctors not to indicate dengue as a cause of death. The 62-year-old doctor says it’s unfortunate that he was suspended since he would have retired at 60 had the government not extended the retirement age of doctors.

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St. Vincent Hospital (IN) will use high-tech, vehicle-mounted cameras to match license plate numbers of cars parked in visitor spots with an employee database to enforce visitor-only parking rules, hoping to improve its patient satisfaction scores.


Sponsor Updates

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  • T-System employees pack over 27,000 meals for North Texas residents while helping out at the North Texas Food Bank.
  • Ernest Health implements Cantata Health’s Optimum Referral Portal to standardize the intake process at 18 of its 25 post-acute care facilities.
  • Cumberland Consulting Group is named to Consulting magazine’s list of fastest-growing firms.
  • TriNetX achieves ISO 27001:2013 certification.
  • Verscend Technologies will exhibit at the NHCAA Annual Training Conference November 14-17 in Orlando.
  • Vocera publishes new research on clinician burnout and care team resilience.
  • ZappRx will exhibit at the Comprehensive Lung and Breathing Summit November 16-18 in Colorado Springs, CO.
  • MDwise upgrades to ZeOmega’s Jiva 6.1 population health management platform.

Blog Posts


Contacts

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RECENT COMMENTS

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