News 6/21/19

Top News

Private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners acquires EHR and practice management vendor Nextech in a $500 million deal.

The news comes nearly a year after Nextech owner Francisco Partners announced that it was putting the company up for sale.

Reader Comments

From PitViper: “Re: ONC. Convened payers, health systems, associations, state agencies, federal agencies, and tech solution providers in Washington DC last week to dialogue on provider directory. Participants presented their initiatives and ONC reviewed a new FHIR implementation guide for provider directory. Attendees debated different topics around national solution (public vs. private, funding, and governance).” ONC held a Healthcare Directory Workshop on June 13-14.

Webinars

July 25 (Thursday) 2:00 ET. “Meeting patient needs across the continuum of care.” Sponsor: Philips Population Health Management. Presenters: Cindy Gaines, chief nursing officer, Philips Population Health Management; Cynthia Burghard, research director of value-based healthcare IT transformation strategies, IDC. Traditional care management approaches are not sufficient to deliver value-based healthcare. Supplementing EHRs with advanced PHM technology and a scalable care management approach gives health systems proactive and longitudinal insights that optimize scarce resources in meeting the needs of multiple types of patients. This webinar will address the key characteristics of a digital platform for value-based care management, cover the planning and deployment of a scalable care management strategy, and review patient experience scenarios for CHF and diabetes.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Dallas-based healthcare recruiting firm General Healthcare Resources will acquire the health information management consulting business of HCTec, according to an internal email. The change doesn’t affect HCTec’s health IT and managed services business.  

Private equity firm Warburg Pincus will buy NJ-based, 900-provider multi-specialty practice Summit Medical Group and merge it with its 120-location CityMD urgent care holding. The firm said in the announcement, “The combined organization will offer patients a seamless experience across a full spectrum of high-quality primary, specialty, and urgent care.”

Digital prescription startup Xealth adds $3 million to its $11 million Series A funding round that was announced in March.

McKesson acquires NHS-integrated prescription delivery and medication management app Echo in an effort to gain a foothold in the UK’s nascent digital pharmacy market. McKesson’s ties to the startup include ownership of Lloyds Pharmacy, from which Echo gets most of its medication supply.

Philips announces plans to open new research space at One Discovery Square, a medical innovation complex in Rochester, MN that is owned and anchored by Mayo Clinic. Tenants will also include Epic, which owns a nearby data center that it purchased from the clinic in 2016 for $46 million.

Allscripts shares rose 5% Thursday after a stock analyst said in a research note that the market is undervaluing the potential of the company’s Veradigm payer and life sciences analytics business, which he says that despite representing only 8% of sales, will eventually either drive share price upward or make the company an attractive leveraged buy-out target.

Sales

• Integris Health (OK) selects Vyne Medical’s Trace communication management software.
• Bluestone Physician Services (PA) will implement Aprima EHR and practice management software from EMDs later this year.
• Allegheny Health Network (PA) will roll out telemedicine services from Mercy Virtual, a subsidiary of the Mercy health system in St. Louis, at its four hospitals over the next 12 months.

People

Sisu Healthcare IT Solutions promotes Kevin Boerboom to CEO.

Announcements and Implementations

In Ontario, Hawkesbury General Hospital goes live on Epic.

Mount Sinai (NY) and LabCorp will establish the Mount Sinai Digital and Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Pathology Center of Excellence using IntelliSite pathology software from Philips.

The American Society of Clinical Oncology, Mitre, and the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology Foundation develop an open source set of common cancer data standards and specifications that can be incorporated into EHRs via FHIR. Cancer centers at Partners Healthcare (MA) and Intermountain Healthcare are piloting the new standards.

A KLAS report looks at consulting firms that offer health IT advisory services, some of which have launched their offerings recently as implementation work tapers off. The most experienced and high-performing firms are Impact Advisors, Nordic, and Chartis Group, while Optimum Healthcare IT has the best track record among developing firms.

Privacy and Security

Grays Harbor Community Hospital (WA) and its Harbor Medical Group are recovering from unspecified computer issues that forced both organizations back to paper over the weekend. The hospital’s Meditech system is up and running, while the medical group’s eight clinics are unable to tap into their separate EHR (unnamed, but it appears to be Virence Centricity).

Other

Researchers find that Facebook posts accurately predict 21 medical conditions as verified against patient medical records, although demographic data alone did about half as well. Hostile language and references to drinking were accurate indicators of substance abuse, while religious references correlated with diabetes.

A Definitive Healthcare survey on outpatient care trends finds that investing in and implementing new technologies – especially those related to interoperability – is the top challenge, followed by keeping up with consolidation trends, managing staffing, and attracting new patients. The field of 200 respondents said that telemedicine, mobile apps, and streamlined patient technologies were among the top drivers of outpatient growth.

A retrospective analysis of diabetic patients treated at Grady Hospital (GA) finds consistently improved outcomes for those who are managed by Glytec’s EGlycemic Management System.

