News 4/19/19

Top News

IBM halts sales of Watson for Drug Discovery due to low demand.

The company says it will intensify its focus on clinical development. 

The Watson for Drug Discovery web page is still active, including testimonials from Barrow Neurological Institute.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre for information.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Healthcare data integration vendor Redox raises $33 million in a Series C funding round. It has raised $50 million since launching five years ago.

EMV Capital acquires San Francisco-based Wanda, a clinical decision support company focused on preventing adverse events.

After merging last year, healthcare consulting firms HealthInsight and Qualis Health rebrand to Comagine Health. HealthInsight CEO Marc Bennett has assumed leadership of the new company.

The Theranos saga just won’t go away. CB Insights reports the company was awarded five new patents in March and April, all filed between 2015 and 2016. Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, meanwhile, is preparing for her day in court. Charged with several counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, she has filed a motion in federal court to to force prosecutors to hand over thousands of communication records between the FDA, CMS, and Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou, whose reporting helped bring the company’s fraudulent activities to light. A trial date has not been set, given the 17 million documents federal prosecutors must sift through to build their case.

People

Tom Niehaus (TJN Advisory) rejoins CTG as EVP of North American operations.

White River Health System (AR) promotes Jeff Reifsteck to AVP/CIO.

EarlySense names Matt Johnson (Sowell & Co.) as CEO.

Robert Fosmire (Kareo) joins Greenway Health as SVP of customer success.

Sales

• Sentara Healthcare (VA) selects PACS software from Mach7 Technologies.
• Prisma Health (SC) will implement patient access and provider directory technology from Kyruus.

Announcements and Implementations

After more than a year of training led by a core team of 20, Carris Health (MN) will go live on Epic at six facilities next month.

Best Buy begins offering TytoCare’s at-home telemedicine kit online and at select stores in Minnesota. The TytoHome kit retails for $300 plus the cost of a virtual visit with partners that include American Well, LiveHealth Online, and Sanford Health.

In New York, Northwell Health opens an Emergency Telepsychiatry Hub to serve EDs in New York City, Long Island, and Westchester County. The hub’s 35-member team expects to conduct 5,000 consultations this year.

A new KLAS report on enterprise resource planning systems  (HR, finance, and supply chain) finds that cloud-based systems are attractive and organizations are willing to consider them even if it means replacing their incumbent vendor. Workday leads the field despite gaps in supply chain functionality. Infor and Oracle offer newer, lower-rated products; earn client criticism for not taking an active lead during implementation; and have a significant percentage of customers who say they wouldn’t buy those products again. 

Government and Politics

In England, the NHS develops the National Events Management Service, a digital personal health record for children that parents may use in place of the traditional paper version they are expected to bring with them to all pediatric appointments. The new service also features real-time messaging capabilities for birth notifications, address changes, and change-of-practice notifications.

An ONC data dive into the ways in which hospitals used their EHR data between 2015 and 2017 finds:

• A hospital’s use of EHR data varied significantly by vendor; Epic, Meditech, and Cerner users had the highest rates of data utilization to inform clinical practice
• Small, rural, critical access, state and local government, and non-teaching hospitals had the lowest rates of EHR data utilization
• Hospitals most frequently use EHR data to support quality improvement efforts, monitor patient safety, and analyze organizational performance
• Utilization of EHR data slowed significantly (in some cases stalling completely) between 2016 and 2017

Privacy and Security

The communications director at Northern Light’s Acadia Hospital in Maine mistakenly emails a spreadsheet containing the names of 300 patients with Suboxone prescriptions and those of their providers to a reporter at the Bangor Daily News. The spreadsheet was an attachment buried in a chain of emails between the hospital employee and the reporter, who was developing a story on the the availability of Suboxone – a drug given to patients battling opioid addiction – in the Bangor region. The hospital’s privacy lapse has, ironically, made the paper’s pages.

Other

Columbia University (NY) reminds medical staff of the importance of its upcoming transition to Epic, which will encompass converting aging systems to the new or upgraded Epic software across Columbia, Weill Cornell Medicine, and NewYork-Presbyterian facilities. “We knew staying the course was not an option,” said Jack Cioffi, MD, president of ColumbiaDoctors and an executive sponsor of the EpicTogether project. “The pain points we feel now with CROWN and SCM will fade with Epic. That’s not to say we won’t experience new ones these next nine months, but we will be able to better address and fix them. We will have a more efficient, comprehensive system to support us in delivering the best care possible.” Rolling go-lives will take place between 2020 and 2022.

Sponsor Updates

• Elsevier’s new Transition to Practice platform helps retain newly licensed nurses and build their confidence and satisfaction.
• EClinicalWorks and Imat Solutions will exhibit at the NAACOS Spring 2019 Conference April 24-26 in Baltimore.
• Imprivata and Kyruus will exhibit at NAHAM April 23-26 in Orlando.
• Solutions Review interviews InterSystems Director of Product Management Jeff Fried.
• Ivenix publishes a new white paper, “Exploring Real-World Performance of IV Pumps.”
• Vocera receives an Authority to Operate from the DoD, extending the potential purchase and deployment of its Vocera Badge to facilities in the Air Force and Navy.
• Phynd Technologies migrates its Provider 360° platform to AWS, has partnered with the American Board of Medical Specialties, and joined the Drupal Association.

Blog Posts

• HEDIS: Keeping Snowbirds’ Data from Flying Away (EClinicalWorks)
• 5 Things to Look for When Evaluating the Security of Your Health IT Vendors (Ensocare)
• CMS Boosts Reimbursement for Addressing Social Determinants: Does Your Organization Have the Patient Data it Needs? (FormFast)
• The Tension Between HITRUST and User Experience in Healthcare IT (The HCI Group)
• How to achieve EHR ROI in a post-go-live world: 6 Qs with HCTec’s CEO Bill Grana (HCTec)
• A Career at Healthgrades Combines Healthcare, Technology and Meaningful Work (Healthgrades)
• Developing an IT Playbook for Mergers, Acquisitions and Affiliations (Huntzinger Management Group)
• NAACOS 2019: Imat Solutions Helps ACOs to Achieve Measured Quality Improvements with Health Data (Imat Solutions)
• An overlooked weapon in your cyber security arsenal: IAM (Imprivata)
• Consultant spotlight: ‘Volunteer addict’ Alicia Baylor supports Puerto Rico in its time of need (Nordic)
• Is Your Healthcare Organization HIPAA Compliant? Check Out Our Guide (Fortified Health Security)
• A 1-2 Punch: How Alarm Surveillance Increases Safety and Reduces Fatigue (Spok)

Contacts

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