In Canada, a hospital located near the border between Ontario and Manitoba struggles to share information across the provincial dividing line even though patients move freely across it in choosing the closest or most appropriate hospital.

Robocall spam is overwhelming the telephone systems of some hospitals that get little help from their telephone company or the federal government in keeping the calls out. Scammers have learned to spoof the incoming calling number to force hospital operators to answer thinking it’s someone local. They are also making residential calls with the hospital’s name spoofed in caller ID, hoping to convince locals to pay fake hospital bills.

Thanks to DrLyle (Lyle Berkowitz, MD) for sending over a link to a new Vanity Fair article describing the shame that the Sackler family – which owns most of the drug maker Purdue Pharma — claims to be feeling for having made billions of dollars selling OxyContin, often via shockingly unsavory practices and lining influential pockets. A Massachusetts lawsuit against the company concludes that “eight people in a single family made the choices that caused much of the opioid epidemic.” The article notes that Joint Commission’s 2001 war on pain as “the fifth vital sign” – which arguably launched the opioid crisis in which 200,000 Americans have died of prescription opioid overdoses — came after Purdue gave $1 million to the organization. Article author Bethany McLean, DrLyle’s sister-in-law, was the co-author of 2004’s “The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron.”

UCSD researchers find that one-third of inpatients didn’t use the tablet-controlled room environment app that the hospital placed in every patient room, although interestingly, older patients used it more than younger ones, although the authors note that they can’t determine whether it was the patient themselves or their family members running the controls. They also note that accessibility issues may have been a problem in services such as neurology and surgery.  

A study in JAMA finds that patients of surgeons who behave unprofessionally experience more post-surgical complications than those whose surgeons act more professionally. Negative behaviors included “unclear or disrespectful communication, poor or unsafe care, lack of integrity, and failure to follow through on professional responsibilities.”

Sponsor Updates

• EClinicalWorks will exhibit at the California Primary Care Association Region IX Clinical Excellence Conference June 23-25 in Newport Beach, CA.
• EPSi, InterSystems, and Nuance will exhibit at HFMA June 23-26 in Orlando.
• HealthCrowd will exhibit at Qualipalooza: the 3^rd Annual Rise Quality Leadership Summit June 25-26 in Phoenix, AZ.
• Visage Imaging announces version 7.1.14 of its Visage 7 Enterprise Imaging Platform at SIIM 2019.
• The Chartis Group publishes a new paper outlining a strategic framework for health system executives to evaluate their partnership strategy.
• Redox launches a public bug bounty program with Bugcrowd to help keep customer health data secure.
• Thrive Global profiles Kyruus co-founder and CEO Graham Gardner.
• Frost & Sullivan recognizes Waystar with the 2019 North American Customer Value Leadership Award for automating claims resolution and streamlining process workflows.
• ZeOmega achieves DirectTrust HISP accreditation.
• Cantata Health announces a partnership with Ability Network to improve reimbursement and compliance for skilled nursing facilities.
• Surescripts announces that several national, regional, and local PBMs and payers have signed on for its electronic prior authorization service, increasing the number of insured lives covered by the company by nearly 20%.
• Nordic releases a new podcast, “How Managed Services can support your EHR extension partners.”
• Prepared Health will present at the Collaborative Care & Health IT Innovations Summit on June 24 in Baltimore.
• KLAS names Optimum Healthcare IT the top-rated developing HIT Advisory Services firm in its Advisory Services 2019 report.
• Meditech will host its 2019 Revenue Cycle Summit October 8-9 in Foxborough, MA.
• The Boston Business Journal profiles Definitive Healthcare.
• Philips joins the Atlanta-based Emory Healthcare Innovation Hub.

Blog Posts

• 20 Years of Growth and Success (EClinicalWorks)
• What Happens at CMSA 2019 Affects All of Healthcare (Ensocare)
• Sanofi drives digital transformation with Google Cloud (Google Cloud)
• Prospective vs. Retrospective Audits? Our View: You Need Both (Hayes Management Consulting)
• 3 Tips for Impressive Integration Project Management (The HCI Group)
• Reaching the Healthcare Mainstream: Wearables and Remote Patient Monitoring (HGP)
• Care Manager Efficiency, Part 3: Training Your Team (Healthwise)
• Why Your PACS isn’t a VNA (Hyland)
• AHIP: Health Payers Are Key Drivers to US Economic Growth (Imat Solutions)
• What’s Keeping Healthcare CIOs Up at Night? (Impact Advisors)
• Automating the provisioning process enhances efficiency, accuracy, and standardization at Memorial Health System (Imprivata)
• Will Blockchain Ever Really Matter in Healthcare? (InterSystems)
• 4 Steps to Make Online Scheduling a Reality at Your Health System (Kyruus)
• Ready, Set, Register! The Connect 19 Healthcare Conference Agenda is Here (Spok)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
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